This piece originally appeared in Rawstory.
We celebrated 250 years as a nation at one of the most perilous times in well over a century. History forced this nation to live and survive through very real threats to its stability before, the Trust-Busters, the Great Depression, “The War,” 1962, 9-11 – yes. And yet, as real as those threats were, we never teetered over the loss of the Constitution – the spine and prefrontal cortex of a growing, thinking, human but mortal nation. Never before has a movement existed on the premise that it will render that Constitution meaningless, grinding what was once assumed to be the height of enlightened thought, down to its reptilian brain – the one that always existed as a threat, the one the Founders knew to fear.
Here it is, on the brink.
On the evening of July 3rd, President Donald J. Trump flew his new personal Air Force One low over that South Dakotan cliff, yet again forcing his head in and among some of history’s greatest minds in order to make a statement and a speech. The speech was as meaningless as they all are, but the statement threatens to calve that cliff and the ideals held in those minds. Trump noted that if the Senate would simply toss aside the filibuster and pass the “SAVE Act,” the GOP would “not lose an election for 100 years.”
Perfectly put. A nation ruled by one self-selected and uniformly planned group for “100 years” is the single plainest declaration of a fascist government and its demand for absolute power if only a few Senators also sought to toss aside the Constitution and “rule for 100 years.” The plan would birth a country run by gut instinct alone, eating everything it can swallow, ever stronger, reproducing itself, the biggest Nile Croc always on the hunt, chosen over enlightenment, fallible though it ALWAYS was, ideal on paper, ideal somewhere. Somewhere human.
Consider this: You know your political instincts, you know the direction you want for your state and country. At least you know for now. Do you know if you deserve to want and hold that power even 100 years from now? Perhaps shutting out a majority of others who disagree? If your answer is yes, it’s best to check yourself, but it’s doubtful anyone here would thoughtlessly leap at guaranteed minority rule – fascist rule, impenetrable to the values of the majority. So the question is asked again: Do you even want to claim 100 years of power? Why would you ever need to?
Why doesn’t Trump focus on doing what he can for the next two years? (One already knows, he doesn’t want to be investigated, but play along.)
The founders knew that thought and enlightenment evolve, and provided room for human rationale, all now under threat. Trump wants to cement his transactional, power-seeking priorities for a 100-year rule. If he cannot convince the nation to put his head on that f’ing cliff, he’ll dynamite it down and stand on the rubble.
There is a Sun Tzu quote in there somewhere.
That he even wants such a thing is bizarre; that he knows the key to doing it is terrifying. If a powerful few control elections – as envisioned by the SAVE Act, elections become meaningless, and thus by definition, so too, the Constitution.
You better believe some of those Senators in the GOP caucus know it. We don’t know the number, but at least some of them, perhaps more than we think, have thought it through, and won’t do it, not right now. Exceedingly hard as it is to appreciate anything unapologetically GOP, it’s probably best to nod in appreciation of those senators, the ones that, for now, remain nameless. They can grab it, but know better than to want it, never mind need it.
But we’re on the brink. If those senators fall, Trump controls the elections. Period.
It is so fittingly sad. The equally genius but profoundly paranoid Russians always said that the U.S. would be destroyed from within. And here we are, with – almost literally, a Russian heat-seeking missile as president, wanting that destruction for no greater purpose than power. A man of 80 years old – perhaps, maybe, at absolute best, another six “functional years” left, and not only does he need that power now, for himself, but for history. He will have his own damned mountain, in idea or in stone.
What kind of mind functions that way?
The most dangerous kind, another lesson learned by anyone who has even perused humanity’s history. There has never been a war between two democracies; there has never been such a conflict, one in which two nations ruled by their own citizens want to destroy another citizenry. There is a deep lesson if one absorbs such a thought.
But a nation ruled by a man, or a few? Now that’s a nation that will start wars and start them against democracies. Think about the world leaders toward whom Trump gravitates: Xi Jinping – installed for life, Putin – same, MBS – same, all powerful. He loves them, all while kicking around the ever-reasonable Justin Trudeau, now Mark Carney, back then Angela Merkel, Trump can’t tolerate nations lead by people with whom he can’t make a deeply “personal” deal, and thus look at where the antagonism flows – toward NATO, favoring dictators in Brazil over the rightly elected, scared of self-cleaning South Korea, these are all expected outcomes of one man, one movement, rule. And hey? We are the bad guys.
Well, not you, not me. Not anyone who says, “Whoa? We just want to grind out a real election two years from now. One-hundred years from now sounds like one hundred years of issues for them to deal with.” Those are our allies, even if clothed in red, and they exist, at least in the Senate, on the bench (some), in power among the states. And then us, the Democrats, who want everyone to vote and then let it ride on who wins – provided the same respect extends back.
That is how democracies remain alive, thinking, planning, not simply eating and reproducing, rejecting the reptilian brain, thoughtfully accepting Mark Carney, Chancellor Merz as fellow thought leaders, principles over power, always pushing back against Putin, Jinping, and whoever embodies such hunger 100 years from now.
As it stands, Trump directs almost all his power within, and he doesn’t keep it secret; he’s called Democrats “America’s greatest enemy.” The statement’s facially self-proving inversion would be hysterical if his position were only hypothetical. But it takes thought, education, the appreciation of fallibility and fault, to understand that that kind of unchecked power is never satiated; it only seeks to tighten, to threaten, to trash trusted thought, all in favor of instinct.
Can you feel it? Does it seem like any part of Trump – or Project 2025- has thought through the ultimate consequences to such projects, to such hunger, 100 years from now? No question, it has thought through the next 20 years, the next 20 it can control domestically, which will mean less and less in a networked world, one in which – remember, we’re the bad guys.
See, we live and breathe on the edge, feeling the beginning – just the underlying spark- of readiness for war, but almost with the grateful assumption that all our weapons now are weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear or not, there is a submarine off Virginia that can send a missile through a certain window in Las Vegas. Nah, no one is going to start that kind of war, so we breathe a bit easier.
But think more creatively, or in Trump’s case, more cleverly; how would the U.S. wage war with itself in this lifetime? Trump already instinctively doesn’t want to waste “his” money on disastrous fires in Washington state, California, and maybe someday a hurricane hitting Massachusetts. What if his movement decided that Massachusetts, as it was in the past, was a threat to Trump’s monarchy, and thus too dangerous to control its own network, its own grid, and its need for information?
Information itself is the only true currency left in this networked age. If it gets blocked, you’re f***d.
Palatable wars could be fought in the 21st century without a single explosion, or at least not one within the atmosphere. Do you like access to nearly unlimited prescription medication? Oil? How about water? Water flowing down the GOP-dominated Central Valley of California, intended for the blue Southland of LA. If he’s mad at LA – and he’s always mad at LA, why can’t he just put one thousand troops down to control the direction the water flows? A civil war could be fought; we already have masked “troops” roaming cities, grabbing people, many here legally. Are we already at war?
It is worth thinking about, given that it’s just about all he thinks about. It is instinct. His mind seems blocked at a lower level. Probably hyperaware of threats, perhaps in files, perhaps in election results. Reptiles generally only think in black and whites.
The Save Act, “The GOP won’t lose an election for one-hundred years,” can only be done by controlling elections themselves – and he wants control, more control, because the alligator brain is never satiated.
To the extent we’re already at war in some way, then somehow the Save Act may save this nation’s midterms, and thus the nation’s functioning mind. You’ll likely lose yours if this thing passes.
There is one very, very bright spot in all this. “We” are the majority, and so long as we only want “majority rule,” we might save something ourselves this year. So long as it’s mere “majority rules,” it’s surely something worth saving.
Jason Miciak is a Rawstory Columnist, past Editor of Occupy Democrats, political consultant, author, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at [email protected], and does appreciate the thoughtful feedback in comments.
