Where Are The Pro-Democracy Protests?
Is the threat of a fascist tyrant permanently seizing the White House not worthy of our time?
by Bob Cesca
WASHINGTON, DC – I don’t have any problem with peaceful protests in support of Israel or Gaza or any group of oppressed people. There’s enough room for many noble causes, and there’s more than enough space for accompanying protests in support of both the Israeli and Palestinian people. In case you’re wondering, no, I don’t believe indiscriminately screaming “Genocide Joe” and marketing in anti-Semitic or anti-Arab epithets, for that matter, while trashing campuses and downplaying or completely ignoring Donald Trump’s plot against democracy is noble.
To that point, and in keeping with my relapsing and remitting disillusionment with my fellow Americans, I’m confounded by the lack of take-to-the-streets outrage about the very real threat of Trump returning to power and what that’ll mean for democracy.
In case you’re unaware, TIME magazine published a terrifying profile of Trump’s would-be second term, including an entire roster of actions he’ll take upon assuming office in January (if he wins). Many of you who’ve followed my podcast and my newsletters here are more than familiar with Project 2025: the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the dissolution of democracy. The TIME article covered many of those things.
11 million people will be deported via migrant detention camps. It’s safe to assume many U.S. citizens with similar names and faces will be caught up in this shoddy roundup and deported as well.
Trump plans to allow the surveillance of women to determine if they’re pregnant and prosecute any women who have illegal abortions.
He’s repeatedly said he’ll pardon all of the insurrectionists involved in the January 6 invasion of Congress.
He’ll refuse to defend NATO allies if they’re invaded by Russia. On other occasions, he elaborated by saying he’d encourage the invasions.
Trump said he’ll order the National Guard into cities, while using the military to arrest peaceful protesters who he’ll charge with insurrection.
Shockingly, Trump told TIME he’d close the pandemic-preparedness office, as though the COVID deaths of 400,000 Americans during Trump’s final 10 months in office wasn’t a high enough body count. Incidentally, Trump would ostensibly do this while Bird Flu is becoming a thing.
Trump also intends to order ICE to infiltrate pro-Gaza, pro-Hamas protests where it’ll arrest and deport alleged “violators” of immigration policy. But this is an obvious cover to deport any pro-Gaza ones.
In addition to all of that, Trump will move the Department of Justice under direct control of the White House, where someone like Ken Paxton, a possible Trump nominee for attorney general, would follow Trump’s orders to arrest political opponents, journalists, and people like me and my colleagues.
And while we’re here, if Trump is elected, not only will he refuse to ever leave office, but the Supreme Court will be controlled by pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-voting rights justices for the next three decades, if not more.
Maybe I’m losing my mind, but it seems like these things are just as protest-worthy as anything else happening in the United States right now. But where are the protesters? During a Wednesday rally this week, Trump declared: “Under no circumstances should we bring thousands of refugees from Hamas-controlled terrorist areas like Gaza to America.” The number of pro-Palestinian protesters outside that rally? Zero.
I can’t figure out exactly why there isn’t a constant presence of pro-democracy demonstrators everywhere Trump goes. There’s certainly plenty of inciting reasons for it. But it’s just not happening.
If he wins, public protests opposing the administration will be an incarceration-worthy action. After January 20, it’ll be too late. It won’t matter how many people show up. Trump will continue to do whatever he pleases – seeking promised retribution against his enemies, including the protesters themselves.
Is the threat of a fascist tyrant permanently seizing the White House not worthy of our time? Or like too many fellow liberals, are we planning to take-to-the-streets after it’s too late? We tend to do that.
Yes, I get that U.S. foreign policy has made for some questionable bedfellows, but exactly none of that will get resolved with a pro-Netanyahu, pro-Russia dictator in the Oval Office – a dictator who will gladly arrest and deport pro-Gaza demonstrators, not to mention anti-Trump demonstrators.
We need to do a better job prioritizing what matters most before the ability to push back against tyrants like Trump becomes a relic of the past. When your grandchildren ask you what you did to help stop the rise of fascist authoritarian idiocracy in America, what will you tell them? What will the college students screaming at “Genocide Joe” tell them?
Read the latest for Banter Members:
The Pagans Are Coming
Tucker Carlson wants you to know that Joe Biden is a Pagan, and he'd like to kill your children.
by Ben Cohen
I have spent a lot of time on The Banter going after radical left wing identity politics. Despite its benevolent intentions, I believe the ideology has far outlived its use. Rather than fighting white supremacy and colonialism, it has become a toxic religion that separates people into oppressed and oppressor classes, inverts prejudice, and needlessly racializes society.
We’ve lost a lot of subscribers due to my position on this, and readers have contacted me to demand I focus on the real threat: radical right wing politics.
As long time readers know, I have argued that right wing identity politics is more dangerous than left wing identity politics. Due to the explosion of antisemitism in far left circles, I have softened on this position somewhat in recent times. While my instinct has been to keep quiet about it, I feel obligated to be honest with our readers regardless of whether they agree with me.
That being said, after watching a recent episode of Tucker Carlson’s Twitter show, my position on the far left might have just changed again. Because the former Fox News host is veering into such dangerous territory I don’t believe anything on the left is comparable.
The pagans are coming
On his show yesterday, Carlson interviewed far right author John Daniel Davidson…
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We need to be on the streets, FFS! If this fucker gets back in, he will shoot up the Women's March.
Dwindling attention spans, amplified by the way we consume content now (tiktok, youtube, doom scrolling, cherry picking headlines and not reading articles...) has completely warped our ability to process impending threats. We look at the price of ketchup and gas now, and remember how moderately less expensive they were five years ago, and completely forget the hellscape that was the Trump years. Empty store shelves. Hoarding sanitizer and toilet paper. Masks. Remote learning and having to work while also keeping children logged in and engaged. The Jolt-Cola cavalcade of scandals for four straight years. Biden is boring. He's getting the job done. He's enacting policies that won't yield full benefits for decades. He got a LOT done in four years. But people needing immediate gratification for every conceivable need willingly burn it all down every election, always knowing they'll have another chance to do it again next election. Women think back lovingly on their pink knitted hat marches and long for the community and social media opportunities of doing it all again... AFTER the election.... IF Trump wins. Until then, they're too busy making TikToks, posting their Shein hauls and designer smoothies on socials. As Charlamagne the God said of the black vote going to an outlaw like Trump, "game respects game". There's also the fallacy of "we live in a blue state, this won't affect us" thinking. Mankind is doomed and we're too stupid to step off the tracks despite the vibrations, lights, bells and horns.