The Heist Is Here: Part III
Don't panic. Don't obey in advance. Sell the Tesla. FAFO: the Korean opposition shows us how it's done.
Part III - Showdown
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that defying the courts would be a Very Bad Thing, and that such open defiance of constitutional authority would throw us into “previously unexplored territory”. Polite society is not yet ready to use the C-word. For reasons explained above, I’m not optimistic that Elon and Donald will abandon their coup or their criming just because some smarty-pants judge has pointed out that it’s illegal. This view is rather abundantly supported by the fact that as recently as this past Sunday, upset that a federal judge had paused Elon’s raid on Treasury, JD Vance (remember JD Vance?) felt the need to declare that “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”. Also this past Sunday, Elon called for the same judge to be “impeached NOW” and suggested a purge of the “worst 1% of appointed judges”, presumably meaning those judges who oppose his power grabs. And on the same day, Donald bashed the same judge, saying “No judge should frankly be allowed to make that kind of a decision, it’s a disgrace”. These statements are dangerous and wrong in more ways than we have time to explore right now, but it’s worth pointing out that it no longer counts as “saying the quiet part out loud” if you say it as loud or as publicly or as often as these guys do. We should consider ourselves warned. If they do finally blast through this last judicial guardrail, then we’ll be in constitutional free-fall and an intensifying struggle for real power.
The next big escalation available to Elon and Donald would be to declare martial law or a state of emergency, These declarations are always presented as a necessary response to some extreme threat, real or manufactured, and their invocation is often one of the last stops on the road from democracy to dictatorship. Probably the most famous modern example comes from 1933, when the Nazis used an arson attack on the Reichstag building - which housed the German parliament - as an excuse to pass legislation allowing them to jail their opponents and crush what was left of the free press. The suspension of rights formalized by the Reichstag Fire Decree paved the way for all the horrors that followed. This is a worst case scenario.
More recent history provides an instructive and more hopeful counter-example. At 11pm on December 3rd of last year, the embattled right-wing president of South Korea shocked the world by declaring martial law. South Korea has been a robust democracy for almost forty years, but before that the country suffered through decades of military rule and multiple impositions of martial law. People were not going back without a fight. What happened next reminds us of the power we still have, should we choose to use it. Politicians and protesters opposed to martial law raced to the National Assembly building in Seoul. Some politicians shoved their way inside, others crawled through the legs of the police and military who’d been put there to keep them out. Others broke through barricades or were boosted over walls by the protesters. There’s a video online showing Ahn Gwi-ryeong, the 35-year-old spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party as she and other lawmakers try to block soldiers who are advancing on the assembly. In the video, Ahn confronts a soldier in full battle gear who may be a foot taller than she is. As they scuffle, Ahn grabs the barrel of the soldier’s automatic weapon - which is now pointed in her direction - while shouting “Don’t you feel ashamed?” She is utterly fierce, defiant and unintimidated. After a moment the soldier tugs his weapon free, turns and walks away from the assembly building as Ahn continues to shout “Don’t you feel ashamed?”. In an interview afterwards with Reuters, Ahn said she never made a conscious choice to grab the gun, that her only thought was that she had to stop the soldiers. She also said there were lots of other people who were braver than she was, blocking soldiers and even armored fighting vehicles.
Meanwhile, the politicians who’d made their way inside the assembly barricaded the doors and - less than two hours after it’s imposition - voted unanimously to request that martial law be lifted. This is a constitutional power held by Korean lawmakers. There is no similarly clear-cut power held by the US Congress that I’m aware of. By dawn, martial law had been completely dismantled. President Yoon, who initiated what must be one of the world’s shortest impositions of martial law, has since been impeached, arrested and charged with insurrection. His trial is ongoing. His party is in tatters and expected to be driven from power in the next elections.
To be clear, I am not in any way advising anyone to try to grab someone else’s gun. The contemptible Kyle Rittenhouse shows why this would be an extremely bad idea. What Ahn’s actions and the Korean example do clearly demonstrate however, is that quick, fierce and decisive action in defense of democracy can stop a coup in its tracks.
Back here in America, Elon and Donald continue to say absurd and hateful things while hacking away at the power of the federal government and at much of what makes it possible for all of us to live a good life. But they’ve not - yet - called for troops in the streets. Emerging from this ongoing crisis with our democracy, our health and our sanity intact will largely depend on our ability to recognize what is happening, and to endure this first onslaught without panicking or obeying in advance. We are not doomed to suffer through any or all of these scenarios, they’re just the usual tricks in the bag. By recognizing what’s happening and responding quickly and effectively we increase our chances of being able to limit the damage and shut down the coup sooner rather than later.
Those of us defending democracy, equality, diversity and the planet are clearly the good guys of this story. Elon and Donald and their henchmen are clearly the villains. In the end, I believe they will lose because they are greedy and selfish and wrong, and because they’re willfully blind and shockingly ignorant and running scared from a world they don’t understand. In the end, I believe we will win because we must, and because what they’re selling just doesn’t work. At all. We will also win because we care about something other than confirming our own narrow and frightened beliefs, because we love and defend people even when they don’t look or worship like we do, and because we have done the work that allows us to see the truly dangerous things - climate change, inequality and fascism - that desperately need to be fixed.
And yeah this sucks, but - as I’ve written elsewhere - in some ways we’re lucky to live in such crazy and dangerous times. It’s nice to be comfortable, but even the most comfortable life can feel lonely and small if it lacks meaning or purpose or connection to something greater than ourselves. If part of the purpose of a life is to be of use - to protect and inspire and look out for one another - then those of us alive in these frightening and ridiculous times are actually very lucky, because simply by standing up for decency and truth - by opposing pointless cruelty and absurd greed and sloppy lies - we have the ability to do great and transformative good. We can choose to be the generation that saves democracy. And by saving democracy we make it possible to save the planet as well.
The rights and freedoms that we enjoy weren’t just given to us. Generations of women, Black folks, immigrants from everywhere and people of every possible color and orientation fought hard for these rights - against those who would have kept us as servants and slaves - and we have beaten them again and again. America has a long and brawling democratic tradition. We are the rightful heirs to this tradition, the guardians of this legacy, as our children will be in their time. To imagine we’d just surrender our hard-won liberty, equality and power to a bunch of degenerate billionaires without a furious fight is just dumb. Good luck with that.
So…
Don’t panic.
Get your sleep.
Make fun of them.
They want us to freak out or despair. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
Get your laughs where you can and laugh a lot.
If you own a Tesla then condolences, and probably time to sell it before some kid covers it in eggs or something worse.
History will judge us based on what we do next.
Game on.
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Find Part I and Part II on Substack, or at MUDandFeathers.org