Our courage comes from overwhelming them

A recent episode from the podcast Gaslit Nation is title Stay and Fight! The hosts are Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. I worked from the transcript. The episode begins with Senator Cory Booker explaining what the GOP is doing to rush the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett onto the Supreme Court. They’re working to achieve things they were not able to do through the normal democratic process. The one thing (out of many) mentioned this time was overturning the Affordable Care Act and taking away health insurance from many people. It’s not normal. Chalupa suggested the documentary Totally Under Control, co-directed by Alex Gibney, Suzanne Hillinger, and Ophelia Harutyunyan. It’s about the corruption of the Trump Crime Family which is at the heart of their failure to contain the COVID-19 virus. Chalupa said the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in 2018 were brutal for her to watch. She said the Barrett hearing is the same sort of seizure of power. She explained:

As we pointed out, in autocratic countries, the judicial system, that's the cage bars of autocracy. If you have the courts packed with a bunch of fascist sympathizers that were put into those positions of power deliberately, to help establish–consolidate–one party rule in a country, where do you have to go to fight for your rights, to appeal for your rights? It becomes very scary once you lose the judicial system.

In 2015 in Ukraine there was a lot of discussion that the country could be a strong, flourishing democracy if it could remove all their judges because they were all corrupt. “The judges are very much the handmaidens of corruption and autocracy.” It will be a generations long battle. Chalupa reviewed a couple decades of history. The Supremes, with the help of Barrett, gave the 2000 election to Bush II. He took us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re still in the second one. The Iraq war gave rise to the ISIS terror regime. Because Obama had to prioritize US foreign policy Putin’s aggression was unchecked. If no war in Iraq, then no ISIS and a contained Putin. Elie Mystal, writing in The Nation, wrote that Barrett is not deciding cases based on being a devout Catholic. She’s deciding cases as an extreme conservative, then using her religion to justify those positions, ignoring the ethics of her faith. Much of the GOP does the same. Moscow Mitch’s arbitrary application of the rules about when a justice can be confirmed is seen as a pursuit of power, damaging the Supreme Court and showing the justices are pawns in the political process. Autocracy is legalized corruption. People will lose faith in democracy. Kendzior added that the Federalist Society (which chose Barrett), Barrett herself, Mike Pompeo, and the vice nasty guy

understand that the judiciary is usually the last Domino to fall in other countries that have faced these crises. It's the courts that can often reject the brutal policies of a despot. It's the courts that can reestablish rights for citizens, that can strike things down, and that give people some sort of hope that all of the protests they're doing and the votes that they're passing, and just their general voice in a society matters.

They understand that and are working to destroy it. At the end of the Kavanaugh hearings,

Senator Patrick Leahy just stood up and said, "Yeah, the Senate doesn't exist anymore as a legislative body. The Senate no longer has a voice." We no longer have a separate branch. It is the courts and the GOP overriding everything, overriding protocol, overriding norms, and also rewriting laws. That is the purpose of getting them into the courts. That's one of the reasons that this is so frightening. … But these are people, they'll call themselves originalists. They bathe themselves in religion, in Catholicism and also in this faux constitutional veneration, but they don't have respect for the Constitution. They don't have respect for our founders. They don't know how to interpret the Constitution as a living document. It's just another justification for autocracy.

The hope of Kendzior and Chalupa is in local and state races. These can be a buffer against the corruption at the national level and in the courts. It is easier to change things at this level. They can affect quality of life, including public education. Know your legislators. “If that person isn't as smart as you, then take their job. It's that simple.” Chalupa suggests a documentary on Ulysses Grant, the original civil rights president. Leonardo DiCaprio was involved. The movie will give perspective on the energy we need now. Grant was also ruthless and relentless in going after Southern generals. He did it as a Nazi hunter. Biden needs to waken his inner Nazi hunter. We need to do the same. I looked it up. The title is Grant. It is a 3 episode miniseries available on Hulu. YouTube has a nine minute preview. An example of a modern Nazi hunter is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who responded to a plot to kidnap her with courage and leadership. Kendzior said of the nasty guy’s tactics after the election:

It's a two pronged tactic: One tactic is to have it play out in court–which is, as we just said, why he's been packing the Supreme Court–and to have a replay of Bush versus Gore with three people on the court that were involved in Bush versus Gore ruling on Trump's behalf. The other, I think, is to have so much violence and chaos and misery in the streets of America that people will become frustrated, and they will just throw their hands up in the air and be like, "You know what, put a stop to it, just put a stop to it, because all of this on top of the pandemic is more than I can take." … We already know that 2020 is the year from hell, and this is going to be the coda on that year. This is going to be a grand and horrific finale that I do think we'll continue into 2021. But there's the potential for a better way. There is the potential to rebuild, there's the potential to learn from our mistakes, to insist on accountability from our leaders … Just please, don't give up on yourself and don't give up on this idea of a better future for yourself in America. Don't get ready to pack your bags and run. Stand your ground here. This is your country. It is your right to be here. We do have rights, regardless of what the Republican Party thinks about that.

Chalupa added (and to which I’m paying attention):

If you're in the crosshairs, if they're calling you out by name, if you're going through political persecution, if you are enemy number one through 10 on their top 10 list, you have a right to get out of the country. If your life and your family's life is in danger, you have the right to leave. We're going to absolutely understand if you want to get out. But if you're just some random, white, straight person who comes from financial means and you're like, "Oh, I can't take it anymore. I'm out of here.", you're doing it wrong, and you don't understand what we're up against if you leave, because this terror can find you anywhere.

Though I’m not a straight person…

We keep telling you: this is a transnational crime syndicate. It is transnational. One of the major players in this coalition of corruption is, of course, the Kremlin, and the Kremlin is excellent at neutralizing threats.

Russian oligarchs are busy spreading around golden handcuffs in Toronto, London (Londongrad), even New Zealand.

Nowhere is safe. If you leave, you look ignorant. You look very ill informed, that you lack basic common sense and understanding of this very core issue that we all have to be vigilant of. There's no point in leaving, is what we're saying, unless your life is immediately in danger, your freedom is immediately in danger, then yes, absolutely, you have every right to go abroad. … But stay and fight. Stay and fight. Sarah has witnessed years of the trauma that grassroots organizers have endured in St. Louis. Out of that emerged, a woman that's going to be going to Congress by the name of Cori Bush. If she had left, if she had the means to leave, we'd be deprived of her talent, but she stayed and fought because that is the American story. The good side of America, the progress that has gotten us a lot of wonderful human rights in this country, was built by men and women of color willing to risk their lives to fight for that progress and we stand on their shoulders. For you to leave when we have all this sacrifice that came before us is to be ungrateful for that legacy that we stand on and that we are morally obligated to build on now. The way we win, our hope, our courage comes from overwhelming them, and outlasting them and playing the long game. We're just at the start, we're at the start of pulling out this fascism by its root, and it's going to take a very long time for us to be successful.

Kendzior says people have a fear they will suffer and when they scream others will cover their ears and look away. Government works that way, as do corporations. It seems social media makes it worse, they see someone suffer and pile on. We have an abuser in the White House and nobody is standing up to him. They’re pretending it isn’t happening. So, yeah, this produces a fight or flight response. Kendzior and Chalupa understand. They’ve been targeted by this administration. And yes, it is hard and traumatic. But when people who understand what is going on have to leave there is a brain drain and the country begins to die. So they’re staying. Besides, see that bit above about nowhere being safe. In addition, asylum is not easy to get. It is a bureaucratic nightmare and unbelievably expensive. Which means only privileged people can do it, leaving the vulnerable behind. The people who leave are the people who cover their ears when others scream from their suffering. Instead, be the person who helps others, the one works to repair the mess for fellow countrymen and the youth. Concentrate on creating the future that they stole from us. We have a purpose. See the Gaslit Nation Action Guide on how to get to work. The rest of the episode was taken up with more details on how corrupt the nasty guy is. Rather than draining the swamp he turned it into a moat.