7/3/2025

By Lee Goodman

We enter a new era.

Both houses of Congress have passed Trump's big bill. With only a couple of exceptions, every Republican voted as Trump told them to. The Republican Party has become the new Nazi Party, afraid to stand up to their Fuhrer. The Democrats held firm, as we wanted them to. Not a single one voted for the bill. But we lost. Trump will sign the bill.

ICE got an astoundingly large increase in funding, so it will become Trump's personal domestic police force, with the power to operate all across the U.S. The new Gestapo. The bill also provides for a huge increase in immigrant detention. The new concentration camps. The bill severely limits or eliminates the courts' powers to constrain Trump. The Supreme Court can be expected to continue to rubber stamp his decrees and ignore the Constitution. Trump will be able to keep attacking individuals and institutions for opposing his diktats. Repression of disfavored lifestyles, religions, and outlooks will continue.

And perhaps most terrifying of all, no one is safe. The regime can, using the pretext of border enforcement, arrest anyone, imprison them indefinitely in unregulated camps, and deport them to cooperative dictatorships all around the world. The concept of innocent unless proven guilty, the right to counsel, the right to a hearing, and the right to appeal have all been effectively abolished. Due process is no more.

We are ruled by a king. We won't be able to vote our way out of the situation, because Trump now has the power to keep anyone from voting simply by asserting that they are not citizens. When the Court affirms his abolition of birthright citizenship, we will all become subject to his irrational and vindictive fickle impulses. That was always the point of Trump's attacks on brown-skinned people. He didn't need to go after them. They never held the power or the wealth in our country, which is what he wants. Attacking them was just a way to unify his supporters in hatred, so that they would not realize that by backing his fascist rule, they were forfeiting their own rights.

So what do we do now? Move abroad? A few will, but if the number of people emigrating increases enough, Trump will make leaving impossible by freezing and seizing people's assets, or by more direct means if necessary. That's what Hitler did, so that's what Trump will do.

No foreign nation will liberate us. Providence might, but there's no telling how long we'd have to wait. The only thing that can save us now is massive resistance, and we have a very poor record of that. All we seem to be able to manage these days is weekend rallies, then back to work, school, and whatever we occupy our retirement with.

We dominated the world for a time. We enjoyed the fruits of other people's labor and exploited the wealth of other lands. We took what we wanted by whatever means we chose. Now we have given it all to a small, wealthy, elite. We have subjected ourselves to their whims. We have thrown away a form of government that we crafted in order to protect ourselves. We have abandoned a social consciousness that imperfectly safeguarded the minority while enabling the best instincts of all.

Customarily, I close on an optimistic note. It's not easy this time. The suffering to come has barely begun. Before we can rescue ourselves, we must recognize the reality of what has happened. It won't be easy. It's almost unbearable to contemplate that, as we head into the 4th of July celebrations, little is left of our democracy to celebrate. All that remains is struggle and hope, disappointment and sacrifice, likely for the rest of our lives.

On with the struggle to re-create our country. Freedom and justice are possible, but they won't be bestowed. They must be imagined, committed to, and built. Someone has to do the work. I think we can.