Political Violence Is Never The Answer September 11, 2025 Full stop. But the news doesn’t stop, especially these days, and it would be a terrible mistake to tune it out, hoping things will somehow right themselves. So while we all condemn Charlie Kirk’s murder — Andrew Yang was among the many who said it very well — it also reminds us, as if we needed any reminding, of what precarious times these are. Thom Hartmann’s post was so powerful yesterday that I can’t simply to link to it, knowing that — with so much competing for your attention — few of you will click through to read it. So here’s a condensed version: When Government Is Afraid of the People, Tyranny Has No Chance And, yet, today increasing numbers of Americans are afraid of their government. > 65 million Hispanic Americans now live in terror of the police, carrying their passports and dreading traffic stops or shopping at Home Depot. > Our news media are terrified of being sued or otherwise harassed by Trump, so much so that two of our three big TV networks have paid him millions in what was essentially protection money. CBS just put a rightwinger with ties to the GOP as their ombudsman, and NBC is on the verge of spinning off MSNBC. > Republicans in the House and Senate are so cowed that they’re desperately engaging in a coverup of his alleged participation with Epstein. > Armed men in civilian clothes with masks on their faces are snatching people off the street and disappearing them. > Government workers live in terror that some old tweet or message board posting might be discovered that will cost them their jobs. > Former government employees and elected officials are wiping out their retirement savings to pay for lawyers because our government has targeted them for Trump’s “retribution.” > People who volunteer to help out with voting operations find themselves doxed and vilified on national rightwing media and have to go into hiding, the peace and normalcy of their lives shattered. > Captains of industry, CEOs of the nation’s largest companies, trek to the White House to bow and scrape. > Cabinet meetings have turned into a bad caricature of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” We watch, yelling at the TV, “Tell him he’s naked!” but to no avail; they can’t stop slobbering over him like terrified victims being held at knifepoint by a serial killer. None of this is normal in a democracy; all of these are signs of a creeping dictatorship taking over our nation. Our Attorney General is apparently leading the Epstein coverup, our Secretary of State cheerleads murdering civilians on the high seas, our Treasury Secretary is reportedly provoking fistfights, our Energy and EPA chiefs deny climate change and push more fossil fuel pollution, FEMA is being gutted, Social Security has been crippled, Medicare is about to start pre-clearance of payments in six states, millions will soon be thrown off Medicaid, aid to student borrowers is gone, and food support to needy Americans is being pulled along with food and medicine for millions around the world. All being done so the morbidly rich (like our billionaire president and the 13 billionaires in his cabinet) could get another $4 trillion tax gift, paid for by the rest of us. Everything Putin wants, he gets. As Trump discards America’s allies, Xi is picking them up Tariffs, which have been the careful, surgical tools of trade policy wielded by Congress since the days of George Washington, are being used as blunt cudgels to beat foreign countries into giving cash, jumbo jets, and Trump Tower opportunities to America’s parasitic ruling family. Even our Supreme Court has fallen to big money corruption. History shows that when fascists haven’t yet entrenched themselves as far as Hitler or Mussolini did (or Putin and Orbán today) it’s still possible for the people to rise up and throw them out. It happened in Ukraine, in South Korea, in Spain and Chile, among others. People stood up in the face of fear of their governments and, instead, peacefully made those governments fear them. And it can happen here, too. So, now it’s our turn. And our obligation. We’re the ones who must save us, who must stand up to these fascists, who must awaken our friends, neighbors, and relatives. Tag, we’re it! Join today’s Indivisible call (3pm Eastern). Support “my” 26th annual DNC LGBT Leadership Council dinner even if you’re not L, G, B, or T and even if you can’t come. An adequately funded opposition party is absolutely necessary for democracy to prevail.