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There is a lot of analysis about what the GOP is doing and where Trumpism will go from here. It’s easy to get caught in their trap of feeling helpless, like victims of abuse often do. So I thought it might be worth our time to recall our strengths, and that we do have agency. 1/
1. We now hold the instruments of executive and legislative power. For now, those cannot be weaponized against us anymore and can instead be turned to the defense of our democracy. A little reform and enforcement can go a very long way. 2/
2. We have a clear majority and the GOP has been hemorrhaging supporters by the thousands since Jan 6. No coup can be successfully sustained if it cannot claim legitimacy to the seat of power. Here, right matters, and so do the numbers. 3/
3. The corporate world has begun to see the GOP as a threat. Many have pulled funding from politicians, products from shelves, & accounts or platforms from servers. Like our system or not, money is power & right now money fears a backlash. That means the people are in power. 4/
4. Tradition. 245 years of it. As the saying goes, “culture eats strategy for breakfast” and ours just burped up Trump’s, Putin’s, McConnell’s, The Heritage Foundation’s, ALEC’s, and Murdoch’s. Our democracy refuses to die. 5/
5. Our democratic backslide is incremental rather than abrupt and total. That means there is still time to recognize it and space for institutions to counter it. To fight back. It can be reversed. 6/
6. The GOP is a dying party. Though both a threat and an advantage of ours, it will ultimately end with their demise. Before Trump, they were in demographic peril. After Trump, they have sabotaged any hope of attracting enough numbers to replace aging voters. 7/
7. States rights cut both ways. Our system remains highly decentralized. Though not impervious to corruption, hard power is still spread out across the states. Their election integrity has proven more resilient than most believed. They are still the gate keepers. 8/
8. Truth still matters to most people. There are challenges in getting the right facts to people but in the end, even many MAGAs joined their cause because they thought they were backing truth. It will come out and when it does the backlash will be fierce. 9/
9. The left has remained largely non-violent. We have denied our would be authoritarians the excuse they wanted to grab power. It was their path to legitimacy and we severed it. 10/
10. The right has not remained non-violent. They ceded the moral high ground to us on Jan 6. Cognitive dissonance works, until it doesn’t. Friends and family are turning them in. The mythology that fueled much of their movement over these last decades is shattered. /End
