A WEEK OF THOUGHTS ABOUT DEMOCRACY’S STRUGGLES

By Ruth A. Sheets

July 14, 2025

In response to a poll on Robert Reich’s Substack thread I chose Victor Orban as the dictator Donald Trump is trying hardest to emulate.  Victor Orban came into power in Hungary under false pretenses just as Trump did.  He was popular because of nothing in particular he had done, but made massive promises the people bought and swallowed whole.  Now he rules an entire country that at one time actually stood up to the Soviet Union.  A difference is that Hungary had a history of dictatorship over many years and the United States does not, which might bring us a bit of hope. 

 

Some people have noted that Trump's welcome is starting to wear off, and for a significant number, it has already worn thin.  The Republican Party or Trumplandia as I like to think of the GOP, beyond giving Trump, their leader, everything he wants is useless if anyone thinks they will stand for or with our democracy.  For years, they have done nothing to help anyone but rich mostly white men who need no help.  In 8 years, W. Bush for example did one positive thing I could recall, create and develop an HIV/AIDS program for people suffering in Africa, which I suspect is disbanded with Trump’s illegal executive order shutting down any programs that actually help people in other nations, OK, in this nation too. 

 

I think there was one positive action in Trump’s first term, well it started out that way.  He pushed the final phases of the COVID vaccine.  Unfortunately, he promoted drugs that were not helpful for people suffering with COVID, hinted people should take bleach internally because if it works to kill germs outside the body . . . .  Even though he was a victim of COVID, he didn’t understand the efforts the medical staff at the hospital went through to save him, while he pretended he wasn’t really very sick; he lied.

 

This term, Trump is trying to hold court over a Trump-created selfish nation that has little to offer anyone.  Who wants to come here to college when if their skin is not pure as the driven they will not be welcome?  Who wants to travel here to visit when they could be arrested and thrown into a concentration camp by masked goons just for existing?  Who will want to trade with a country that puts enormous taxes on all their products so people in the US won't be able to afford them?

 

Trump and his cadre of sycophants don’t really care about any of this because the folks they are doing this destruction for are super rich and expect to jump in to pick up the pieces, taking over the nation for their benefit while they work to take over the rest of the world too so they and their super rich friends can rape the planet even more horribly than they have already done.  They think they will survive global warming because of their wealth, but like most people who do not think past the moment, they don’t consider the extreme wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and other disasters inevitable with global warming.  They only want science involved when it lets them become more wealthy.   

 

This may end up a paradise for the very rich, but not for anyone else.  Therefore, a step we must take if we do not want this dystopia is for anyone who has a platform and a mouth that can speak should be telling folks that right now, they are being pushed around by a toddler pool of white men and a few sycophantic white women who care nothing for them, only the money they can wring out of the people to enrich themselves even further, in short, endless wanting, like whiny toddlers.  We need in a variety of ways, to inform people of how we are being used, and that Trump is one of the biggest users around and loves that honor.  We have to learn and help each other to learn how to defy rather than to comply  with what is going on.  We need to help folks drop their racism, even though it may be a cherished family tradition.  It is keeping them from seeing what is really going on so they can say “no.”  The same is with stopping misogyny, xenophobia, and homo/transphobia.  Those are all hatreds fanned by people who want to control others, to control us for their own purposes.  No one should want to be owned and that is what the rich folks want to do to us.

 

I heard Trump's pathetic speech in Texas when he was trying to pretend he cared about the people lost to the flood, but it came off as disinterest, then a rant against someone who asked about the late response from FEMA and the government because Homeland Security Secretary Noem couldn't be bothered.  Trump’s over the top reaction was par for Trump's course because that is the way he always responds to people who challenge him.  He wants to be the bully in charge who accepts no questions of his motives or decisions, not much of a leader, but with the ?Supreme Court six cons supporting him as well as his entire political party, it is going to be hard to dislodge him from his position of power.  We can do it, though if we have the will and the unity it will require.  OK, it is going to require strength, courage, knowledge, persistence, and more too, but together we have that. 

RUMINATIONS ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

By Ruth A. Sheets

July 5, 2025

 On this July 4th I sit here thinking how depressing it is that over and over again throughout our history, a bunch of white men have worked to change this nation, not really caring or even thinking about the impact on the rest of the people.  In 1776, it was breaking away from Britain.  During the westward movement, it was to steal land from indigenous peoples to acquire more wealth and prestige for the investors and to take as much gold as possible.  In 1861 it was white men wanting to protect the 200+ year economy of enslavement from which they gained a lot and the enslaved, little to nothing.  Then, there were the labor and anti-labor movements, the wars, the Great Depression, all orchestrated by white men often at others' expense to gain more wealth and power.  And, here we go again.  White men are now an even smaller minority, yet we continue to pretend they are better, smarter, more innovative, more everything than anyone else.  The anti-DEIers claim without actually saying the words that the only reason any woman or person of color holds an important position was that a "better-qualified" white man was passed over in favor of THAT less competent person.  Lying is now the medium of exchange for this current group of white men who believe they are better than anyone else, and they don't have to have evidence of their superiority, just their mouths moving.  On this Independence Day, we who are not rich white men trying to control everyone else need to declare our independence of their rule, lies, abuse, incivility, desperation to hurt anyone they can.  We can make a better nation and world, but we are going to have to set those particular whiny white men, down a few pegs.  Teaching young white boys they are not better than the rest of the kids will be a challenge, but it is essential to help them grow into responsible adults who can work and play with others without trying to dominate them. 

 

All of this is not to say that white men have done nothing.  After all, we are an independent nation for nearly 250 years.  We have a labor movement that is still alive more than a century later.  We have tech that allows us to do a lot, often due to white male inventors and developers.  However, it is clear that white men have always had a cadre of women, young people, and people of color to help with and often advance the invention and development, sometimes the actual inventor. 

 

On this July 4th, we need to remember that it was We the People the Constitution was designed to support, only a few years after our war for independence.  The Constitution may have been a document written by and for white men, but that is not the language used, which means the rest of us have become included over time.  The "originalists" whine that they have to read the Constitution as it was written and rule that way, but they are lying to the American people and to themselves.  There is no such thing as originalism in reality because the founders did not envision that.  For them, our Constitution was to be a living document that was fleshed out over time through use and adaptation.  And, the white boys now                     in power are certainly trying hard to warp our document to make it support the evils they are doing to our nation and the world, while claiming some kind of originalism.  We the People need to stop this sacrilege.   

 

As I ruminated, I responded to a comment by Susanna on Heather Cox Richardson’s thread, July 3, 2025 about people needing a purpose or cause for our lives. 

Susanna, yes, we all do need a purpose.  It is just so sad that many people's purpose is to control, conquer, or do harm in general to others, sometimes marked or targeted for them, sometimes not.  I am sorry the internet which was set up to be a good connecter has turned out for many to be a divider, a source for developing the hate, distrust, and other negativities that can lead to what this nation is experiencing and perpetrating right now.  Get a bunch of rich white mostly men and their wannabees together in one place to ruminate and what they come up with is often not something good for humanity, just as the Heritage Foundation and similar richly funded organizations have proven.  It  would be great if we could redirect some of this inhumanity toward actually helping people by raising wages and salaries, building quality affordable housing for people, encouraging more cooperation, cutting the hate speech, particularly the lying, even from our "leaders."  I am not sure how we do this, but maybe instead of competition to see who can be the richest man in the world, ignore that BS and make a huge deal of the number of homes a corporation has built and donated, the number of non-white citizens a person or corporation has sponsored, companies that offer discounts for people who are struggling to make ends meet, opening, staffing, and supporting free clinics in struggling neighborhoods, donations to global organizations to stop HIV and other diseases, all with no strings attached.  We could have giant billboards praising those individuals and corporations with proof that they have done what they claim and maybe have billboards too that name and describe the Representatives and Senators that voted to defund resources the people need like Planned Parenthood, PBS/NPR, Medicaid, SNAP, etc., using phrases, try for a change, voting instead  for someone who actually cares that you have what you need.  OK, I am still a bit of an idealist, but I do think we didn't believe the evil would settle here again, so ignored most of the bad behavior of conservatives/Republicans for the past half century, occasionally trying to fight it, but still thinking Republicans had the interests of at least most of the people at heart and still believed in our democracy.  We were wrong!

 

So, now we move into the 250^th year of our nation with no certainty that we will continue as a democracy, even until next July 4^th.  We must never lose hope, though because the forces of evil count onus doing that as has happened elsewhere.  Thomas Paine reminds us that like 249 years ago, “These are the times that try men’s (our) souls . . . Those who stand it now deserve the thanks of men and women.”  So we must be the ones who stand it now and work with and for reason, persistence, and truth. 

249 YEARS AND STILL COUNTING?

By Ruth A. Sheets

July 3, 2025

 

July 4^th is nearly here and I can’t help but remember past Independence Days with fireworks, crowds, music, and so much more. 

 

My first July 4^th memory was in 1959 when we welcomed Alaska and Hawaii into the union.  I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but I heard a lot of people yelling for Alaska and Hawaii and saying there were now 50 states.  That was special because Shredded Wheat, the breakfast cereal I loved had little metal flags my sisters and I could collect in each box.  Somehow we didn’t get too many over time, but it was fun looking for them.

 

In 1964, my dad, my sisters, and I went to Elmwood Park for a band concert.  The temperature was over 100 degrees but we stayed as long as the band played, then walked home.  After that, I measured each 4^th of July temperature by that 103 number and saw it as a kind of badge of dedication, maybe love of music too.

 

The best Celebration was in 1976 when my sisters and I went to Valley Forge.  A wagon train had parked there after its weeks long journey from the west.  On the 4^th, despite the heavy fog, President Ford’s helicopter landed and he signed the order to make Valley Forge a National Park.  We met people from all over the country and had so much fun as we walked around in Colonial-style clothing.  We had just gotten past a case of presidential corruption and resignation and thought our nation was rising out of the muck of that time.

 

Here we are 49 years later and We the People are in a crisis.  That crisis was set in motion by a bunch of men and a couple of women who don’t like democracy, where people can think for ourselves, speak freely, vote because we are 18 years of age or older.  They want those privileges only for themselves and those who look and believe as they do.  The intent seems to be to crown a fool moving into dementia as king of America and all his minions crowned princes and princesses who will bow to him whenever he demands it and of course, he will demand it often.  That king, of course, is Donald Trump, and his jester, JD Vance who isn’t even the least bit funny and neither has anything positive to offer anyone.

 

By July 4^th, that man who wants to be king demands that Republicans in Congress pass an appalling bill that has nothing good to offer anyone but the already-far-far-too-rich millionaires and billionaires.  It seems Republicans are about to do that because their king is threatening or bribing them (both illegal) with “offers they can’t refuse.”  If the bill passes in its current form, many Americans and immigrant residents here will suffer and king Donnie (Toddler-Trump) will gloat that he owns them and they are useless anyway, spoken by a man who has not actually worked a day in his life.

 

So folks, back in 1976 I would never have guessed we would be facing a fascist takeover 49 years later, but that is where we are.  We need to ask ourselves and each other, “is that where we want this nation to go?”  Do we trust Trump and his minions to do right by anyone but rich mostly white men?”  I say “no.”  I say, “billionaires and millionaires are rich enough; our kids are precious and deserve better than going to bed hungry and getting a poor education because funds are cut; immigrants are immensely valuable to this nation while ICE is not; no one should be losing health care.” 

 

Let us celebrate Independence Day and remember what people have sacrificed that we have a nation that can grow, learn, develop, and become more inclusive and welcoming.  We do not have to settle for the Toddler-Trump formula of threats, lies, gaslighting, fearmongering, hatreds, resentments, targeting groups for violence and dismissal.  We can do better.  We can plan, rally, protest, march, strike, vote, demand our elections are held fairly, demand better of our courts, vote out senators and representatives who have decided they don’t care what We the People want.  Let’s stand together for the sake of our children, our nation, our dreams, immigrants who help make us who we are, and principles that matter.  We can make this better!