Longtime conservative judge puts our situation clearly in one short statement
Plus more stories you need to know about, and a word about Trump/Maga overload
For July 4th Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote and published an essay about the Declaration of Independence, "The Self-Evident Truths of Freedom -- and of Tyranny." It lists what the founding fathers were fighting against and then compares this with what we now fight against. I was especially struck by this paragraph:
“Government should only wage war against foreign enemies, not misperceived domestic enemies. The people are not the enemy of the government. Rather, the government that regards the people as its enemy is itself the enemy of the people.”
It does seem clear that we the people may be our own last best hope to stop turning what was a pretty wonderful (if flawed in some areas) country into a nightmarish land whose government—what’s left of it—is daily coming awfully close to becoming one of the cruelest in the world, a government that is, now unmistakably, the enemy of the people.
When I talk to people about this I’m not surprised that they seem overwhelmed with how monstrously corrupt this administration is. To be honest, I’m having a lot of trouble holding it together myself. If you’ve been reading here for some time you know that periodically I say I need to stop writing about it because as someone with ongoing PTSD, it literally makes me sick—both emotionally and physically. I so want to pull back again now, but the times simply seem too dangerous so I’ll try to at least make sure you don’t miss too many of the Maga actions that often are hidden by the lastest outrage, and I’ll also keep searching for ways we can all help without going out of our minds. I do want however to take at least little more time to offer posts that can divert or otherwise help people escape just for a few minutes all the destruction and chaos, which is what I set out to do when I began The Serene City (but that sadly coincided with the arrival of Trump on the scene).
So, back to business: The most alarming thing I learned about today comes from Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect. He writes that there are many news items about how Trump’s hugely unpopular big bill will make it very challenging for Republicans running for re-election in 2026. He says also that progessives feel optimistic because most “swing House seats are in blue or purple states where Trumpers are not in control of the election machinery.” Both groups seem to presume, he says, a relatively free and fair election. But, he asks, “Can we assume that will occur?”
The especially bad news about this is that “lately, the Trump Justice Department has begun an effort to intimidate state election officials nationwide.”
He writes that the New York Times has reported that “senior DOJ officials, presumably in concert with the White House, have directed department lawyers ‘to examine the ways in which a hypothetical failure by state or local officials to follow security standards for electronic voting could be charged as a crime, appearing to assume a kind of criminally negligent mismanagement of election systems” (my italics).’ ”
He says the department has contacted election officials to demand information on voting in at least four states including Colorado due to what he calls Trump’s obsession with “the case of Tina Peters, a former county clerk who is serving nine years in prison for tampering with voting machines in an effort to prove that the machines had been used to rig the 2020 election against Trump. The president has called Peters a ‘political prisoner.’ ”
Kuttner notes that though we’ve slid further into a dictatorship, there was the hope that Republicans will lose in 2026. But that’s not a sure thing. He says, “In a democracy, the ultimate firebreak is the right of the citizens to throw the rascals out. But that, in turn, will depend on whether the courts—notably an increasingly compliant Supreme Court—are willing to defend the ultimate check and balance of free elections.”
He’s not encouraged by what he’s seen recently, and reminds us about Trump’s March executive order “requiring all prospective voters to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.” While a district court judge stopped DHS from carrying out this order in April, since then “the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump v. CASA that district court decisions do not apply nationwide. So the Trump order on proof of citizenship in voting could be revived.”
Kuttner says Trump’s using his usual flooding-the-zone strategy, “demanding voter information, threatening election officials with prosecution for even technical violations, and deterring voting by demanding proof of citizenship, while targeting naturalized citizens on another front.”
He says while vigilante Republican county officials and activists tried in 2024 to overwhelm voting centers and poll workers in blue states, this mostly didn’t work, partly because the Justice Department under Biden “was there to prevent intimidation. This time, “Trump will control the Justice Department response.”
He says Trump doesn’t need to do much depressing of the vote or accurate counting to keep legislative control, adding, “That’s how dictators simulate continued democracy.”
He laments that with all these assaults and the Supreme Court’s increasing complicity, “the high court has to be considered a slender reed.” Yet he confesses to a “slight bias toward hope” that we could still have, in 2026, “free-enough elections in enough places.” He hopes also that the Supreme Court will remember that its prime job is to defend the Constitution. “If not, full-on fascism will arrive.”
Well, today it’s not looking good. The New York Times just reported that the Supreme Court cleared the way for more mass firings at federal agencies. As if we hadn’t lost enough knowledgeable, reliable federal workers, a loss that endangers the country in myriad ways, now we may see the further loss of “tens of thousands” more federal workers (many of whom will no doubt be replaced by relatively untrained and/or ignorant loyalists to Trump/Maga). The Times’s Abby VanSickle writes, “The justices’ order is technically only temporary, guiding how the administration can proceed while the challenge to Mr. Trump’s plans continues. But in practice, it means he is free to pursue his restructuring plans, even if judges later determine that they exceed presidential power.”
One more thing: two of my friends who I think are in their late twenties or maybe early thirties (I never ask), told me this week that they’re shocked at how many people they encounter who hardly seem to know about what’s happening. That suggests that this age group needs to be targeted somehow with lots of good information, which will hopefully get them more engaged. Because as many resisters keep saying, we need as many people as possible to object to and to fight to stop the extreme amount of power that Trump is seizing pretty much daily, including his increasing ignoring of the law, thanks to the immunity given him by the traitorous six judges in the Supreme Court right wing gang.
Again what can we do (especially about elections)? As I’ve mentioned here before, we can write to the Supreme Court, write our reps in Congress, support democracy-protecting groups, donate to places carrying on legal fights with this administration, and of course protest any (non-violent) way you can. Googling “What groups support election fairness?” gave me a pretty good list including: The League of Women Voters, Protect Democracy, (protectdemocracy.org); Fair Elections Center (Fairelectioncenter.org), Fair Vote (fairvote.org), The Carter Center (cartercenter.org), and (again) The Brennan Center (brennancenter.org). There are several more which you can see if you go to that page. Here’s the link: Fair elections
Also, show up July 17th for the nationwide demonstration, “Good Trouble Lives On” Day.
Thanks for reading. More soon.
Susan
Notes:
Judge Luttig Judge Luttig
Robert Kuttner Robert Kuttner