Editor’s Note: We are in year two of the Great Con II. This week, the president threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota, started a criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Power for not bending the knee, suspended visas for 75 countries, and seized another oil tanker.

How to fight back? I want to point out one brave soul from the Ford Company, who risked his job by shouting out the truth to the con artist-in-charge. TJ Sabula, a 40-year old member of United Auto Workers Local 600 at Ford’s River Rouge/F-150 plant in Dearborn, Michigan, called Trump the “pedophile protector”, which the president heard and told Sabula to fuck off and gave him the middle finger. While we will need many more Americans to protect the truth and bring discomfort to enablers of this regime, it’s what Sabula said afterward that I want you to consider:

“I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity, and today I think I did that.”

No wiser words could have been spoken.

Recognize your opportunities to lead when they come, and seize them.

More comments at the bottom.

As many of us have laughed or cried at the second iteration of the circus, the reality of where we are in comparison to 2016 must be taken seriously.

We, especially our public servants given lethal authority to protect American citizens, don’t use that power to shoot women in the face.

This is yet another new low of the current regime.

Our objective must be to accurately assess what led millions to embrace and be pacified with such authoritarian actions.

It will not be simple.

We are so far surviving this leader who jokes about dictatorship, disparages our allies, and treats public institutions as disposable. Yet if the goal is to never let this happen again, we have to understand how this occurred, and then build public institutions that are stronger than any one man or zealous movement.

In a review of emerging trends, a 2020 study from UC-Berkeley found many voters felt “the culture and economy gave them no recognition and no respect for their work”, an unsettling observation for the country that the world looks to for leadership. There is also a connection between this perceived loss of status and the right-wing message of discrimination against whites. This shows the power of the echo chamber in defining a shared enemy whether it be nonwhites, immigrants, or Democrats (he’s used them all).

This is dangerous.

As Abraham Lincoln once stated, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Democracy has obviously given room for a cosmopolitan society to grow but also left openings for groups based upon racism, anger, or conspiracy to flourish. That is never going to completely go away.

What can be done is to ensure that more of the population does not feel abandoned or left behind, so that the messaging that stokes a collective resentment will fall more on deaf ears.

What can we do to ensure both more material security, the real culprit, and cultural cohesion thrive?

The Great Depression had it’s Civilian Conservation Corps. A modern corps could do the same thing with a national program of two years of paid service to the nation. Old and young, and mixed crews of race and class can work to restore land, retrofit homes, improve public works, and build climate-resilient infrastructure that supports solar, water, and communities.

Universal health care is a precondition for de-escalating these anti-everything forces. Research on Canada, France, and other European nations proved that a tax-funded universal system can cover everyone, promote collective solidarity, spend less per capita, and, this is critical, equal or surpass U.S. health outcomes. A universal system gets rid of the linking insurance to jobs or marriage the way Americans are forced to do now.

Imagine the stability of knowing you will always have healthcare. When job loss doesn’t strip away coverage, or a sudden cancer diagnosis doesn’t mean bankruptcy, the fear that authoritarian politicians exploit will fade away, not to mention the level of freedom it will give workers to move toward jobs they want.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) follows similar logic. Finland's experiment found that no-strings payments did not halt job searches. Instead, recipients reported less mental strain and greater life satisfaction. Some shifted to caregiving or community roles that markets always undervalue but millions would love to do. If authoritarianism thrives on anxiety, a modest monthly income creates less vulnerability and more stability.

Initiatives like these cut across the spectrum of American identity and directly fight the culture war agenda. At a time when technology and a billionaire elite are causing anxiety, the answer lies in passing public policies and protecting the public sphere. Beautiful libraries, connected parks, more journalism, more local and regional jobs vs. corporate choosiness, mixed-use communities, local power supply, and local food sources. All of this will corrode the outrage message and benefit sustainable communities. They’re good for the union member, the grandmother raising grandkids, and a majority of Americans who make up the service industry.

A society guaranteeing health care, income, public works, and open culture will still have its share of idiots, but it won’t fall prey to one that rises above the rest of them.

This piece was inspired by a conversation with a colleague on how much we drive our kids and students toward certain goals without considering what comes after. That’s important in terms of what’s given up on the journey. Remember Emerson’s, Life’s a journey, not a destination. We must be mindful not to inspire kids in the wrong way or toward the wrong pursuits. Look at what we are dealing with today.

It is significantly more important on how you work with others, the good you create, and the relations you make. This recent New Yorker cartoon also captured it quite nicely.

This is a sharp piece that fits nicely with this week’s essay. It warns about cruelty, complicity, and how far we’ve drifted from the Founders’ better instincts. It argues that if we’re going to get through this era, we need a public willing to change its mind, stop taking pleasure in other people’s pain, and rebuild the wall between faith and government that actually protects religious freedom. Anchored in the Declaration’s “pursuit of happiness” and Jefferson’s vision of a free press and a republic of readers (yes!), this piece leaves you considering how we let things go this wrong.

Tomorrow, we remember Martin Luther King, Jr., who fought against many of the actions we are seeing in Minnesota and around the U.S.; a campaign perpetrated by authoritarians and supported by a system unwilling to modernize. Remember the civil rights movement and the outcomes. The system counted on blacks and enough whites to be passive.

They were wrong.

Remember King’s letter from a Birmingham jail calling out the clergy for their biblical tolerance of violence and racism.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe our current situation will end without violence. I see this president counting on passivity and using martial law and the insurgency act on whims.

Keep fighting for what you know to be right. It’s part of being a good human, and a citizen of a democracy.