Let’s Change the Political Conversation

Not a time for arresting without trial, and deporting our huddled masses

Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

So wrote Emma Lazarus, poet and playwright (1849-1887) from a poem written to raise funds for building the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. That statue stands on Ellis Island, the arrival point for generations of immigrants who were welcomed to our immigrant-nation.

Democrats apparently don’t give a damn.

They’re too busy throwing angry darts at one another on who is or isn’t sufficiently WOKE, or what that even means. At a time when the argument is whether or not the republic itself will sink or swim, they’ve closed the tent, with most of the seats emptied of those they once represented. Their grumbling, mumbling and sulky dissatisfaction will not win them either the mid-terms or 2028 general election.

Oooh!, they say. Donald Trump is a sexual predator. He lies about things and is ruining our worldwide reputation.

As a nation, we already know that, and his base knows it as well. They don’t care.

They’re in an entirely different tent, where the greatest show on earth may be playing to smaller audiences, but what’s the alternative? Democrats shitting their pants about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion? Anti-LGBTQ legislation?

Six months in to a second Trump administration, the Orange Man is kidnapping immigrants (and citizens as well) off the streets with goon squads, terrorizing allies with tariffs, supporting attacks by Russians and Israelis on innocent victims, withdrawing from USAID, and attacking all the mechanisms of governmental agencies.

With the survival of representative democracy at stake, the Democratic Party is frozen like deer in the headlights. They will lose, and they bloody-well deserve to lose.

Toni Morrison, an author and editor of national fame, who died five years ago, is worth noting for her 10 Steps Toward Fascism:

· Construct an internal enemy to focus attention and diversion. Nazi Germany used the Jews and Trump uses immigrants,

· Isolate and demonize that enemy through overt and coded name-calling, legitimized verbal attacks. Check off that box,

· Enlist and create sources/distributors of information who reinforce the demonization—for profit, power, or efficacy. Trump is his own creator of the big lie and alternative truth,

· Palisade (fence in) all art forms; monitor, discredit, or expel those who destabilize the demonizing or deifying process. Trump proposed eliminating the following agencies every year of his presidency: The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Corporationfor Public Broadcasting (CPB), Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

Defunded PBS and NPR as “biased” and “elitist,” repeatedly criticized works of art, theater, and literature that challenged him or his administration, condemned a Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar in which Caesar resembled Trump, criticized Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and the Hamilton cast for speaking out against him, and promoted the idea that much of modern art and media was “un-American” or “woke.”

· Subvert and malign representatives or sympathizers of this constructed enemy. See above.

· Solicit collaborators from within the enemy group who can sanitize and legitimize dispossession. Fox News and its correspondents, as well as all congressional members of a terrified Republican Party.

· Pathologize the enemy through scholarly and popular channels—e.g., recycling scientific racism or myths of superiority. Basically, same as above.

· Criminalize the enemy, and build holding facilities—especially targeting males and children. The illegal ICE arrests and deportations on American streets, farms, and businesses, while bypassing courts (including the Supreme Court).

· Reward mindlessness and apathy with monumental entertainment and small seductions—creating pseudo‑success and illusions of power. Among his Monumental Entertainments, we include Military Parades & the “Salute to America” (2019), Tanks on the National Mall, fighter jets overhead (20250, The Space Force (a flashy rebranding of existing military programs, sold as a bold Trump initiative, complete with a pop-culture-worthy logo and merchandise appeal, the Border Wall Spectacle (ore symbolic than functional, the wall served as a stage prop, press events at sections of wall, signed plaques, and exaggerated claims), the “Big Beautiful” Rally Machine, which turned political rallies into stadium-scale entertainment, complete with merchandising, chants, music, and grievance-fueled performance, constant Tweets (a dopamine drip of drama insults, provocations, conspiracy theories, and distractions, designed to hijack attention, “Nicknames” for Opponents (Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, grade-school taunts with meme power and emotional stickiness), MAGA hats, gold coins, Trumpy Bears — turning the presidency into a brand fandom experience, Presidential Pardons as entertainment, obsessive focus on ratings and crowd size, repeating lies until they felt true (“Stop the Steal”), creating a fog of uncertainty rather than clarity and, finally, Red Hat uniformity the MAGA cap became both costume and tribal marker — simple, seductive, wearable allegiance.

All ten steps have begun or are completed. It remains to be seen if the Orange Man will step down at the end of his term. Thank you, Toni.

But we spoke of a change in the political conversation.

There was no change of conversation in 1933 Nazi Germany, and all hell broke loose four years later. If we are not to repeat that debacle, we need an enormous tent—not a Republican or Democratic tent, but a bi-partisan Tent, large enough for both MAGA and that other party, that’s frozen in the headlights.

It’s not Elon’s tent. He’s done enough damage for one lifetime, thank you.

The tent I have in mind might well include Toni Morrison’s Ten Commandments on its agenda.

God won’t save us, we must save ourselves.

The time is now, and the time is short.