MARCH 25, 2025 – We who are scandalized by the Diarchy’s hijacking of democracy struggle daily with the question, “How do we fight back?” The implicit adverb, of course, is “effectively.” None of us has a response beyond the lame utterance, “Wull, uh, we gotta do SOMETHING.” Except no one—least of all, Democratic leadership—has convincing idea about what the “something” should be.
Several “progressive” confederations propose a public demonstration—starting anytime from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. local time. It’s being billed as “Hands Off!” which captures my imagination about as readily as the prospect of hearing a large guy sitting in the back of the band and blowing into a tuba that’s missing its mouthpiece: the most likely sound waves would resemble a single briefly sustained incidence of low register flatulence. What exactly is meant by “hands off”? Hands off what?
Given my own outrage over the deliberate wreckage of everything laudable about our flawed system of government, I detest Trump and Musk—and obsequious Republicans in Congress. I simply don’t believe “Hands Off!” will count as “something [effective].” In fact, I fear that it could well be counterproductive—akin to a loose association of educators announcing that they plan to gather at various corners of the school playground on a Saturday to protest the many anti-social behaviors of student bullies acting out during weekday recesses. Unless over a million protesters fill Washington Mall on April 5, each with a simple sign bearing the simple unifying message, “IMPEACH TRUMP AND MUSK!” visible from 100 yards, and . . . this is critical—every American with a smartphone is inundated with images of the scene in real time . . . the bullies and their backers will see “Hands Off!” as proof that the opposition is divided and conquered. The bullies will be emboldened, not humbled, by any demonstration that isn’t overwhelming in size and spirit.
The bad guys in our current chapter of history are bereft of all moral, political, and intellectual shame. As has been the case with all bad guys down through the ages, the only force they recognize is . . . a large, unified powerful force. And we are not there yet. “We the people,” as people are so fond of referring to their likeminded group within a highly polarized, pluralistic, highly individualized American public, are simply too splintered to produce a convincing threat to the regime, despite the latest poll showing Trump’s approval rating at under 50%.
Perhaps most discouraging is that the institutions that should be frontline defenders of the rule of law—the nation’s most powerful law firms—have capitulated to threats of retributive extortion by the Diarchy. In many ways, this marks a crossing of the Rubicon; a “game over” for the democracy.
In the time-honored way of that a pessimist disavows his pessimism, the way I’d describe my current outlook is that I’m not being pessimistic here; just realistic. Ten days out from April 5, I do not see or hear the sort of rolling thunder, seismic tremors, or good ol’ American flood of marketing memes, sound-bytes, sight-bytes promoting the “big protest.” Accordingly, I don’t have much confidence that an effective, heart-thumping protest will actually come to pass. In addition to giving the bullies even greater momentum, a luke warm “Hands Off!” could well discourage the resistance even more than it already is: “Now that we did something [ineffective], what should we do next?”
When a bright idea surfaces—the most likely revelatory circumstance being amidst REM sleep—I’ll be sure to share the magical solution here. Meanwhile, I’ll train my gaze on the crystal ball. Currently, here’s what I see:
PREDICTION ONE: Until a majority of Americans are directly placed under severe and immediate financial pressure, the Diarchical chaos, incompetence, and wholesale wreckage of the so-called “deep state” will continue unabated. Notice, I said “until,” not “Unless and until.” The water in the stove pot of frogs simply isn’t hot enough for the 77 million “frogs” who voted for the Crime Boss to take to the streets. The 73 million Democrat “frogs” jumping in a panic all over the kitchen floor won’t sway the cooks to turn down the burner.
PREDICTION TWO: Neither the Signals app chat scandal nor any number of other gross violations of law, norms, well-established protocols, and good judgment will move the needle against the Diarchy. This latest gob-smacking incident merely adds another nail to the “bed of nails” (i.e. occurrences, scandals, violations of norms, any one of which in the pre-Trumpian era would have ended the career of a person occupying or aspiring to high elective office). Remember “Eric’s Paradox”: the more nails in the bed, the less time and energy anyone can devote to removing a single nail, let alone all of them or even a significant portion of them. Before you can finish reading the latest news flash about any one nail, another one pops up. All too soon, the headline grabber of the day becomes ancient history—wholly displaced by the latest outrageous wag of Trump’s tongue or slash by Musk’s chainsaw.
PREDICTION THREE: ALT ONE: Because of “muscle and bone-cutting” (staff reductions) at the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), payment systems will experience major functionality disruptions—quite apart from any legal (legislatively sanctioned) or illegal (the swing of President Musk’s chainsaw) reductions in actual benefits. ALT TWO: Despite assurances to the contrary, the Diarchy will move to privatize Social Security (query what they’ll do with Medicaid and Medicare, except to reduce actual benefits). Motivating privatization ahead of all other considerations would goose equity markets by transferring hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury to equity markets, thus raising the overall investment portfolios to the billionaires’ disproportionate benefit. Given the record of grift and managerial incompetence thus far, however, and the well-publicized staff reductions, the transition to privatization would be at great risk of a catastrophic systems failure. (Can you imagine trying to communicate with that system when things go awry?)
Either ALT ONE or ALT TWO will be the point of no return. Tens of millions of Americans will get scalded when (again, not “if”) the applicable alternative occurs. And don’t forget all the medical facilities and health care providers that will be in dire financial straits when Medicare and Medicaid payments are disrupted. Tariffs, schmariffs: just wait for the fallout when Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments—in aggregate, at $2.7 trillion, nearly half of the annual federal budget—are yanked from the U.S. economy, reducing the GDP by nearly 10% (annualized). To clean up the resulting fiscal and monetary mess will beat the challenge of colonizing both the moon and Mars.
PREDICTION FOUR. As a result of President Trump’s mismanagement and President Musk’s uninhibited use of a chain saw to reduce “waste, fraud, and abuse”[1], the next generation of Americans will be poorer, less healthy, less well educated, less secure from enemies and adversaries at home and abroad, more vulnerable to adverse effects of accelerated anthropogenic climate change, more likely to experience a “brain drain” of young scientists and innovators to other countries, and will face significantly lowered life expectancies—all in a country isolated from the rest of the world and with a decline in standing in the perception of (former) friends and adversaries alike. And this fate looms even if one wave of a magic wand were to prevent imposition of martial law and suspension of the 2026 midterm elections, a second wave were to sweep Democrat majorities into the House and Senate in 2026, and third wave (in 2027) were to impeach and convict the Diarchy plus Vance. The damage wreaked thus far—just over two months into the nightmare—will take many years to repair. In retrospect, the high price of eggs and “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government will be remembered with great nostalgia.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Don’t get me started on the cynical and wholly disingenuous use of this “red meat” phrase on tens of millions of naïve Americans.
