Never give up the fight

If a dream is all we have, so be it

The $1.776 billion slush fund set up by the Department of Justice will incentivize more insurrectionary violence by Trump supporters. The amount is a cute reference to the year of America's birth, as if hijacking government in service of one ego is the soul of patriotism.

Of course Trump doesn't call it a slush fund. He says he is fighting weaponized government, though he is the chief weaponizer. He has long insisted that his supporters who rioted at the US Capitol are victims. Unsatisfied with the mass pardon he granted them, he now wants to pay them. Having filled their heads with lies for years, he won't have to draw a detailed blueprint for them to understand what he wants from them if Republicans lose the midterm elections.

I have been flooded lately with emails from Trump. I ignore them the same as messages from busty women who write as if I am desperate for a hookup. If this reflects the quality of the surveillance culture's information, I should be fine.

But I do worry about what Trump's thugs might do around election time. I also worry about our collective grip on reality in the face of the endless MAGA assault on it. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, in addition to claiming that "Americans" agree with the slush fund, issued a directive permanently shielding Trump and his family from tax audits. If you are making up the law as you go along, there's apparently no limit to what you can do.

In a recent social media rant in the middle of the night, Trump resurrected his baseless charge that Barack Obama was guilty of treason, which carries a death penalty.

The real threat to our country is coming from the man in the Oval Office. Imagine the harm he can do at polling places if he gets the additional $70 billion he demands for his Immigration and Customs Enforcement hooligans.

First, the undocumented immigrants Trump wants to scare everyone about are far better people than the bigots who are so determined to scapegoat them. Second, that whole issue is a mere distraction. Why else would an ICE agent dragging a woman out of her car say "I don't care" when she points out she is an American citizen? How can he not care? Because the ICE agent understands he is there in service of White supremacy, not law and order applied equally to all.

The very concept of loving our country has become discredited in many eyes because of the hypocrisy and destructiveness of the authoritarians. The trouble is, reacting that way only plays into their hands.

The only counter I have is to love America enough to offer a rebuke when it has gone badly astray. Otherwise, we are defenseless against the feral cunning of a demagogue like Trump.

An attorney friend loved repeating the old line that if the facts don't help, pound the law. If the law doesn't help, pound the facts. If the facts and the law don't help, pound the table. But he was joking. He was too smart and scrupulous for that. Trump never cared about the facts, the law, or the Constitution. He creates his own reality and expects everyone else to inhabit it.

His approach has taken him far. If you are utterly shameless and don't care how much harm you cause, maybe a triumphal arch for yourself seems reasonable.

Our would-be king has built himself a cult. His cultists are mostly beyond reach. At the same time, his destructive behavior, which feeds on itself, cannot be tolerated. With few exceptions, his fellow Republican officeholders are marching us toward a bloody civil war by their ambition and cowardice.

To prevent calamity, all we have are our civic virtues, top among them the faithful exercise of our voting franchise.

Some talk as if America is not worth saving. They can cite a lot of terrible history in support of their position. That amounts to saying to hell with everything. I love the people and causes I have fought for too much to throw it all away.

Maybe the dream of building a country that rejects racism, sexism, and untrammeled greed and lives up to its creed of equality is too fanciful for you. What do you have that's better?

I still see children of many colors with hope and joy in their eyes. That deserves everything we can do to defend it.

Never give up the fight.

Richard Rosendall is a writer and activist who can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2026 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.