Coop Scoop: What is to be done?

Hide, flee or stand up and fight back?

November 8, 2024

By Marc Cooper

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Now to today’s newsletter:

I see a lot of social media still filled with shock, grieving and fear. And a lot asking what can we do?

I know what I am going to do: After posting more than two weeks every day with long pieces…I am taking this weekend off. So especially to those newbies, we are not going dark. Just taking a couple of days of rest and reflection. The Big Piece from yesterday left me exhausted.

Might I suggest you do the same, take the weekend to lower your temperature to be able to think straight then come back and try your best to stand up to this situation. The less we do, the more we empower MAGA. If you surrender, they take everything. Probably, the most destructive emotion you need to shed is fear as that really doesn’t do anybody good, it will just depress you and paralyze you.

My long post from yesterday tried to explain how we got here. Now how to move forward.

I have repeatedly warned that the election of Trump can lead to dictatorship. It can. It might. But it is far from inevitable. So far, he won an election and did not seize power. Lots of presidents win elections and then see themselves in a briar patch very soon after.

I am convinced that Donald Trump will make his own undoing. He’s made a lot of promises that he cannot possibly fulfill as much as he will try. The question is will we have the political strength to cash in on them? Some context of his win is necessary because if we make the wrong diagnosis of the illness, there will be no cure.

In recent history, every incumbent party winds up with just about the same percentage of votes that matches the incumbent’s popularity rating. Almost point by point. Joe Biden had a dismal 40% rating when he dropped out. Harris had about about the same. The historic political logic is the while pollsters figured that Trump had a ceiling of 47-48% (now 3 or 4 points higher in the popular vote,) it meant it would be uphill for any incumbent Democrat to cross that 40% mark by much if anything.

Kamala Harris took 48% of the popular vote, and while insufficient, it means she outperformed mathematical expectation by 8 points. This is not to dis Biden or celebrate Harris but rather an attempt to put expectations where they belonged. Of course, many of us including your truly thought, incorrectly, that Trump’s repulsive character and his vile threats would provoke a much larger anti-partisan, anti-Trump groundswell that instead turned into a jarring earthquake. I will repeat what I said last nite. Biden would have done worse as his level of impairment had been well camouflaged by his immediate staff and protectors. And I stand by my affirmation that given the objective conditions or “messaging” Trump would have been beaten any Democratic candidate due mainly to the economic trauma of the pandemic and its aftermath.

I put these numbers out only as a first reminder that Trump is not invincible, not competent and is very unlikely to complete his darkest promises — if we are there to stop him. He won a decisive victory but it was hardly a landslide. Unless he suspends the constitution (which would provoke a civil war or something akin), there will be mid term elections and another presidential election in 4 years.

In my estimation, the mid terms — the campaigns for which will start earlier than ever— will be the decisive turning point in Trump 2.0. He has two years now to over-reach and screw up and he certainly will. He is too crazy to govern and he has surrounded himself with people just as off the wall, including some very greedy oligarchs. If his popularity erodes as in most cases for incumbents and the Democrats can at least take back the House, then he, or JD Vance, will be a lame duck ready to get plucked.

OTOH, if MAGA sweeps the mid terms, I think it fair to anticipate some form of dictatorship.

But Trump does not take office till January 20 and that means we have two months to start preparing a fierce opposition — more than a symbolic “resistance.” Honestly, I am skeptical that the anti-Trump coalition that needs to be erected is likely to come, if at all, in reaction to some horror he has perpetrated, making us late on arrival.

There are some folks I know who are not taking the weekend off. They are using it to convoke a series of meetings with key activists and organizers to reach some minimal consensus on how to move forward.

I was pleased to see that in my generally center-right and mostly apolitical city of Vancouver, the electorate has shifted left and went 58% for Harris. And I also saw a call for a meeting to form what I think is the first progressive club or association here and in the neighboring town. These are green shoots of exactly what we need to be doing.

Meanwhile, Trump is already making his first staffing moves. He has named his co-campaign manager Susie Wiles as chief of staff, someone who has worked for Trump before and even got her daughter a high ranking White House job in 2017 — and then lost it after she failed a background check. She had a rather inflated job as a Deputy Assistant to the president though she had never completed a degree at the second rate college she had attended (while picking up a couple of DUI’s).

No problem for MAGA though. She worked for her mother in Trump’s campaign raking in the fourth highest campaign salary of $220,000. This to me is indicative that we should think of the the Trump White House, for the moment, as much more of a crime family organization than as disciplined fascists.

The Trump inner circle are like captains of the organization who must swear absolutely loyalty to the Don who — by the way— will want to dip his beak into every revenue stream around him. Imagine the deals that Jared will continue to be cutting with the autocrats in the Arab world and Ivanka with the Chinese dictatorship.

Within hours of his election, the heads of three other big “families,” Zuckerberg, Bezos and Tim Cook all sent bootlicking congratulations to the new Don. And of course, Mad Musk is bankrolling the whole outfit and will be expecting his own form of kickbacks. His main role will be to deregulate industry and cut and shred as much as he can of the safety net.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Regardless of his official title Mad Musk will be the closest confidante and advisor and chief propagandist to and for the Don. He will be the Rasputin of Trump. 2.0 if he is not already.

This regime will be the most corrupt and criminal in American history and the financial shenanigans and dirty deals will be too many to count and will expose some of these types to criminal charges. You can bet on that.

Trump is also pressuring the independent head of the Federal Reserve Bank Jay Powell to quit before his 2026 term is up. Trump has been open in saying he should be the first president allowed to dip his fingers into the Fed’s operations. Powell steadfastly said he is not quitting, Trump cannot legally fire him, and that Fed intends to remain free of partisan pressure.

By coincidence —or not— Powell yesterday issued another rate reduction, easing interest rates and stimulating more spending.

What in the world does Trump think he can do to “fix the economy” which is why ostensibly his vote was so high. He cannot lower prices. He cannot cut rents and housing costs. He is not going to mandate unionization. So far, all he has proposed are the tariffs which the electorate fails to understand those are taxes they wind up paying, not the targeted foreign countries. What kind of mafia pact will Trump make to exempt Tesla and iPhones built in China from those heavy import duties? You know, you gotta let the boss wet his beak to keep your own cash flowing in.

Next month or perhaps sooner we will see who makes up his cabinet and who he will name to federal agencies that are currently non-partisan and which he intends to become MAGA controlled. That’s a horror in itself. And one we cannot do much about until the next election — or heaven forbid, mass protests.

Are we going to be passive when he names one of his thugs to run the historically apolitical DOJ and use it to prosecute “the enemy within?” You know, like Liz Cheney and Nancy Pelosi and Jack Smith? Then again, he will have to wake up the extremely disappointing Merrick Garland before they transport his snoozing body to some other place he can nap. And what happens when the FBI is MAGA-ized? Your, papers, please?

The point is, he can construct effectively a dictatorial presidency and maintain the facade of a constitutional republic and he is already starting.

I might be wrong but I think his major promises like closing the border and deporting 13,000 undocumented will peter out into Potemkin constructions, like his famous border wall. Build 2 miles of it and claim he completed his promise. Deport maybe a thousand people already in the deportation pipeline and claim again that he has completed his promise.

The first few weeks of his administration will be this sort of despicable showmanship. Big ugly events that appear to be tremendous measures when they are, in fact, much less compete acts of reprisal and terror. But showmanship works. Just ask the whores at NBC who meticulously inflated this gas bag’s image for fourteen years.

So? When do you think we should start organizing? And are we only going to denounce Trump, or are we going to make a reachable, realistic offer of positive change as we begin to reach out and build alliances? Are we gonna meet the electorate where it’s at and bring them forward or are we going to scold them? The admission test to enter the coalition consists merely of opposing Trump and supporting those who oppose MAGA. Sooner rather than later there’s going to be a whole crop of disappointed and disillusioned MAGAs when they learn they have been conned. We need to be ready to snatch them up.

Organizing space is wide open at the moment. don’t let it close.

Take a break, shed your fears and if you don’t have an anti-MAGA hub in your town or city to join, then you need to start one. See you in a few days.

SOLIDARITY. +++

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