Today Belongs to Trump. Tommorrow Belongs to Me, to Us.

His coronation was a farce. Don't be scared by it.

Coop Scoop - Jan 21, 2025

By Marc Cooper

With the American media falling quickly into line to sane-wash and pander to Trump, it is more important than ever that independent citizen media like The Coop Scoop remain in the fight. This is possible only through your support. If you are a free subscriber become a paid one. If you got this forwarded to you, sign up as a free subscriber. And in any case please forward to as many as possible. In solidarity, thank you. In the end, it is the paid subscriptions that keep us above water.

ALGAROBBO, CHILE

Let me begin by thanking God and the Baby Jesus for saving Donald Trump to Make America Great Again – and possibly helping the struggling media at the same time. Another four years of guaranteed interest, at least to some degree, in political news.

Among the billion words being written today about the inauguration, allow me to cut to the point in an economy of verbiage:

The inauguration was a boring farce, a fictional TV show that had little reality.

His second speech to the overflow, less affluent group of rubes displayed what was really on his warped mind.

His official prior speech, highly scripted by the few literate people around him, was soporific, as Trump was pained to be disciplined and semi-human.

Overall, his performance sounded like an appeal made by an extreme right-wing candidate in a Florida Republican primary. Its excessively narrow appeal will only alienate a majority of Americans.

Yes, there are some who believe renaming the Gulf of America will lower the price of eggs, and that withdrawing from WHO and the Paris Climate Accords will lower gas prices. Too bad for them.

He declared a state of emergency on the southern border at a moment when illegal crossings are at an all-time low.

His "Drill, Baby, Drill" mantra comes at a moment when the U.S. is currently producing more oil than any country in the history of the world.

Decreeing there are only two genders will not solve the housing crisis.

The slapping of 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico will ignite a multi-billion-dollar trade war that will blow up in his face and raise prices if they really happen.

His threat to militarily take back the Panama Canal is a transparent negotiating tactic and not preparation for war.

His amnesty for the 1,600 hooligans who beat up cops, broke windows, and defecated on the floor of the Capitol on January 6th is real but has the sympathy of less than 50 percent of the American people. It will win him no new support, only revulsion.

Trump pardons the ‘hostages.”

His decree ending birthright citizenship is toilet paper as it is blatantly unconstitutional.

What is indisputable is that Donald Trump, or at least half of his personality, is declaredly fascist. Just as true, he disdains his own red-hatted base of yahoos and, as always, seeks the approval of the establishment much more than the mob of ignorant "dummies" he pretends to represent. These are contradictory goals, illustrated by the Musk-Bannon feud, and this divide will make Trump’s tenure permanently erratic and self-contradictory, further weakening his non-mandate.

Beyond their financial support, the oligarchs on the platform with him provide him the admiration he has always sought from the rich and powerful, as he has yearned for decades to be one of the boys rather than the punchline he once was. But he has always been too stupid, obnoxious, and offensive to be seen as anything more than merely a clown, a freak tourist attraction in New York.

He was not joking when he said he wants to work with Democrats where he can, as he wants nothing more than to be respected as a serious statesman.

What does all that mean for us? Don’t be frightened off by his first day of Shock and Awe. We all saw how that ended up in Iraq – an unmitigated debacle and defeat.

Don’t play ping-pong with him by responding with outrage to every incendiary, mythological statement he will daily make. Ninety percent of his verbal threats are merely fodder for Xitter (formerly Twitter) and have no way of being implemented.

Concentrate on what he is actually trying to do, not what he’s saying.

Be strategic in opposing, disrupting, and blocking his actual actions. So what if Elon Musk gave what looked like a Nazi salute? Big deal. We knew that already. More important is stopping Musk from buying MSNBC and TikTok.

More important is still standing in solid opposition to his cabinet picks.

More important is forging real ties of solidarity and self-defense for targeted immigrant communities.

More important is to immediately stop sulking and vowing not to pay attention to what he is doing. Nobody can say the fascist half of his personality will not dominate. Withdrawal and apathy only further empower him and give him more running room. Do not become a silent collaborator by claiming you are floating above the mess and have no responsibility to act.

As I wrote last week, our position on everything Trump should be a brick wall of NO.

Stop worrying about what the Democrats will do. Make them worry about what we will be doing, and if we do it right, they will try to catch up. They are not going to provide the leadership we require. Already, 48 House Democrats and 8 Democratic senators have signed on to a noxious MAGA immigration bill that will make deportations easier.

The Democrats, including Joe Biden, who attended the inauguration of a demented con man whom they only weeks ago called an imminent threat to democracy, have debased themselves and spit in our faces. There was nothing noble about their presence; it only warmed the heart of the corpse of German Count Von Papen.

Okay, you ask, but what can we do? Sorry, I’m not the “Shell answer man.” I don’t have an instant remedy or a delineated strategy; we will have to elaborate that in the days to come.

That implies constant and clear thinking, and the first step in any case is adopting the right mindset and not wallowing in despair and paralysis. It means not wasting your time on getting hysterical about the shiny objects that will rain down upon us.

At a minimum, it requires building local, ongoing infrastructure. Identifying strategic points of weakness in the enemy. Not getting distracted. Not being sectarian and building bridges to as many as we can, including the center-right and, yes, even dissident Zionists. It means not burrowing into a single-issue silo. It means welcoming as many as you can into an anti-Trump alliance and not excluding those who don’t “follow your line.” Ask the German communists and socialists how that all worked out for them.

Accept that this is going to be a long and hard tussle. Accept that YOU might need to make sacrifices. Understand and embrace the thought that down the road, peaceful mass civil disobedience might be required. And build a multi-racial coalition that concentrates more on common class consciousness than on racial differences.

Today belongs to Trump. Tomorrow belongs to us, if we make it so. ++

The media is buckling to Trump and the continued existence of independent voices like the Coop Scoop must survive.

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