In the US there has been a lot of “shock and awe” felt by a majority of the population over the breadth and speed with which the Trump Administration has put forward its far-right agenda.<\/p>\n
Trampling of the Constitution, specifically Free Speech and Freedom of the Press, and Due Process.\u00a0 This while making obsolete certain checks and balances; massively expanding executive power by over reaching into legislative authority and openly defying the courts. Equal justice of the law has also been eroded as Trump has weaponized the Department of Justice against political opponents, past and present.<\/p>\n
Fascism: It is.\u00a0 Shocking: it shouldn’t be.<\/p>\n
Why not?<\/p>\n
Forget about Project 2025, a document written well in advance that contains in detail long and specific instructions to do all of the above.<\/p>\n
Forget about the polarization of our society that has led us to this point that can be blamed on both left and right.<\/p>\n
Forget about, but keep in mind our history of internal repression, mostly notably the violent apprehension of all Inherently Free Nations\u2019 land, from the Penobscot Nation of current day Maine to the Lakota Nation (of many places).<\/p>\n
Forget about the ripping of Indigenous Africans from their Inherently Free African Nations and having forced them into a system of chattel slavery in southern plantations of a burgeoning United States.<\/p>\n
Forget about our sin filled colonial foreign policy that has exported terror through various military interventions. From our unknown which led to slaughters of peoples in the Philippines and Cambodia, to the more well-known battles in Vietnam and Iraq.<\/p>\n
Let us instead take a look at the world today and then reflect back.<\/p>\n
Sudan and South Sudan in 2025.\u00a0 Various numbers of conflicting armed groups creating one of the worst and largest humanitarian crises the planet has ever known.<\/p>\n
A war spills into Ukraine threatening the Old Colonial Guard of European Nations, not by Russia in the 1960s Cold War Era, but current day.<\/p>\n
And then there is Gaza. A population of refugees (from their homes 100-200 miles to the north) that is ruled by the democratically elected <\/a>terrorist<\/a> organization of Hamas<\/a> in a land that is now being fully seized by the democratically elected terrorist state of Israel.[i]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n (Ask the Indian Mystic Yogi, Sahdguru, if he is surprised by the number of armed conflicts on the planet today, and he will say something like, \u201cWhat do you expect, with such large capacities to build modern weapons of war?”)<\/p>\n Human trafficking is at an all-time global high, with well over 50 million modern day slaves on the planet. \u00a0And modern-day slavery, unfortunately, is a far crueler endeavor than past slavery systems.<\/p>\n Today in 2025, supposedly we are at the pinnacle of human progression, yet there is not an Inherently Free Indigenous Nation on the planet that can fully express its freedoms in the old ways of honor and central well-being.\u00a0 This holds true in the US as well. Just ask the Penobscot or the Lakota.<\/p>\n Global warming, whether we believe in it or not, threatens to destroy all of it, in what perhaps should be considered a washing away of all our sins, if it is to happen as such.<\/p>\n This writing is not designed to ruin your day.\u00a0 Nor is it designed to ignore many forms of human progress.\u00a0 It is, quite simply, a fact-based eagle eye view.<\/p>\n One thing that is important to understand is that the progression of human history does not, and has never moved, in a progressively upward trajectory of overall human well-being and happiness. Technology might move like this but don’t confuse the two!<\/p>\n And we return to Trump II.\u00a0 In his prosecution of political opponents, he has taken pages from the presidential administrations of modern-day Hungary, Turkey, and Russia.\u00a0 In his blaming of all our woes on immigrants, he has taken a page from Hitler.<\/p>\n Let us zoom out again.<\/p>\n Guatemala not so long ago democratically elected, for the second time<\/strong>, a right-wing president and former military general, Rios Montt, that inflicted one of the world\u2019s worst internal modern-day genocides against its Mayan population.\u00a0 Then, star-time moments later, Guatemala elected the current president, Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo<\/a>, a left leaning socioligist and writer, who happens to be the son of Guatemala\u2019s first president Juan Ar\u00e9valo.\u00a0 (Juan Ar\u00e9valo was elected in 1945 following a popular uprising against the United States-backed dictator Jorge Ubico<\/a> that began the Guatemalan Revolution<\/a>. He remained in office until 1951, surviving 25 coup attempts also backed by the US.)<\/p>\n The election of Rios Montt and Bernando Arevalo in such a short span, is exactly the stark juxtaposition that polarized democracies often find themselves in.<\/p>\n Modern democratic politics is like dribbling a basketball if you’re good at it.\u00a0 First you go right, then you go left.\u00a0 Right. Left. Right. Left. Just like in basketball you have to defend that, and that is what national populations seemingly have to choose to defend or be a part of.<\/p>\n In the US, we are no different.<\/p>\n The US ranks number 1 in total wealth<\/a>, but 61st out of 168 countries ranked in income inequality by The World Bank.<\/a><\/p>\n The <\/a>Global Peace Index<\/strong><\/a> (<\/a>GPI<\/strong><\/a>) is a report produced by the Australia-based NGO Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) which measures the relative position of nations’ peacefulness.\u00a0 The US ranks 132 out of 163 countries in the index.<\/a><\/p>\n Despite our internal national beliefs, we, the US as a nation, are not a \u201cCity on a Hill\u201d.<\/p>\n Noam Chomsky, a prominent linguist and political commentator, argues that,<\/p>\n (pre-Trump) the U.S. functions more like a plutocracy or oligarchy than a true democracy. While formal democratic institutions exist, he documents how real political power is concentrated in the hands of a wealthy elite and corporate interests, leaving the general public with limited influence over policy decisions.<\/p>\n Further he documents issues regarding the structural limits of change in government.<\/p>\n Chomsky acknowledges the U.S. Constitution as a framework that limits democratic responsiveness, with institutions like the Senate, Electoral College, and campaign finance system skewing power toward wealthy, white, and rural constituencies.<\/p>\n Trump is certainly both testing these summations while at the same time highlighting their truths.<\/p>\n Trump II: Fascism it is.\u00a0 Shocking: it shouldn’t be.<\/p>\n