No Cooperation With Autocrats

Since Trump's first inauguration in 2017, Indivisible has been fighting back against his agenda of hate, bigotry, and authoritarianism. So too, have we been resisting MAGA's efforts to vastly increase defense spending while viciously slashing domestic safety net programs. So too, have we been opposing huge tax breaks for giant corporations and the obscenely wealthy. 

Now wannabe autocrat Trump and his Grand Visier Musk are mounting a direct assault on our Constitution's democratic framework by illegally claiming that they have authority to unilaterally fire federal Civil Service employees for political reasons and falsely asserting an unconstitutional authority to refuse to spend congressionally authorized funds. Their actions amount to an administrative Coup D'Etat. 

As made explicit by Project 2025, their immediate goal is to guarantee huge tax breaks for billionaires, giant corporations, and other big-donors by slashing federal spending on programs that directly benefit the American People. Their long-term goal is to reshape government so that it uplifts the privilege of the privileged, expands the wealth of the already obscenely wealthy, frees big business to pollute, exploit, and gouge with impunity, and suppresses popular dissent and opposition. 

And not just here. The trans-national mega-corporations and the billionaire aristocrats who have been financing MAGAism for more than a decade have no loyalty to America or the American dream. Their primary allegiance is to the dictators, autocrats, and oligarchs around the world who enhance the wealth and power of billionaire investors and trans-national corporations. Their long-term goal is to realign American foreign and military policy from supporting global democracy to enforcing global autocracy. 

Trump/Musk/MAGA claim that military and police budgets have to be expanded to protect us and our families. That's a lie. Our Defense budget is already greater than that of the next eight largest nations combined. Increasing the Pentagon budget while cutting domestic spending has nothing to do with defending the American people and everything to do with increasing the largess lavished on defense-contractor campaign contributors over the health, safety, education, housing, and well-being of the American people.

Trump/Musk/MAGA claim that they are cutting "waste and fraud." That too is a lie. If it were true, they'd start with Defense Department spending that is so corrupted by fraud and waste that it has never (ever) passed a legally-required annual audit as all other federal departments have done. Instead, on Monday, Trump/Musk unilaterally cut more than $1 billion in funding from local school lunches and local food banks. Not only won't that money go to feed hungry children and families, it also won't go to local farmers who rely on government purchases for a portion of their income. Trump/Musk failed to clarify whether feeding the hungry and supporting farm prices was classified as "fraud" or merely "waste."

Inherent in the Vote NO resistance strategy, is the likelihood that Republicans will force a government shutdown to get their way. Such a shutdown will be very painful to both federal workers and We the People. But Trump/Musk's assault on democracy is already causing great pain through mass firings and domestic safety net destruction. There is no easy way to stop Trump/Musk without pain. That's the contradiction of blackmail -- defy the extortionist and suffer pain now, or submit and appease, and suffer much greater pain down the road. 

So our mantra must be "No Cooperation With Autocrats."