Jill Stein on the Importance of the Green Party

See also the related Wild Reed posts:

JILL STEIN
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• Jill Stein in the Twin Cities – October 2024
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• “Americans Deserve Choices”: Jill Stein on Breaking Points – 4/30/24
• “The Next Step Is a Green Step”: Cornel West Endorses Jill Stein (2016)
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election


GREEN PARTY
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• An Opportunity for Organizing Against Duopoly
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear

Kshama Sawant: Independent Working-class Campaigns Can Succeed

It’s absolutely stunning, though not surprising, that Jacobin magazine is regurgitating its op-ed, “Like It or Not, If We Run Third Party, We Will Lose,” from 2020.

The idea that independent working-class campaigns can never succeed was garbage five years ago, and it’s toxic waste today. My organization, Revolutionary Workers, Seattle’s working people, rank-and-file union members, and I are living proof of this. We won four elections and unparalleled working-class victories with me as an independent socialist – no thanks to most of the labor and NGO leaders, and certainly no thanks to the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party has always been a party of the capitalists. Today, it has also become a party of genocide, with its lowest approval rating in 35 years.

Trump and the Republicans are also deeply unpopular.

Working people are furious and fired up to fight against both the genocidal anti-worker parties of the billionaires.

For a supposedly socialist publication to tweet this out at such a time is a criminal abdication of responsibility.

There’s more to this sordid story.

The op-ed’s author, Dustin Guastella, is a leader of the Teamsters union. The Teamster President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention, kissing up to Donald Trump and the equally horrifically anti-worker and Zionist Senator Josh Hawley. The union leadership is also currently pouring tens of thousands of dollars into right-wing Republican candidates. Jacobin is promoting a five-year-old article by a labor leader who is currently hugging openly anti-worker right-wing politicians.

The working class needs to dispense with all the various snakeoil salesmen and build class-struggle campaigns and the antiwar movement independent of both Democrats and Republicans.

I’m running for the U.S. Congress against genocidal Democrat Adam Smith. I’m fighting to end the genocide, end all U.S. military funding to Israel, and end the brutal Israeli occupation. I’m also campaigning for free healthcare for all, funded by taxing the rich, and for national rent control. Join us at KshamaSawant.org.

– Kshama Sawant
via social media
August 14, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
Kshama Sawant, a Seattle Socialist, to Challenge Veteran WA Democratic Congressman – Jerry Cornfield (Washington State Standard, June 2, 2025).
Kshama Sawant: How Socialists Beat the Democrats in Seattle – On Strike! (December 15, 2023).
Left Parties Advanced in the 2024 U.S. Election – Alan Zundel (Political Dharma, March 5, 2025).
Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism – The Humanist Report (March 6, 2025).
Jill Stein and Kshama Sawant on the Fight the Rich Movement – Sabby Sabs (January 26, 2025).
Trump Is Unpopular – and So Are the Do-Nothing Democrats – Jeet Heer (The Nation, February 18, 2025).
You Don’t Actually Need to Pick a Team – Caitlin Johnstone (CaitlinJohnston.substack, February 21, 2025).
The Left Can Only Win If There is a Left – Richard Moser (CounterPunch, August 2, 2024).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• A Timely and Important Conversation
• History Matters
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• Breaking the Mold: Why Progressives Should Push for Marianne Williamson to Lead the DNC
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election
• “A New Chapter of the Democratic Party Needs to Begin”
• What the Republican Party Now Stands For
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• Jill Stein: “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• Butch Ware: “You Can Actually Vote Your Conscience”
• Peter Bloom on the Unmasking of the “Democratic Charade”
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Centrist/Corporatist Democrats Have Just Launched “Left Punching” Season
• “Americans Deserve Choices”: Jill Stein on Breaking Points – 4/30/24
• AOC Falls in Line
• The Cassandra of U.S. Politics on the “True State of the Union”
• Will Democrats Never Learn?
• “The Next Step Is a Green Step”: Cornel West Endorses Jill Stein (2016)
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making?
• Hope Over Fear: Voting Green

The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota

This past week the Democratic Party in Minnesota took the unprecedented step of revoking the Minneapolis chapter’s endorsement for mayor, which went to democratic socialist state senator Omar Fateh after he won the overwhelming support of delegates at the chapter’s endorsing convention last month. You may recall that I attended this event as a voluteer with the Fateh campaign.

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, or DFL, as the Democratic Party is known in Minnesota, cited a “flawed” voting process in its decision to revoke its endorsement of Fateh.

“Twenty-eight party insiders voted to take away our endorsement behind closed doors,” Fateh said in response to the announcement.

Fateh is taking on incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, who is running for his third term. The democratic socialist has drawn comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, who clinched the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York earlier this year.

At its deepect level, the revoking of Fateh’s DFL endorsement is a surfacing of the long-standing fault lines within the Democratic Party that are increasingly threatening to tear it apart. They are fault lines between progressives and liberals/moderates, between the needs of the people and monied interests, between actual democracy within the party and a heavy-handed undemocratic approach by party elites and their consulting groups.

Back in 2020 these fault lines were readily seen both nationally and locally. The image above depicts prominent members of the Democratic Party, many of whom were candidates in the 2020 presidential race, as opposing members of the Avengers superhero group. It’s actually a play on the poster for the 2016 movie Captain America: Civil War. Progressives Bernie Sanders, Nina Turner, Marianne Williamson, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jessie Jackson are pictured at left in opposition to “moderates” Joe Biden, Amy Klobacher, Pete Buttigieg, and Andrew Yang.

In Minnesota that year, the fault lines emerged in the contest between progressive Democratic state representative Ilhan Omar and her liberal (so-called “centrist”) Democratic challenger Antone Melton-Meaux. Just before the election (which Omar won), artist and community organizer Ricardo Levins Morales wrote a thoughtful and insightful commentary on the deeper meaning and signifance of the Omar/Melton-Meaux race. At one point he noted the following.

The deepest political fault line separating Melton-Meaux from Omar is the one between the struggle for inclusion and the struggle for transformation, a long-standing divide within colonized, exploited and marginalized communities. Inclusionists demand equal participation at all levels of the empire and its institutions while transformationists call for fundamental change. Under the racial capitalist politics of the United States, competition among populations is necessary to keep the threat of real solidarity at bay. The price of inclusion, therefore, is always betrayal.

Fast forward to today. Many Minneapolis residents feel betrayed by what they see as Mayor Jacob Frey’s record of broken promises, excessive vetoes, and loyalty to wealthy donors. These residents are ready for change, for the type of transformation that Levins Morales so eloquently spoke of back in 2020.

Omar Fateh is seen as a change agent. As one supporter recently posted on Facebook: “Omar has shown he’s not just another politician – he’s a movement. While others cling to insider deals and big-money donors, he’s standing firmly with working people, amplifying the voices of residents who are too often ignored. The establishment may try to block him, but the people of Minneapolis are rallying behind him because they see in him an incoming mayor who fights for justice, equity, and real change.”

I’ll close with four more insightful perspectives on the Minneapolis mayoral race and what it reveals about the Democratic Party and its fault lines.

_____________________

The decision to revoke Omar Fateh’s endorsement will ultimately harm the DFL party.

By withdrawing this endorsement, the party is effectively acknowledging that THEIR process was flawed. A process that was managed by DFL-selected officers.

This decision is both unfair and illogical. If the officers responsible, all dedicated DFL volunteers, erred in their actions and judgments, the appropriate course of action would be to suspend those individuals and outline a strategy to rectify their mistakes.

A truly democratic, equitable and intelligent approach would involve owning up to the oversight and allowing ALL candidates access to the advantages of the DFL endorsement. This embodies inclusion.

The DFL stands to gain significantly from endorsing all candidates. Especially when we have a good group of recognized Black leaders running. Their endorsement will encourage greater voter registration, greater voter participation in a highly democratic area, bolster party promotion, and enhance overall recognition and support of the DFL. Bringing more individuals into the fold translates to increased numbers, recognition and growth for the party.

It's truly disheartening to see how the prevailing deficit mentality of powerful people behind this decision is only sowing seeds of division, bitterness and discord. These actions threaten to further divide our communities and our collective efforts to grow the Party. It could have dire consequences for the DFL.

Omar Fateh’s campaign remains robust, and I firmly believe that this revocation will not undermine his standing; rather, it has galvanized our determination to back him even more wholeheartedly.

The DFL risks losing a substantial amount – its credibility and probably the enthusiastic support of critical constituencies. I’m worried about the Party’s future.

– Patricia Torres Ray
via social media
August 21, 2025

The controversy around the DFL party nomination of Omar Fateh is illustrative of the fault lines around monied interests in politics roiling both the national and state Democratic parties, tinged with our own Minnesota brand of racism and classism. After all, if a white man named Jacob – supported by the corporate power structure – had won the party nomination no one would be complaining about the flawed process at the convention, and the process is always flawed. This is simply a case of corrupt Frey allies unwillingness to accept their loss and are blaming the process instead of the candidate's inability to garner support. I’m concerned about the message this action sends to people of color in the party, and especially in our East African community. While Ilhan Omar’s success is something to be proud of, it feels like representation in the party is okay as long as it’s not local and as long as it doesn’t upset the status quo in city politics. I hope it leads to increased activism rather than nihilism, and I suspect that it might.

– Brian Geving
via social media
August 23, 2025

8/25/25 UPDATE . . .

I want to take a moment to say thank you.

When the DFL made the unfair decision to overturn our endorsement win, I didn’t know how folks across Minneapolis would respond. But then hundreds of you showed up on Saturday to rally, knock doors, and show this campaign the kind of love and energy that can’t be ignored.

That support means everything to me – and it shows that despite what party insiders may do behind closed doors, this movement is alive and stronger than ever.

But now we need to turn this energy into action. We’re building toward November, and to keep up the fight, we need the grassroots support that has always fueled our campaign. If you’re able, will you make a donation today to help us come back stronger than ever.

– Omar Fateh
via social media
August 25, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
Minnesota DFL Revokes Endorsement for Omar Fateh in Minneapolis Mayoral Race – Naasir Akailvi (KARE 11 News, August 21, 2025).
Rep. Ilhan Omar Condemns Party’s Decision to Throw Out Fateh Endorsement – Torey Van Oot (Axios, August 21, 2025).
Minnesota Democrats Endorse Socialist Omar Fateh for Mayor Over Incumbent Democrat Jacob Frey – AllSides (July 21, 2025).
Who Is Omar Fateh? Mamdani of Minneapolis Faces MAGA Abuse – Kate Plummer (Newsweek, July 15, 2025).
CAIR-Minnesota Condemns Anti-Muslim, Racist Hate Targeting Sen. Omar Fateh Amid Rising Political Violence – CAIR-Minnesota (July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Gets Its Own Mamdani – Kayla Bartsch (National Review, July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Omar Fateh Faces Racist Trolling: “Go to Mogadishu” – Times of India (July 14, 2025).
Omar Fateh Will Work Across the Aisle If Elected Mayor – Melody Hoffmann (Southwest Voices, April 2, 2025).

UPDATES: The State DFL Spits on the Minneapolis DFL – Steve Timmer (LeftMN, August 23, 2025).
Democrats in Minnesota Revoke the Mayoral Endorsement of Omar Fateh – I Am Blakeley (August 23, 2025).
DFL Reverses Omar Fateh Endorsement – Left Reckoning (August 26, 2025).
Minnesota Democrats Stab Omar Fateh in the Back – Concernicus (August 27, 2025).
People “Are Tired of Backroom Decisions”: A Conversation With Minneapolis’s Omar Fateh – Peter Lucas (The Nation, September 5, 2025).
Omar Fateh Has All the Right Enemies – Alex Skopic (Current Affairs, September 5, 2025).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Something to Think About – July 25, 2025
• In His Efforts to “Build a City That Works for All,” Omar Fateh Secures a Key Endorsement
• A “Racist and Factless Meltdown” Over Omar Fateh
• Omar | Jazz | DeWayne
• What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025
• How Democrats Can Start Winning Again
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• “A New Chapter of the Democratic Party Needs to Begin”
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System” (2022)
• Will Democrats Never Learn? (2021)
• Marianne Williamson on the Contest Being Played Out by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders (2020)
• Ricardo Levins Morales on the “Deepest Political Fault Line” Separating Democrats Ilhan Omar and Antone Melton-Meaux (2020)

“We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”

Marianne Williamson on The Keith Edwards Show
– 8/17/25

Author and former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has been positively shaping the conversation around politics and spirituality for decades. I’ve come to greatly appreciate her informed and insightful perspective.

Recently, Williamson was a guest on The Keith Edwards Show. It’s a great 30-minute interview with a woman whom I consider the “Cassandra of U.S. politics,” and whom philosopher and social critic Cornel West says is “one of the few in the higher echelons of public life and public conversation who understand the intimate relation between the spiritual and the social, the personal and the political, and the existential and the economic.”

Continues West: “It’s very rare that people have this synoptic vision, [one that ensures that] spirituality, morality, and integrity sit at the center and at the beginning of any serious discussion about the relation of a self and a society.”

Just such a discussion takes place in Keith Edward’s interview with Marianne Williamson.





Related Off-site Links:
The Militarization of America – Marianne Williamson (Transform, August 13, 2025).
Hello, Fascism – Christopher Impiglia (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
Trump White House Says Military Occupation of Nation’s Capital Set to Expand – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
Trump’s Military Occupation of D.C. Egged On by Corporate Lobbyists: Report – Stephen Prager (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
Trump’s D.C. Takeover Is an Ominous Move – Chauncey DeVega (Salon, August 12, 2025).
Trump Isn’t Liberating D.C. He’s Subduing It – William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift (The Bulwark, August 12, 2025).
Black D.C. Is Center Stage in the Opening Act of Trump’s Authoritarian Rehearsal – Stacey Patton (Newsone, August 12, 2025).
Federalizing Fear: Trump Turns D.C. Into a Stage for Authoritarian Power – James Greenberg (James’s Substack, August 12, 2025).
“This Isn’t Normal!” Secret Pentagon Plan for Troops to Put Down Local “Unrest” Nationwide – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, August 12, 2025).
Trump’s Takeover: ACLU on Federalizing D.C. Police and Deploying 800 National Guard – Democracy Now! (August 12, 2025).
Trump Is Testing Martial Law in D.C. – TrumpFile.org (August 11, 2025).
The Rule of Law Is Dead in the U.S. – Elie Mystal (The Nation, July 30, 2025).
The Fascists Are Trying to Break You, Good People. Don’t Let Them – John Pavlovitz (The Beautiful Mess, July 17, 2025).

UPDATES: Trump’s Gestapo-Style Raids Mimic Nazi Dictatorship Playbook – Chuck Idelson (Common Dreams, August 25, 2025).
America Tips Into Fascism – Garrett Graff (Doomsday Scenario, August 25, 2025).
The U.S. Is Becoming What It Once Fought Against – The Australian Independent Media Network (August 26, 2025).
“No Trump! No Troops!” Thousands March in Chicago as President Threatens “War” – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, September 8, 2025).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
• “He Is Enacting an Authoritarian Agenda”: Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Living in Very Serious Times and We Need to Be Very Serious People”
• Brent Molnar on the “Cold War in Our Own House”
• “This Is Fascism”
• James Greenberg: “The Choices We Make Matter”
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
• Brent Molnar on the MAGA Cult and Its Intentions
• The Declaration of Resistance
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• “This Is How Democracy Unravels”
• Speaking Truth to Power
• Marianne Williamson on MSNBC’s The Weekend – 1/12/25
• Breaking the Mold: Why Progressives Should Push for Marianne Williamson to Lead the DNC
• Marianne Williamson Is Seeking to Restore Honesty and Integrity to the DNC
• Marianne Williamson Makes Her Case for Being the Next DNC Chair
• Marianne Williamson on the Kind Mind Podcast– 12/2/24
• Marianne Williamson on How Centrist Democrats Abuse Voters with False Promises
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy (2020)
• Saying “No” to Trump and His Fascist Agenda (2016)

Jay Jay Douglas on the Consequences of Having a Good Heart

Ever noticed how the world drains the people who feel the deepest? The ones with soft hearts that carry the heaviest loads? Not because they’re weak but because they refuse to become what hurt them.

You see, what we don’t talk about enough is the emotional tax of being good in a selfish world. You show up with love; they show up with agendas. You give to build; they take to survive. It’s like being fluent in a language that no one wants to understand anymore. You speak soul; they speak convenience.

And then you’re left wondering: Is there something wrong with me? No, there’s something right with you.

But right doesn’t always feel rewarding at first. The truth is that having a good heart comes with consequences. You will be underestimated. You will be misused. You will be overlooked by people who confuse your peace with passivity. But here’s the real gut-check: Stop expecting people with shallow intentions to handle your heart like it’s sacred. It’s not their job to protect it. It’s your job to guard it without guilt.

So, no, don’t stop loving. Don’t stop caring. But stop letting your love be the lesson for people who refuse to learn.

– Jay Jay Douglas
via social media
July 6, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
The Place of Surrender – Jay Jay Douglas (via YouTube, May 26, 2025).
The Psychology of Deep Thinkers – Psychatic (June 23, 2025).
Let Go of the People Who Aren’t Ready to Love You – Brianna Wiest (Thought Catalog, December 30, 2019).

See also the following Wild Reed posts:
• In the Abode of the Heart
• Moving Among Mysteries
• Something Worth Remembering
• Walking Away
• A Prayer for a Changed Relationship
• Taking the High Road
• Surrendering in Sacred Trust
• Seeking Higher Perceptions
• The Guidance of Higher Forces
• The Empty Beach
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All

Going Deeper to Change Everything

Author and former progressive Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has a new video series called “Metaphysical Minute.”

The content of today’s “minute” really speaks to me. Perhaps it will speak deeply to you too.

Everything you need is either right in front of you and you may or may not be seeing it, or it’s on its way and your job is to ready yourself to receive it. Go deeper with where you are, what you’re doing, and who you’re with right now. The vertical work is as important as the horizontal. That’s when the miracle happens.

– Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from “Metaphysical Minute”
August 17, 2025

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Marianne Williamson: “Repairing Our Hearts Is Essential to Repairing Our Country”
• The Choice Before Us
• Becoming Miracle Workers
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Living at a Time of Spiritual Evolution”
• Cultivating Stillness
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Marianne Williamson
• Gifts of Abundance
• An Expression of True Humility
• My Daily Mantra of Late
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Dwelling in Peace
• Being the Light
• Pollyanna, “Miracle Worker”
• Something to Think About – January 19, 2024

The Strongest Force in the Universe

The following is attributed to Joy Harjo.

Love is the strongest force in the universe. We must keep walking in the direction of love, no matter what we hear and see around us. No matter our human failures. No matter what happens, or appears to happen. And if we are thankful for that love, the power magnifies. Forgiveness is a process of love. Love is not bound by religion, belief system, or man-made laws. Our human minds cannot comprehend the immensity of it. We are lit by it, or we would not be here. Some smother the light with fear and acts of fear. Others tend their light and they light the world. Breath feeds the light. Breathe deep today, and continue walking toward that which will enlighten, no matter what burdens you are carrying of shame, grief, or fear. No one can buy their way or push their way ahead of everyone else. We are all in this together.

See also the previous posts:
• What We Crave
• The Longing for Love: God’s Primal Beatitude
• The Holy Pleasure of Intimacy
• To Be Alive Is to Love
• No Altar More Sacred
• To Know and Be Known
• To Be Held and to Hold
• What We Mean By Love
• Like a Sure Thing
• Love as Exploring Vulnerability
• Intimate Soliloquies
• Dew[y]-Kissed
• The Gravity of Love
• Passion, Tide and Time
• “Make Us Lovers, God of Love”
• The Art of Surrender
• Real Holiness
• Vessels of the Holy
• Love as “Quest and Daring and Growth”
• Lovemaking: Pathway to Truth, Harmony and Wholeness
• The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace
• Meeting (and Embodying) the Lover God
• Our Lives as LGBTQI People: “Garments Grown in Love”
• “There’s Light in Love, You See”
• Love at Love’s Brightest
• Liberated to Be Together
• It’s You . . .

Image: Subjects and photographer unknown.

“It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”

We are no longer teetering on the edge of authoritarianism. We are here. And the most horrifying part is we’re still going to work, booking vacations, making dinner plans, as if nothing has changed.

I keep hearing people say, I just don’t watch the news it’s too depressing. I need to get away from it all. But there is no “away.” There is no escape from what has arrived and is hardening in place.

Washington, D.C., is now under the control of the U.S. military and the Justice Department. ICE is prowling our neighborhoods, snatching people off the streets and deporting them. Universities are cutting deals with the federal government. Law firms are agreeing to stand down in the fight against totalitarianism. And presiding over it all is Führer Trump, stealing billions through crypto while keeping it deregulated so the grift never ends.

A few years ago, if someone described these events happening in another country, you’d call it what it is: a dictatorship, no different in spirit from the Soviet Union. Now it’s here, and we are sleepwalking through it.

So what do we do? We don’t shut up. We don’t go quiet. We talk about it relentlessly. That might make you bad dinner company, but fuck being polite. Now is the time for getting into good trouble. Support the few brave legislators willing to fight like those in Texas. Vote for leaders with the courage to stand up like Zohran Mamdani in NYC [and Omar Fateh in Minneapolis]. And fight voter suppression with everything we’ve got.

The National Guard deployment in D.C., just like the one in L.A., is not about crime. If it were, they’d be fanning out in the states with the highest rates of crime (top 10 per capita are Louisiana Alabama, South Carolina, New Mexico, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas Missouri, Maryland, Alaska) but 8 of those 10 voted for Trump. This is about crushing blue states, silencing opposition, and tightening the grip on power.

Their playbook is almost comical it is so well known by everyone with a 5th grade education: militarize the cities, suppress the vote, muzzle the media, attack the universities, eliminate dissent. The only way to stop it is to fight like hell, organize, take to the streets when needed, and flood the polls.

We have no choice. Lose this fight, and we lose the country. And right now, we are getting our asses kicked.

– Jason Duchin
via social media
August 13, 2025

Duchin’s wake-up call reminds me of Maarva’s posthumous speech from the Star Wars TV series Andor. As I’ve said previously, I can think of no any other TV series that so powerfully captures the political zeitgeist we’re living through, one dominated by the rise of fascism in the U.S. And to be clear, Andor is not predicting this tragic turn of events; rather, as Melanie McFarland accurately observes, it is powerfully reflecting it. For as both Jason Duchin and the Andor character of Maarva remind us: Fascism is here and it’s not visiting anymore. It wants to stay.

And yet we must resist. We must wake-up and, in Maarva’s words, “Fight the empire!”





Now there are many ways to fight the empire, and personally I’m into non-violent resistance. And by “empire” I’m referring to Chris Hedges’s understanding of the American Empire.

It’s the same empire that poet Mary Oliver identifies – one that needs to be named, resisted, and transformed.

Related Off-site Links:
Hello, Fascism – Christopher Impiglia (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
Trump White House Says Military Occupation of Nation’s Capital Set to Expand – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
The Militarization of America – Marianne Williamson (Transform, August 13, 2025).
Trump’s Military Occupation of D.C. Egged On by Corporate Lobbyists: Report – Stephen Prager (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
Trump’s D.C. Takeover Is an Ominous Move – Chauncey DeVega (Salon, August 12, 2025).
Trump Isn’t Liberating D.C. He’s Subduing It – William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift (The Bulwark, August 12, 2025).
Black D.C. Is Center Stage in the Opening Act of Trump’s Authoritarian Rehearsal – Stacey Patton (Newsone, August 12, 2025).
Federalizing Fear: Trump Turns D.C. Into a Stage for Authoritarian Power – James Greenberg (James’s Substack, August 12, 2025).
“This Isn’t Normal!” Secret Pentagon Plan for Troops to Put Down Local “Unrest” Nationwide – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, August 12, 2025).
Trump’s Takeover: ACLU on Federalizing D.C. Police and Deploying 800 National Guard – Democracy Now! (August 12, 2025).
Trump Is Testing Martial Law in D.C. – TrumpFile.org (August 11, 2025).
The Rule of Law Is Dead in the U.S. – Elie Mystal (The Nation, July 30, 2025).
The Fascists Are Trying to Break You, Good People. Don’t Let Them – John Pavlovitz (The Beautiful Mess, July 17, 2025).
How Not to Be Fascist According to Andor (and Jesus) – Bryan Jarrell (Mockingbird, May 20, 2025).

UPDATES: DC Residents’ Anger at Fed Presence Grows as Poll Shows “Overwhelming” Opposition to Trump Takeover – Brad Reed (Common Dreams, August 20, 2025).
“No Trump! No Troops!” Thousands March in Chicago as President Threatens “War” – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, September 8, 2025).
The Corporate Democrats Delivered Donald Trump – Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, October 21, 2025).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• Marisa Kabas: “We’re Witnessing a Coup By an Unelected Billionaire Propped Up By a Felonious President”
• Timothy Snyder on Resisting the Oligarchs’ “Logic of Destruction”
• “This Is Essentially Viktor Orbán’s Playbook”
• “An Extremely Clever Ruse” by and for the Rich: Owen Jones on Elon Musk’s Coup
• “To Be a Rib in This Body of Our Country”
• Quote of the Day – February 21, 2025
• Ralph Nader: “We’re Heading Into the Most Serious Crisis in American History. There’s No Comparison”
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• “This Is How Democracy Unravels”
• Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
• James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”
• Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
• Rep. Ro Khanna: Quote of the Day – June 24, 2025
• “This Is Fascism”
• The Declaration of Resistance
• The Choice Before Us
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• How Democrats Can Start Winning Again
• Brent Molnar on the MAGA Cult and Its Intentions
• James Greenberg: “The Choices We Make Matter”
• Brent Molnar on the “Cold War in Our Own House”
• “He Is Enacting an Authoritarian Agenda”: Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement

See also:
• Trump’s Playbook (2016)
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump
• On International Human Rights Day, Saying “No” to Trump and His Fascist Agenda
• Trump’s America: Normalized White Supremacy and a Rising Tide of Racist Violence (2017)
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy (2020)
• “Fascism Is Upon Us”
• Trump’s Legacy
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2020 U.S. Election Results
• “As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
• Republicans Pose an “Existential Threat” to American Democracy (2021)
• Chauncey Devega on the Ongoing Danger of the Trump Cult (2022)
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “How Can One Overreact to a Mortal Threat to American Democracy?”
• Historian Nancy MacLean: The Threat to American Democracy Is at “Red-Alert Stage”
• “Come for the Racism, Stay for the Autocracy”
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election

Image: Soldiers drive a Stryker infantry carrier vehicle in the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday parade on June 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

A Call to Divest from Israel

I share this evening some photographs I took at a rally I attended on Sunday, August 3 outside of the official residence of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. (As you can see at right, I wore my “Omar Fateh for Minneapolis Mayor” t-shirt.)

This event was organized by the Minneapolis-based Anti-War Committee which since last May has been trying to persuade the Saint Paul Board of Water Commissioners to end its cyber security contract with the Israeli company, Waterfall Security Solutions. They have refused to do so, saying that the twin issues of Israeli apartheid and genocide are matters of “personal opinion.”

We gathered on August 3 to urge Gov. Walz to use his position and influence to end the Board of Water Commissioners’ contract with Israel, to do everything he can to divest Minnesota from the apartheid Israeli regime which continues to conduct a genocide in Gaza, a genocide that our tax dollars – both federal and state – are funding.

We also sought to convey the message that economic isolation works. Such a non-violent strategy succeeded, for instance, in ending apartheid in South Africa in the late 1980s. We believe it’s a strategy that can and should now be used to stop Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.

NEXT:
Idrees Ahmad: Quote of the Day
– August 25, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
Saint Paul Board of Water Commissioners’ Meeting Shut Down by Palestine Solidarity – Mike Madden (Fight Back News, August 12, 2025).
Much Ado About Nothing: Tim Walz’s Empty Words on Gaza – David R. Weiss (Full Frontal Faith, September 16, 2024).

UPDATES: “Full of Tears,” 1,000 Palestinian Children Graduate From Gaza School for Orphans – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, August 19, 2025).
“Betrayal of Humanity”: Nearly Half of 383 Aid Workers Killed Last Year Were in Gaza – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, August 19, 2025).
As Israeli Genocide Intensifies, Majority of Americans Support Palestinian Statehood – Stephen Prager (Common Dreams, August 20, 2025).
The U.S. Can End the Gaza Genocide Now – Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares (Common Dreams, August 20, 2025).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “It’s a Systematic Slaughter That We’re Funding”
• Protesting Weapons Manufacturer and Genocide Enabler General Dynamics
• “This Is a Genocidal Project”
• “A Year of War Against Children”
• Protesting Israel’s “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza
• Israel’s Actions in Gaza: “A Clear and Present Moral Collapse”

“He Is Enacting an Authoritarian Agenda”: Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement

Khalil Gibran Muhammad is a professor of African American studies and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is also the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.

Earlier today, Muhammad was a guest on Democracy Now! where he offered the following perspective on President Trump’s recent federal takeover of law enforcement in Washington, D.C. This takeover is being justified by Trump’s contention that the capital is awash in violent crime, including crimes being perpetrated by “roving mobs of wild youth.”

__________________

We are seeing a consistent pattern from Donald Trump. We can start with [his] calls for the return of the death penalty in 1989 in reference to the rape of a white woman in Central Park, which ultimately led to the conviction of five innocent young Black boys. Donald Trump has never apologized for that moment. . . . [T]his is a man who has consistently scapegoated Black and Brown people to either gain celebrity or political capital. And now as president the second time, he is enacting an authoritarian agenda, in which case the militarization of law enforcement and the deployment of law enforcement assets to either coerce or control scapegoated populations, as we saw in Los Angeles recently, is consistent.

And this is, in particular, an escalation, because while he tested the waters in deploying the Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, now we see the takeover of a local police department. And while he has the right to do so, at least for a limited period, it’s not clear that he’s going to stop. He’s calling for the same in New York. He’s calling for the same in Chicago.

And I just want to remind everyone that the Trump administration elected in 2016 came in riding on a lie about “American carnage” in American cities. This was also a period of dramatically declined crime rates and violent crime rates, in particular, across U.S. cities. So, there is nothing here that is factual in terms of the pretext for the calls [for the federal takeover of local law enforcement]. What is consistent is Donald Trump’s use of racist rhetoric, racist ideas, and the use of policing to enact a domestic policy agenda.

. . . Donald Trump doesn’t care about any rule of law. What he cares about is flexing the power of the executive branch of government against so-called enemies. And as long as he can get away with it, without congressional oversight, and with a claim of a popular mandate, which, of course, is not entirely true from the election, [he will] get away with it. And it is a slide towards a fascism. All of this is [a] textbook [case of fascism from] around the world. And we ought to be deeply concerned about the future of all of us with respect to the capacity of this particular president to use and threaten a coercive state violence against his so-called enemies.

. . . [A] global perspective is very helpful here. We’ve seen this same president threaten to turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East. That is a massive population experiencing ethnic cleansing and genocide. . . . [Here] in the United States, [Trump is] criminaliz[ing] people who are victims of an unequal society, [people] who have not found the resources to support the healthcare and housing needs; the criminalization of poverty by local officials. [Trump is] essentially threatening to turn those populations into criminal populations — that is, to treat them as if their poverty is a crime. Again, this is consistent with the policies of this administration when it comes to people, both in the U.S. and in Gaza and other parts of the world.

– Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Excerpted from “‘Slide Towards Fascism’:
Khalil Gibran Muhammad on the
Racist Roots of Trump D.C. Takeover”
Democracy Now!
August 13, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
Hello, Fascism – Christopher Impiglia (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
Trump White House Says Military Occupation of Nation’s Capital Set to Expand – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
The Militarization of America – Marianne Williamson (Transform, August 13, 2025).
Trump’s Military Occupation of D.C. Egged On by Corporate Lobbyists: Report – Stephen Prager (Common Dreams, August 13, 2025).
“Duty to Disobey”: A Stunning Number of U.S. Troops Know They Can Defy Trump’s Orders – Charli Carpenter and Geraldine Santoso (The Conversation, August 13, 2025).
Trump’s D.C. Takeover Is an Ominous Move – Chauncey DeVega (Salon, August 12, 2025).
Trump Isn’t Liberating D.C. He’s Subduing It – William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift (The Bulwark, August 12, 2025).
Black D.C. Is Center Stage in the Opening Act of Trump’s Authoritarian Rehearsal – Stacey Patton (Newsone, August 12, 2025).
Federalizing Fear: Trump Turns D.C. Into a Stage for Authoritarian Power – James Greenberg (James’s Substack, August 12, 2025).
“This Isn’t Normal!” Secret Pentagon Plan for Troops to Put Down Local “Unrest” Nationwide – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, August 12, 2025).
Trump’s Takeover: ACLU on Federalizing D.C. Police and Deploying 800 National Guard – Democracy Now! (August 12, 2025).
End the Colonial Occupation of Washington D.C.: The People Demand Self-Determination and Self-Governance – The Black Alliance for Peace (August 12, 2025).
Trump Is Testing Martial Law in D.C. – TrumpFile.org (August 11, 2025).
Trump Orders Homeless People He Passed En Route to Golf Course to Leave Washington D.C. – Robert Mackey (The Guardian, August 10, 2025).
The Rule of Law Is Dead in the U.S. – Elie Mystal (The Nation, July 30, 2025).
The Fascists Are Trying to Break You, Good People. Don’t Let Them – John Pavlovitz (The Beautiful Mess, July 17, 2025).

UPDATES: “We Are Fighting to Stop It”: D.C. Attorney General Sues to Block Trump Takeover of City Police – Brad Reed (Common Dreams, August 15, 2025).
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Tells Trump to Stay Out; Decries Authoritarianism and War on Poor People – Democracy Now! (August 15, 2025).
House Democrats Unveil Bill to End “Unlawful” Trump Takeover of D.C. – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, August 15, 2025).
DC Residents’ Anger at Fed Presence Grows as Poll Shows “Overwhelming” Opposition to Trump Takeover – Brad Reed (Common Dreams, August 20, 2025).
“No Trump! No Troops!” Thousands March in Chicago as President Threatens “War” – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, September 8, 2025).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• Marisa Kabas: “We’re Witnessing a Coup By an Unelected Billionaire Propped Up By a Felonious President”
• Timothy Snyder on Resisting the Oligarchs’ “Logic of Destruction”
• “This Is Essentially Viktor Orbán’s Playbook”
• “An Extremely Clever Ruse” by and for the Rich: Owen Jones on Elon Musk’s Coup
• “To Be a Rib in This Body of Our Country”
• Quote of the Day – February 21, 2025
• Ralph Nader: “We’re Heading Into the Most Serious Crisis in American History. There’s No Comparison”
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• “This Is How Democracy Unravels”
• Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
• James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”
• Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
• Rep. Ro Khanna: Quote of the Day – June 24, 2025
• “This Is Fascism”
• The Declaration of Resistance
• The Choice Before Us
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• How Democrats Can Start Winning Again
• Brent Molnar on the MAGA Cult and Its Intentions
• James Greenberg: “The Choices We Make Matter”
• Brent Molnar on the “Cold War in Our Own House”

See also:
• Trump’s Playbook (2016)
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump
• On International Human Rights Day, Saying “No” to Trump and His Fascist Agenda
• Trump’s America: Normalized White Supremacy and a Rising Tide of Racist Violence (2017)
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy (2020)
• “Fascism Is Upon Us”
• Trump’s Legacy
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2020 U.S. Election Results
• “As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
• Republicans Pose an “Existential Threat” to American Democracy (2021)
• Chauncey Devega on the Ongoing Danger of the Trump Cult (2022)
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “How Can One Overreact to a Mortal Threat to American Democracy?”
• Historian Nancy MacLean: The Threat to American Democracy Is at “Red-Alert Stage”
• “Come for the Racism, Stay for the Autocracy”
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election