I recently saw the most excellent
film Star Wars: The Last Jedi in which I heard the term Resistance mentioned at least a couple of dozen times in reference
to the Resistance against the New Order’s Supreme Leader Snoke.
Back to reality, back to 2017 in
the galaxy of our own country, we are witnessing the conclusion of the first
year of our own version of the Supreme Leader’s term—a period for a consistent
solid majority of Americans whose emotions had fluctuated somewhere between disheartening
to disdain. During Star Wars: The Last Jedi I
mused what happened to the Resistance against President Donald Trump that had debuted
with the incredible Women’s March a mere day after the inauguration.
This majority of Americans see
Trump’s election as illegitimate. All
U.S. intelligence services concluded that Russia hacked into the Democratic
National Committee’s emails and found a way to strategically release the
contents with the sole goal of helping Trump win the election while disparaging
candidate Hillary Clinton. That Russia, a
foreign adversary, sought to meddle in our election process and most likely
succeeded in installing the candidate of that government’s preference, has been
accepted as fact by everyone but curiously Trump and his hard core supporters.
Whether the Trump campaign aided
that effort is an open question and is the subject of investigations by House
and Senate committees as well as the probe headed by Special Counsel Robert S,
Mueller III.
Despite Trump’s denials, most
Americans saw this election as tainted, and cries of “Resistance” were echoed
throughout social media. Following the
Women’s March whereby stunningly several millions of people participated in
Washington, D.C. and in any one of over 600 satellite demonstrations around the
country to protest Trump’s presidency, there was unexpected momentum to the Resistance.
To be sure, Twitter and Facebook
were abuzz with #Resistance, but what actually transpired?
There were sporadic
demonstrations following the ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim
nations, the pullout from the Paris Climate agreement, the rescinding of protections
for the children of undocumented immigrants among other actions.
Then the protests seemed to
quiet down though resistance
manifested itself in several special elections where opposition to Trump was
apparent in the level of turnout and enthusiasm highlighted by the upset win by
Doug Jones in Alabama. The opposition to
Trump at the ballot box by dint of energy and enthusiasm is a strong indicator
that Democrats will experience a successful mid-term election in November 2018.
Clearly, the street
demonstrations, which harness the energy of the opposition, seemed to wane a
bit. This has been surprising given the
unpopularity of the president and the dispiriting actions he has taken in his
first term. I thought there would be
protests nearly every weekend to, if nothing else, prove to the narcissistic
president that he is not adored and worshipped as he would love everyone to
believe.
However, according to a report
in the Washington Post things may change if Trump derails the Mueller investigation.
Opponents of the president have
been hoping upon hope that the findings from the probe will ultimately lead to
the impeachment of the president. While collusion with the Russians may be a
more daunting task to prove, obstruction of justice—the crime that eventually
brought down President Richard M. Nixon—appears more cut and dry to the
resistors. They are banking on the
Mueller investigation as means to truncate Trump’s term and rid the nation of
the stain he has imposed on the country and around the globe.
The Post states that tens of thousands of protesters will be storming
the streets within hours should the president fire Mueller.
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| Photo courtesy of The Daily Beast |
More than two dozen progressive
organizations, say the Post, have spent the past several weeks lining up
what they vow would be an immediate response that would be hard to ignore.
“Using an online portal that
links the various groups and their contact lists, more than 140,000 people have
registered to begin protesting within hours of Trump's decision, at
predetermined locations in more than 600 cities.
The protests are designed to
harness what organizers predict would be a wave of nationwide outrage that
would follow Trump's action, which Democrats in Congress warn could trigger a
constitutional crisis.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that if Trump fires Mueller before 2 p.m., the demonstrations would begin
at 5 p.m. that day. They would begin at noon the following day if Trump
were to act after 2 p.m. Organizers in New York already have stockpiled
bullhorns in apartments near Times Square, the would-be location of the New
York City demonstration.
It is unclear if President Trump
will take the political risk of stifling the investigation. Right wing media
including Trump-TV (Fox News) have been cajoling him to do so citing flimsy
evidence of partisanship among the Mueller team.
Regardless, activists are taking
no chances and preparing to unleash the fury should Trump interfere. It is questionable if Republican members of
Congress who insisted early on that the “red line” of stopping the
investigation cannot be crossed, will put country over party. I’m taking bets.
We will wait and see what
transpires. As in the case of the Resistance to the New Order in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the action
here in the U.S. could make for an interesting sequel.
