uprising Archives · Zepp's Commentaries

Aprés le deluge

As Trump falls, we must rise

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 25^th, 2026

David Brin wrote to some unknown person on Facebook yesterday: I have got to repost this utter MALARKEY! If you issue a sanctimonious yowl like this one, while knowing nothing at all about how hard Bernie+AOC+Liz worked WITH Pelosi+Biden+Schomer in 2021-22… the one year in the last 20 when democrats had power, then all you are is a self-righteous ignoramus.

These are strong, smart people, fighting for us daily and WE LET THEM DOWN, not the other way around!

Try actually knowing something before yowling your smarmy righteous trap, hm? You could start here https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/08/five-devastating-rebuttals-to-use-with.html

Am I pleased with them? Not entirely. They are horrible tacticians. Are YOU better?

Try out my own proposed Newer Deal tactics and reforms

https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-contract-part-three-aggressive.html

Me: Do you propose we just forgive and forget the Trump administration?

Brin: You can go to hell. Masturbatory sanctimony is not restricted to MAGA. I have worked harder and more effectively against the madness on any given day than you have in the last YEAR and yet you are SO righteous! Whatever. If you are not a Kremlin bot you might as well be.

Me: In these times, telling me to go to hell is probably superfluous. You’re a better writer than that. But it’s a legitimate question: should we just forgive and forget?

OK, for anyone who thought the exchange is a bit startling, Brin and I go back a decade, and we’ve always had a contentious relationship. I suspect he thinks of me as some wet-behind-the-ears college sophomore with a single class in polisci, and he in the role of the irascible and hidebound professor from The Practice Effect.

The thing about Brin is he likes to challenge people to think. That why he does what he does for a living, and he’s very good at it. I’ve been reading him for 40 years, and a fair chuck of my philosophy grew from his observations. He hasn’t posted a reply as of now, but anything beyond “I’m David Brin and you’re not” I’ll be sure to include.

So: the issue was whether we should forgive and forget with the Trump regime. My answer in a nutshell is “Forgive? Sometimes. Forget? Never. But this regime must go.”

It’s the day after the election, and despite Trump and Elon’s best efforts, the Dems have gained 40 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate (which is what the conservative reading of the polls suggests.). They have clear working majorities in both houses. The notion of Trump wielding unchallenged and nearly absolute authority has ended, and an era has effectively ended.

Now, it may be amusing to consider little old ladies sitting around knitting while the guillotines chop, chop, chop, but remember—it took France decades just to achieve the hideously poor standard of living it had before the revolution, and the bloodshed didn’t stop with les aristos. Revolutions may be stirring, but are always a shit idea. Even the American revolution, lauded as a “successful revolution” involved at least one subsequent government collapse, widespread popular revolts, and about 40 years before living standards for the plebs reached the levels they enjoyed under the oppressive English. I’m not praising the blood and horror and terror; I’m just pointing out that even without them, revolutions never work out well for at least decades. So let’s put post-revolutionary bloodbaths on the back burner, OK?

The flip side is excessive forgiveness. People point to the Civil War and Reconstruction as a gleaming example of how “With malice toward none, with charity for all,” bound up the nation’s wounds. But Lincoln got shot, and his successor, a southern Democrat, helped to dismantled the social progressive ideas that might have actually reformed the South, and as a result, we’re still fighting that fucking war in myriad ways.

Ford’s pardon of Nixon was a body blow to America: rather than heal, it grievously hurt the long-held belief that government could always be held accountable, and the Republicans learned they Could Get Away With It. Treason was already on their minds:

Nixon’s subversion of the Paris peace talks got him elected and extended the war two more years to no gain. He didn’t pay for that.

Reagan subverted negotiations over the hostage crisis, arranging with gleeful Iranian ayatollahs to delay the release of the hostages until after the election. He paid no price.

Reagan traded arms for hostages, and some of those arms led to the massacre of over 200 Marines in Beirut a few years later. He paid no price.

George Bush Jr ginned up wars with Afghanistan and Iraq, on the totally ersatz ground that Afghanistan was involved in 9/11 and Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He paid no price.

Is it any wonder that Trump and the fascists propping up his regime felt no compunctions about running roughshod over all laws and decency and honor? They are convinced nobody would make them pay.

Brin is furious that people don’t trust New Democrats to finally make a stand and make the fascists pay for their undeniable crimes. “But they are with us on social democracy and justice and the working class and human rights!” he might say. But when it come to fighting the enemies of those laudable ideals, their track record, going all the way back to the Nixon impeachment, has been pitiful. Brin can point to the indisputable accomplishments we’ve seen under Clinton and Obama and Biden, but when it was time to stand for what is right rather than just what is politically popular, most Democratic office holders folded. They couldn’t withstand corporate money and religious fevers and the endless stream of lies from the far right. They couldn’t stand and deliver a stentorian shout of “THIS IS BULLSHIT!” Long after they needed righteous rage, they were mumbling about “taking the high road” against an adversary who sees decency as a weakness.

This may be their best, and possibly final, chance to address that.

The first thing they need to do is assure the general population and surviving Republicans (and the masters the Republicans serve) that efforts to subvert or nullify the results will be met with resistance up to and including street riots, such as the storming of the Parliament that saved South Korean democracy in 2024. These efforts are illegal, treasonous, and the people reserve the right to oppose such by all means necessary. “The tree of liberty…” and so on. We won’t be fighting against the United States; we will be fighting to restore it.

Once the new Congress is installed, the time has come to end the Trump regime once and for all. And the way to do that is by trying the entire Trump administration for treason.

The Constitution reads: Article II, Section 4 says: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Now add this: Article III, Section 3, 2 which says: The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

This means that on majority votes, the Senate can remove Trump, Vance, and the Cabinet in one fell swoop.

This doesn’t mean mass executions or even punishment: it limits the consequences to removal from office. Criminal trials, if any, will fall under the purview of the judicial system and by existing law, which is as it should be.

This means the Speaker of the House to become President, and with concurrence of the Senate, select a new vice president.

Then begins the tedious process of clearing out the corruption in all the government agencies. As a matter of precedence, all Senate appointees turn in resignations upon the seating of a new administration. The new Senate will have the ability to reappoint or not.

All agencies, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security in particular, must evaluate all persons employed under the Trump regime, and if they have not meet the standards for employment established by law before Trump, be on probationary status until they can meet the requirements, including background checks, educational attainment requirements, and demonstrations of general competence and knowledge for the jobs they hold. All resignations will be accepted “without prejudice.” Yes, some evil bastards may skate, but a lot more bastards and incompetents will accept the deal for the sake of a quiet life without stigma.

Trump appointed judges will deserve scrutiny from various existing judicial review boards, but don’t assume all, or even many such appointees are corrupt. In Trump’s endless interactions with the legal system, most Trump-appointed judges involved have proved honest. The Supreme Court, on the other hand…well, start with inviting them to resign, and we can go from there.

Only after this is under way can political life as we know it return. Democratic centrists and the social democratic left differ not so much in the right directions to take, but rather how far we need to go on each trajectory. Our differences are political, not existential.

If I can make that distinction, then I’m certain Brin can as well.

I once had a comic piece in which I had a city planner in blitz-torn London saying, “First we destroy the Nazi monster. Then we debate what colour to paint the fire hydrants.” We’re at the “destroy-Nazi-monster” stage. The fire hydrants are tomorrow’s debates, and we won’t need to destroy any monsters in doing so.

Americans need to fight like wolverines to save the country now. Save the country, then we can worry about what it’s going to take to fix the damage.

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 22^nd, 2025

New York Times columnist David Brooks has called for a “comprehensive national civic uprising” to protest the Trump administration. Brooks, who has been with the Times since the invention of dirt, is the ultimate establishment ‘button-down’ conservative. When HE calls for a “comprehensive national civic uprising,” you know we’re well out of normal times.

I was at the local demonstration Saturday, and while the crowd was enthusiastic, it was about two-thirds the size of the rally held two weeks earlier. Part of that was because it was cooler and windier, and because it was on Easter weekend.

But it got me thinking. The 50501 “Hands Off” rallies, while terrific at galvanizing public opinion, aren’t going to be enough. Interest will wane, especially since it would become obvious it wasn’t slowing Trump’s fascist coup against America in the slightest.

Brooks is right; a civic uprising is needed. I’m not thinking peasants with pitchforks and blood in the streets; with a half-billion guns loose in the country, that’s the last thing we need. What we do need are national strikes. Yes, plural. Rolling strikes, areas hit once per week.

When you hear the word ‘strike’ you may think of workers walking off the job in protest. But this is America: only 3% of workers have union protection, and most unions are barred by law from having ‘wildcat’ strikes. And most states have what is laughingly referred to as “right-to-work” laws which generally translates to “at will” employment. You only have a job until the boss gets a bug up his ass, and you’re out the door, usually without so much as a day’s warning.

The fact is most American workers don’t have much more in the way of job security and rights than your typical wage slave in Bangladesh. Most people live paycheck to paycheck, and are perhaps two months away from homelessness. It’s a shit work culture, but it’s the result of 45 years of Reaganomics.

So a strike has to be something much more than workplace actions.

They may have coercive power over you on the job, but they can’t make you buy stuff. There have already been embargoes ranging from one day to one week against major retailers such as Amazon and Nestle, and boycotts against Target and similar outfits that have been ongoing, and they’ve been effective enough to cause worry in the right quarters. The Trump admin already floated the idea of a 5 year prison sentence for anyone demonstrating in front of a Tesla dealership. Elon Musk has already figured out that the widespread hatred caused by his rampage through most government programs isn’t going away, and he has already lost hundreds of billions and risks losing it all. He announced he’s getting out of politics by the end of May. Hopefully he’ll get the fuck out of the country.

But picture this: the manager at the local fast-food joint has already told his employees that if they so much as call in sick on the day of a scheduled strike, he’ll fire them. Yes, in much of the county, a shit boss like him can get away with that crap. Because we still have full employment, jobs are scarce, and he holds the whip.

But come the day of the strike, all the employees he coerced into showing up are standing around idle, because walk-in business has dropped 70%. He’ll send some of them home, of course, and if he’s a big enough a bastard, he might try telling them not to join any protests that might be going on.

If this happens once a week, he’s going to see that his profit margins—which in the fast-food industry are pretty thin—are vanishing. He can’t take a 10% overall loss in business.

And if he starts firing people, he may find he no longer has any control over them, and they may well be standing across the street from his business on days of the strike, adding to the pressure for people to stay away and urging employees to engage in malicious compliance.

What we need to do is set up five zones across the country, one for each workday, Monday through Friday. One day per week, we get as many people as possible to buy nothing (currently such actions exempt small, locally-owned businesses, and that’s a wise distinction to make). Nothing purchased on line, and skip lunch at the chain eatery. Don’t buy groceries that day. (It’s ok to stock up the day before if needed—the bosses will notice the one day slump a lot more than a smaller one-day bump in sales.)

And on those Zone days, everyone who can, protest. It can be as small as a bumper sticker, or a small flag, or even a prearranged dress code (for instance, everyone wear something red on the Zone Action Day.) If you can march and chant and ring cow bells, do so. Just…don’t let up.

And keep the pressure on elected officials. Republicans are already running scared, and they need to realize that Trump and his MAGAts are the lesser of two factions. They are between a rock and a hard place, and you are the hard place.

And talk to people. Persuade them that this is no longer just “politics”; it’s the survival of a free and open America. These aren’t disagreements over policy; this is a fight to stop a fascist coup against the United States, and if we don’t stop them now, then we may face a very bloody war as the final option. And nobody with any sense of decency or intelligence wants to go there.

We fight hard now, or we fight for our very lives later. There’s no point in asking nicely. The fascists aren’t going to simply go away.