American Democracy - Now You're Just Someone That I Used To Know

On the eve of Donald Trump’s birthday, timed with a military parade and the national celebration of No Kings Day, I watched in horror as a video surfaced showing Trump’s thugs physically assaulting Senator Alex Padilla. Watch it for yourself. This is not hyperbole. This is happening.

• This is not the America that was once held up as a beacon of liberty.
• This is America sliding, eyes wide open, into authoritarianism.

Make no mistake, the Trump regime no longer even pretends to abide by the rule of law. It does not uphold the law; it declares the law. Whatever it says is legal, is legal. Whatever it opposes is crushed.

Tomorrow, thousands—perhaps millions—will take to the streets in protest. Against tyranny. Against fear. Against a presidency that treats dissent as disloyalty and democratic opposition as treason.

And Trump is ready.

The National Guard is already deployed. Military forces are standing by. However, tomorrow unfolds, peacefully or not, Trump will use it to entrench his rule.

• If the protests are calm, he will claim credit for his iron grip keeping America from chaos.
• If violence flares, he will claim vindication, that only his force can prevent the country from burning.

Either way, the result is the same: more power, more fear, more suppression.

Too many Americans still believe their country is progressing along the same path of liberty, law, and democratic tradition it has known and cherished. But that belief is now a dangerous illusion. When unidentified agents in tactical gear can abduct citizens from the streets, when a sitting senator can be thrown to the ground simply for asking a question, the line has already been crossed.

Whatever happens tomorrow, at Trump’s birthday parade or at the No Kings Day protest, Trump will seize it as justification for escalating his authoritarian response. You can expect more heavily armed goons, more machine guns at street corners, all under the guise of “keeping the peace.” But the real aim is clear: to instil fear, provoke confrontation, and prepare the ground for a declaration of emergency—an excuse to disrupt, delay, or derail the coming midterms.

This is the playbook. We have seen it used across the world. Now it is being used in America.

This is not just another chapter in America’s history. This is America’s story at a turning point.

When the rule of law is stripped away by a rogue regime, the people are left with only two options: go along or go to war.