December sunset

Happy new year’s eve, BFIA followers!

If we make it to midnight tonight, American democracy will have lived to see another day. The sun will not have set on democracy just yet.  It seems we have survived a year of the felon in the white house (tip of the hat to Dave Bradley) posing as a president. This is cause for celebration! Trump fever is breaking.

Much credit goes to Indivisible who along with 50501, MoveOn and other groups, organized millions of Americans from everywhere in the country to hit the streets for protests in their home towns.  Iowa had over fifty #nokings2 protests on October 18 and over 7 million Americans showed up nationwide that day to voice their disapproval of MAGA.

In a nobody saw this coming moment, former MAGA rising star Marjorie Taylor Greene has flipped on MAGA saying this:

“I’m going to live in reality from now on.”

I couldn’t find a link to the quote but I remember hearing her say it when she made her announcement that she was resigning from congress awhile back.  Cynics are skeptical but the smartest one amongst all of the DC politicos I know of is Simon Rosenberg whose framing about MTG is this:

“…part of what is happening is she’s going through the equivalent of deprogramming from a cult where she’s trying to extricate herself and restore her sense of self having given that over to Trump and the MAGA cult. The reason this is so important is that she’s creating an example of somebody who can now create distance between her and Trump and the cult and to criticize it and to be open about it and to expose the core corruption and the betrayal..”    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIIfGM8Nb24

He added it will take some time for her to redeem herself, like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who actively have been doing their best to alert the country to the danger of Trump and tried to remove him from office. But that is his take on what is happening with MTG and I agree. He spoke of her sense of betrayal.  I also observed that once she realized the boys were never going to let her into the inner circle of power, that was it for her.  When you have that kind of eye-opening, you can’t unsee it. This week she told the New York Times Magazine how naive she “was.”  Here is a gift link to the article.

MTG leaving the cult and the public backlash that kept Jimmy Kimmel on the air were two of our most important wins in my opinion. The Jimmy Kimmel win was a spontaneous uprising from citizen-consumers, not necessarily politicos or even liberals.  Citizens forced the network to back down, not the courts or congress. Free speech is still alive for the time being, thanks to ordinary American citizens.

Here in Iowa things that just a few months ago no one thought would ever happen are happening:

– Communities are standing up to ICE in support of their immigrant neighbors and successfully preventing illegal deportations without due process.

– Iowa’s cancer problem is in the political conversation, finally.

– Our poisoned water is in the political conversation.

– All eyes are turning toward Big Ag and its ravages on our environment.

– Angry Iowans have been packing GOP town halls and demanding to know why their so-called representatives have been doing nothing about the lawless administration.

– Chris Jones could be our next Agriculture secretary.

– Democrats are winning elections in Iowa.

– A Democrat could be our next governor.

– Joni Ernst is out.

– Kim Reynolds is out.

I’m not saying we’re home free, far from it. We have so much work to do, but Democracy is still alive so let’s celebrate for now, then together we must keep on keeping on.

Thank you all for everything you have done and will continue to do in the fight to save America from fascism.  From helping local legislative campaigns to contacting congress, attending protests and town halls, running for office, writing  letters to the editor, donating to pro-democracy causes, singing songs and carrying signs, we have no choice but to fight on.

Onward to 2026!

And this happened yesterday!