Confronting the Ongoing Onslaught

Trump's East Wing demolition, demands for $230 million and the ongoing murders in the Caribbean Sea are the latest reminders that we must remain vigilant and push back

Donald Trump’s illegal demolition of the East Wing of the White House in order to build his $250 million ballroom. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images)

Some days are a crystalized scream. They tell us in no uncertain terms that we have been taken hostage by a malignant force that rejects not only our laws and values, but our history and memories. They tell us that the battle has both grown harder and has become more necessary. Yesterday was one of those days.

This was the day when sickening images emerged of Donald Trump’s illegal demolition of the East Wing of the White House, part of the People’s House. This was after he lied that his construction of a $250 million Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” that “it’ll be near it, but not touching it.” The metaphorical significance of his destruction of the East Wing, a building that has been a meaningful part of our democratic nation’s history and psyche, is unavoidable.

This was also the day when Trump announced that he wanted to be paid $230 million by the Justice Department to settle his grievances over various federal investigations into his criminal behavior. Such a payment would be decided by the sycophants at Justice, whose fealty to him needs no publicly televised oath-taking to confirm that its total. And that $230 million would come from you, me and every other taxpayer whose resources are being mis-used by this malignant regime. It’s impossible to overstate the level of corruption involved in Trump essentially deciding that he can just directly raid the treasury to line his own pocket. (Ignore his lie that he’d give this money to charity.)

I add to this list the ongoing murder of boat passengers off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea. That’s the deadly bombing of seven boats and dozens of humans—so far—who have been called narco-terrorists by the regime, summarily killed as if they are enemy combatants. This without the release of credible evidence, only the proud ravings of Trump that “we take them out” because their boats are “stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too.” Like the daily abuse of his ICE agents, these heinous attacks are carried out without due process.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, one of the most vivid voices articulating the ongoing destruction of the Trump regime, described last night how the demolition of the East Wing illustrated the broader destruction of America’s rule of law. “The president just doesn’t believe that any law applies to him,” Murphy told MSNBC host Chris Hayes, “that he can destroy federal property, that he can steal from American citizens, that he can kill with impunity, that he can throw anyone in jail.”

The senator then stated plainly where we are right now. “We are not living in a functional democracy any longer,” he said. “It’s not too late to save it, but it’s important to acknowledge we’re not on the precipice of losing our democracy. We are losing it every single day. We are not a functional nation with a rule of law any longer. Those toppled walls in the East Wing are a pretty stark reminder of that.”

This is tough, sobering stuff. I can understand why people choose to look away. But this is all too real, which is why the No Kings protest last Saturday and the need for mass collective action going forward is so critical. That includes more street protests, economic boycotts and likely labor strikes, as well as substantial turnout by Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents for the various races at every level on Nov. 4.

Each of us is drawn to action in different ways and for different reasons. No protest is monolithic even if we arrive there with a common desire to bring an end to the lawlessness, the corruption and the cruelty of Trump and his authoritarian regime.

I want to share with you a short reflection from Katie Coss, who assisted me at the No Kings protest in New York City. Katie is a Brooklyn-based freelance multimedia journalist who reports on the intersection of race, ethnicity, sex, gender and popular culture. She is also a recent graduate of New York University’s online master’s program in journalism and a former student of mine.

Here’s what Katie wrote:

Much of what I felt while standing alongside protesters in Times Square was the duality of being a first-generation American—to embrace the good with the messy.

My eyes stung from the relief that our sense of humanity is not lost, only deeply buried by authoritarian tactics. This reprieve was illustrated through signs that read, ‘No KFC (Kings Fascist Clowns)’ and verbalized in chants of ‘This is what democracy looks like.’ Gen Z and millennials hung from scaffolding while Boomers marched beneath them. Banners with phrases like ‘Jews for Palestinian Freedom’ floated alongside autism awareness signs, and there were too many U.S. Constitution references on cardboard posters to count. In all of these moments, whether captured on camera or shared in laughter, they represented a commitment to the project of America: freedom for all.

In the same breath, I wondered what newly immigrated workers along either side of Broadway thought of this demonstration. Were they comforted by the ‘Immigrants Make America Great’ signs? Annoyed by the excessive foot traffic to their workplaces? Or indifferent to yet another protest in Times Square?

As the daughter of two immigrants from the Dominican Republic, a country once under dictatorship and now deploying mass, aggressive deportations of Haitians, it is bittersweet. Like much of Latin America, the Dominican Republic has absorbed a dangerous lesson from the United States: that to build democracy, political violence is inevitable. It’s a country grappling with which version of America’s legacy to imitate. I can only hope that one day it will fill me with the same pride I felt while marching through those crowded streets of New York City.

We are living in a period that demands us, as Katie describes, “to embrace the good with the messy.” Some days, many weeks, that can be tough, even painful.

But that means taking pride in marching through crowded streets, holding tightly to the American aspiration of freedom for all and refusing to be indifferent. And, at the same time, it means honestly confronting the danger we face from a reckless regime and its malignant boss.

Even on awful days when the pile of lies and the wanton destruction are shamelessly showcased, it’s our duty to do more than confront what we know to be wrong. It’s essential that we speak up for the values and ideals, the American rights and the human rights, that will see us through this dark chapter.

I am already imagining the day when Trump’s billionaires ballroom is removed, the White House Rose Garden and the East Wing are restored, and the lawless leaders of this corrupt and criminal regime are held accountable.

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