Republished with permission from D. Earl Stephens

It’s been another brutal week in a brutal country. There’s no sense candy-coating it.

Thanks to a loaded, radical-Right Supreme Court that believes in monarchies, not democracy—a group of robed, anti-Americans who are led around the nose and on lavish vacations by the billionaires who own them—a convicted felon, who regards the truth as his mortal enemy now has the power he needs to wage war on the citizens of this country he pillages for his gain.

We are well on our way to becoming the brutal, authoritarian country you used to see on TV and say, “Damn, thank God I don’t live there …”

Things are going to keep getting worse until (and if) we can put a stop to it, good people. Could be it’s already too late: We are a full-blown authoritarian country for now on.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson knows full well the trouble we’re in, and offered this clear-eyed dissent Friday against the high court’s limiting federal judges’ ability to halt the fascist Trump’s hateful executive orders nationwide:

“The court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.”

AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT …

She wasn’t done:

“It is important to recognize that the Executive’s bid to vanquish so-called ‘universal injunctions’ is, at bottom, a request for this Court’s permission to engage in unlawful behavior. When the Government says “do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,” what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution—please allow this. That is some solicitation. With its ruling today, the majority largely grants the Government’s wish. But, in my view, if this country is going to persist as a Nation of laws and not men, the Judiciary has no choice but to deny it.”

In other words, Trump, the convicted felon … the guy who lies as he breathes … can pretty much ignore any law he doesn’t like.

I really don’t know if after this ruling granting Trump a king’s unchecked powers we will make it to the midterms, which are an endless 17 months away. It isn’t hard to imagine Trump ginning up some crisis and then smothering us in executive orders to halt our elections.

And if you think I’m going too far here, I think you are the problem.

Democrats and/or the opposition to GOP fascism need to be articulating what is at stake right now and emulating Justice Jackson’s courage and conviction. Everybody needs to understand we have entered the beginning of the end of a country where the people used to have the power.

And this is going to get so much damn worse so damn fast …

In my piece on Thursday, Beware the Angry Voter I warned Democrats of all shapes and sizes that if we make it to the midterms “there is going to be some serious bloodletting at the polls in 2026.”

I added for emphasis: “There will be no such thing as a “safe” seat anywhere, because America is not a safe country right now. People are scared.”

I concluded by typing: “Nothing motivates voters more than fear and anger, and the politician who doesn’t understand that, better be prepared to find some real work.”

Well, what do you know, guys like Andrew Cuomo aren’t hearing this message. After getting smacked at the polls Tuesday night in New York City’s mayoral primary word is out this morning that he will stay in the race and run as an alternative to the guy who thrashed him in Tuesday’s primary, Zohran Mamdani.

Cuomo is doing this because he’s an arrogant, privileged punk given license and a long leash by the Democratic elite in America who are completely put of touch with the American voter.

Rather than congratulate Mamdani, and tell him he will do everything he can to help him get elected, he’s going to fight him. This is why so many people argue there’s really not much difference in America’s two major parties these days, and why I take heart most people aren’t affiliated with either one of them.

That last part might be exactly what saves us …