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Ken Williams, PhD's avatar

A review of Trump‘s history reveals a persistent pattern of rebellion and manipulation to get what he wants. His parents could not control him so they sent him to military school, hoping he would learn some self-control. What he gained there were the skills to transform his manipulation into bullying behavior. Throughout his life, people have rewarded his ability to bully others. A few people see this “success“ as effective leadership. Those of us who study, toxic counterproductive leadership know that these leaders restructure, marginalize, and erode various systems and institutions within organizations and societies to feed their need for power, control, and self aggrandizement. They destroy any guard rails and transform them into systems of self empowerment. This “leadership” process is counterproductive, destructive, and dysfunctional. It’s not normal. He is not normal. And yet, the Republican Party, the Supreme Court, the Main Street media continue to treat him as a normal person and normalize and sane wash his outrageous, destructive behavior. Most of us understand this. The real question is: how do we stop him? From my study of toxic leaders in organizations, there must be a broad-based coalition of his victims that Voice in unison is destructiveness, unethical and immoral behavior, and illegal actions. This voice must be channeled through existing systems and institutions, such as whistleblowing and the legal system. We need to support those organizations that are filing lawsuits against him and the administration. We need to voice that he is not demonstrating what America represents. In all of these actions, we repeatedly rebuff him, just as we would by punching an attacking shark in the nose, fighting for our lives. Much of the traditional leadership of the Democratic Party is passive, adding as though he will self-destruct in time. Research indicates that the self-destruction of a toxic leader is a prolonged process and he causes degradation and the death of livelihoods and lives throughout the process. Passivity is not an effective strategy. He must be confronted with nonviolent resistance as though we are fighting for our lives, for in fact, we are.

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Karen Horwitz's avatar

It’s truly horrible. But we need to do what these people did to grab power rather than get lost in this mess. They started by grabbing power locally. We must learn how to do that and be their nightmare.

We’re not helpless. It’s much worse now that Trump has power, but fascists have been disassembling democracy for decades now.

Actually, first they came for our teachers about four decades ago. They did to our schools what they’re now doing to our country. Trust me. I was a teacher. Life now feels like continuous Deja Vu’s for me. Hire incompetents. Paralyze people with fear. Get them to feel hopeless and fall apart.

We can get in their way so they can’t succeed.

Instead of letting frustration and fear takeover, people who care about democracy need to run for a school board in a group of four on a save democracy platform. That way you control that district.

School Boards have total control but administrators have manipulated people to think administrators do. They don’t. The School Board vote IS the power.

Selfish people run for their own agendas and give control to fascist administrators, but that’s the only way that superintendent has power. It’s all about votes. You can stop them with a solid group of other-centered citizens, the antidote to fascism.

We could control every school district. People don’t understand this. The people are the ONLY watchdog for our schools. Because they don’t know this, they’ve let our schools - democracy’s foundation - implode.

Not all horrible things make us helpless. Not learning what you can do about it is what makes people helpless. That’s why reading and learning is so important.

They’re like spiders building webs of “I can do whatever I want to trap you.” They can only trap you if you let their cruelty immobilize you.

Spread the word and take over our schools by having a group of four that sticks together on democracy. Don’t worry if you were a bad student, if you have no child in your school, or if you’re old or young. Read my book A Graver Danger and you’ll understand education better than most of the people working in our schools. You’ll be a hero.

My book explains how to end school shootings. I doubt there’s a more popular issue to run on.

But do it with three others so you control the vote. Alone, they’ll eat you alive the way they do teachers so they can turn them into zombies. You must do this in a solid group!

Since fascists own the guardrails now, we must

spread this truth so we can plant the flag of democracy all over this country and have power that’s ours.

Instead of focusing on who’s next, we must build democracy’s power one school district at a time.

Bottom line it’s all about power. We must not let them bury us in fear and hopelessness. We must and can build our power.

As you watch so many kneel in fear thinking they can’t do that to me, I’m not afraid, keep in mind that hopelessness is their tool for you. Their plan is bury us all one way or another. The solution is be proactive. Do something.

We need a grass roots get on school boards movement. Get one going in your district; even if you can’t run, you can help make it happen

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Stephen White's avatar

Voting by mail is the answer to the use of DHS to intimidate voters at the poles.

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joe alter's avatar

This is a good, frank discussion.

I think we should at some point talk about how the courts are applying Lujan so broadly that it becomes dredd scott 2.0, which is why they're getting away with all this.

citizens have a RIGHT to enforce constitutional mandates in court, particularly when the political branches are captured. A new administration, as we can see, sweeps aside everything in the DOJ, citizens have to be able to challenge constitutional limits with or without personal harms.

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