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"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August 2018)
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"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO." (S. Jonas, July 2025)
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"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Martin Niemoller (c. 1946)
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Yogi Berra (1925-2015) is widely known to baseball fans as one of the all-time great catchers. He played for the New York Yankees from 1946 through 1963, during which time, among other accomplishments, he appeared in a record 14 World Series. Yogi was also known as a wordsmith. One of his most famous sayings leads this column, here: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Another of his classics provides the finishing touch to it.
Tuesday evening, 2-24-26, was the date on which Donald Trump gave the President's annual "State of the Union" speech to a joint session of Congress. I did not watch too much of it, but it has been reported that not only was it longest speech ever given by a President on this occasion (one hour and 47 minutes), but that it was more like a campaign speech than the usual type of State of the Union speech (even for Trump). Reports on it can be found at, for example, The New York Times and The Guardia n (GB). I did tune in to some of the pre- and post-game commentary on MSNOW.
According to reports, Trump hit his usual themes, such as "what illegal immigration is doing (negatively) to the country," and hinting, broadly according to some observers, that legal immigration of people with the "wrong" color- skin/religion/what-have-you (unless, that is they are very wealthy and contribute large sums of money to his campaign, like so many "white" billionaires do) could be considered a negative too. He also claimed great successes for various of his policies, especially the imposition of high tariffs.
As is widely known but infrequently stated, the tariff-imposition had two purposes (other than "making America great again," which they didn't). One, it made Trump feel good --- he was doing something on his own. And of course, since it can be said without challenge that he has never read the Constitution (and if he had, he wouldn't have understood it anyway), he didn't know that he did not have the authority to do that on his own. The tariffs power is given to the Congress (see Article I). The other is that it provided increased Federal revenue that in a time of increasing shortfalls, would have had to have been raised by raising taxes on his "Personal Billionaires Club." But, as noted above, doing so violated the provision on tariffs that is found in the Constitution. And then, that initiative of his was, surprise, surprise, overturned by the usually oh-so-Trump-friendly Supreme Court, on Feb. 20. And so on and so forth. All class, as he usually is, Trump did take some time on this issue to diss the members of the Supreme court who, by custom, were sitting in the front row in front of him.
I did happen to see one episode of the speech which I think perfectly encapsulated it, and indeed beyond it, the 2nd Trump Presidency. He awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor to a seriously injured U.S. servicemember who sustained his wounds while participating in the totally illegal kidnapping by President Trump of the President of a foreign country who, apparently, will remain imprisoned indefinitely, with or without trial, in Trump's United States. What symbolism of the lawless Trump Presidency.
And now. Readers may have noticed that I entitled this column "The State of the Nation," rather than "The State of the Union." For, as my regular readers know, it is the state of the Nation, including whether or not the Union can be maintained, with which I have been concerned for some time now. In summary, what I call TrumpRepubloFascism presents a real and present danger to the Union, as it has existed since the end of the Civil War, and thus to our very existence as a Nation. As an example of TRF, HS Sec. Kristi Noem "suggested on Friday that her department has a broad role in election security, claiming she has the authority to identify 'vulnerabilities' in the election system and implement 'mitigation measures' to make sure local and state elections are 'run correctly'." But even Noem recognized that she would have no legal authority to do such a thing, which is why the TRF's are pursing the creation of a "voter ID" law --- which, translated into English, means, "we will work hard to exclude as many voters who-we-don't-want-voting-as-we-possibly-can."
Stating the obvious here, at this critical time in our nation's history, the central issue facing us is, are we going to fully return to being a Constitutional Democracy with its central feature of Separation of Governmental Powers at the Federal level, or are we going to continue down the road to replacing it with a modern form of fascism, towards which the TrumpRepubloFascists (TRFs) and P2025 are attempting to drive us. The central feature of TRF is a unitary Central government (see the appendix below), which itself is the defining feature of all forms of fascism. The Constitutional Government forces have not lost yet, but the TRFs are getting perilously close to winning. If they manage to fix the 2026 mid-terms, which they obviously are both overtly and covertly trying very hard to do, it is very hard to see how all will not be lost.
As I have said elsewhere, BUT, returning to the sage, Yogi Berra: "It's never over 'til it's over." And it ain't over yet. The fight is just getting underway, at least from our side. And for once, the Democratic Party, elected and otherwise, seems to be united on this one. Of course, the fight must be intensified, at all levels, so that we can return to a full-fledged U.S. Constitutional Democracy. Again, as I have said elsewhere, unless TRF can be turned back politically, and tri-partite government with the all-important Separation of Powers can be placed back in our nation's governance, we face the real possibility of secession (by the Constitutionalist states) and/or a Second Civil War.
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Appendix I. Once again, here is the short definition of fascism that I use: "There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of an industrial/financial/sales-and-marketing/communications ruling class, that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. They are all held by the Executive branch. There is no independent judiciary/civil/criminal/justice system. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."
(Article changed on Feb 26, 2026 at 2:02 PM EST)
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(Article changed on Feb 26, 2026 at 2:08 PM EST)
(Article changed on Feb 26, 2026 at 8:25 PM EST)
