American Citizens Have One Superpower

And it's time to use it.

It’s now fair to say that the United States has undergone a coup. Our nation has switched, almost overnight, from a constitutional democratic republic to a corrupt dictatorship.

We are now a banana republic. A very big one. And we should be very ashamed of ourselves.

It’s not entirely clear, however, who the dictator is. Is it the fat, old, word-slurring, dyed-blond, orange one? Or is it the unelected stoner billionaire, who’s employing a crew of adolescent gamer-hackers to joy-ride in our nation’s most sensitive systems and databases?

It’s probably the latter. The orange one was sworn in on January 20 and gets to sit behind the Resolute Desk, but he’s perhaps just a figurehead, having been bought at a substantial price by the stoner billionaire.

Whichever of these bozos is currently in charge, the law, clearly, is not. As Lawrence O’Donnell put it very eloquently in his monologue a few nights ago, the United States is not, now, a nation of laws.

The United States Constitution of 1789 appears to be over. Just like that.

Remember the Senate? Created by Article One of the Constitution? It was supposed to be independent of the president and to act as a significant check on executive abuses? It was intended by the Framers to advise and consent on the president’s nominees for high federal office, to ensure that the people serving the public were actually capable of serving the public?

What a quaint memory! Pure nostalgia.

I’ve been trying for the past several days to call my new GOP carpetbagger senator, Dave McCormick, and to give him a piece of my mind about Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Russ Vought, and RFK Jr. You know, as I have a right to do as a citizen. As a constituent. Senator McCormick appears to have 8 offices, including 7 across Pennsylvania, in addition to his office in Washington, D.C. That’s 8 different telephone numbers. Does anyone in any of his offices ever answer the phone? Not at 9 am. Not at 10 or 11 am. Not at noon. Not at 1, or 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6 pm. If you try to leave a voicemail message you’re likely to be told that the mailbox is full. If you write a comment on his Senate website, don’t expect an acknowledgment or response.

I’m getting the impression that Senator McCormick doesn’t care what I think. It’s conceivable that he takes his orders elsewhere.

As the Trump/Musk administration demonstrates how aggressively it intends to destroy our democratic institutions, we need to be thinking about resistance tactics. Traditional opposition politics, demonstrations, calling senators and congressmen, etc., may not be effective if Trump can violate the law with impunity and if GOP lawmakers simply bend over, as, so far, they are doing. Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin of Indivisible advise that groups of citizens showing up at their senators’ and representatives’ local offices makes the most impact; if that’s true, it requires significant organization and coordination at the local level.

I’m pretty skeptical of mass protests. I worry that they feel good to the protesters—who get a solidarity rush, a big bear-hug of group-love—but have little impact on politicians. Peaceful protests might not even earn a blip on the news. And they could be counter-productive, playing right into Trump’s hands. Protests could provoke counter-protests from the newly released gun-toting January 6 MAGA Brownshirts, and there’d be violence, which right-wing media would blame on liberal groups (“ANTIFA!” and “Black Lives Matter!”) and Trump would like nothing more than to invoke the Insurrection Act and get Pete Hegseth and the Army involved.

So what can we do?

I have one idea.

I’m intrigued that Trump seems to have caved very quickly on his stupid tariffs idea when the stock market took a minor dive in response. Trump pays attention to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and fears market slumps. He thinks a strong stock market reflects his brilliance, his greatness. And his fan base believes—despite all evidence to the contrary—that he’s a business success and economic genius. Sharp declines in market indices wouldn’t be a good look for him.

The super-rich, who own the Republican party, have one significant weakness. And American citizens have one superpower. We are super consumers in a thoroughly consumer-driven economy. Most of us spend more than we need to. Yes, there are lots of households living on the edge, from paycheck to paycheck, but there are millions more with considerable disposable income. Most of us have some disposable income and do some discretionary spending. Our discretionary spending keeps the GNP growing and the stock market climbing, and it fuels Trump’s and the GOP’s image.

But what do you think would happen if democracy-loving citizens, many millions of us, decided on one particular day not to buy anything? An entire day with no transactions.

What if, on this one day, we didn’t fill up our gas tanks, didn’t go to the supermarket, bought nothing on Amazon, streamed nothing on our devices? Also, what if we clicked no ads on anything. No scrolling, no clicking. What if we denied all the marketers in the country our attention. A coordinated SPEND NOTHING and NOTICE NO MARKETING day.

And what if we followed it with a month—or two—of conscientious self-denial, a kind of protest parsimony? Like Lent, or Ramadan, or Rosh Hashanah, a national period of penance to atone for our national wickedness. A coordinated period when we denied ourselves indulgences, and denied our overlords their profits.

Turning down the thermostat, living on rice and beans, canceling subscriptions and streaming services, drastically reducing our restaurant and take-out meals, refusing to buy new clothes, canceling travel, deferring a new car or home improvement, being conscious of every dollar we spend as a political act. A determination by a huge patriotic segment of the public to hurt the Dow Jones Average, to make the S&P500 and NASDAQ fall, to damage quarterly earnings, to curb growth in the GNP.

What if we understood, on a daily basis, in our homes and in our private lives, that every unnecessary dollar we spend makes Trump and MAGA stronger. And that every dollar we refuse to spend tarnishes their image.

A coordinated consumer boycott would indeed hurt the economy—and it would be noticed, especially by the billionaires and smug oligarchs who now enable the worst MAGA behavior.

Think, everyone, about the dollars we all spend unnecessarily, thoughtlessly, and about how much power we would all have if we slowed it down, if we demonstrated that we could stop spending. That we could turn it on and off.

Think.

Households economized during World War 2--Victory Gardens, etc. We are, in a sense, at war now. We are at war with Elon Musk, who, by trying to kill USAID, has turned off food and medical aid to sick and starving children in Africa: the richest man in the world starving the poorest children in the world. Yes, we Americans have much to be ashamed of, and much to do penance for, and our penance should hurt Trump and Musk.

A protest consumer boycott would also be a lot safer than, say, public protests or general strikes, because it’s a negative action. They can’t come after you for not buying any beef this week, or for lowering your thermostat, or for doing without a new pair of shoes.

I know that this is a controversial idea, because a significant coordinated consumer boycott would hurt us too, as well as lots of innocent people—though it's completely nonviolent. I'm retired, and like millions of other retirees my financial security depends on my 401(k) savings, and thus on the stock market. A weak market would make me poor. A weak market threatens families with layoffs. It threatens lots of small businesses.

But it really IS power. It may be our only power to preserve our democracy and even our civilization. And we can always get those shoes later, when democracy is restored.

But today the news is dire. Trump really is malevolent, and he is out to destroy our way life

.