Joel B. Levine: The Trump threat to democracy 

Thank you for Jon Huer’s provocative and mostly accurate assessment of why on God’s green earth so many people are willing to embrace Trump and his MAGA “fascist” agenda [“Trump’s new American revolution of 2024,” Gazette, Dec. 30]. The Trump threat to democracy that cries out for recognition frequently in conventional news sources and is articulated clearly by logical rational political thinkers is no match for what Rachel Maddow called the “thrill of transgression”: That is, maybe it is OK to relish and give voice to all our thinly suppressed prejudices and dislikes.

Maybe it’s fine to maintain a system of beliefs which allows comfort with racism and xenophobia. Isn’t it gratifying to proclaim ourselves with loud violent rhetoric and actual guns if needed? And after all who can be expected to fathom slow moving traditional institutions and ideas which are complex, difficult to comprehend, and require dialog and compromise?

Of course when these things are brought to the attention of someone like President Joe Biden he likes to say, “that’s not who we are.” But maybe that’s exactly who we are as Huer says. So, for now, we can stand up against all this in conventional ways at the ballot box, and maybe with the Constitution. However, we must face the reality and the trends are not in favor of our liberal democracy, even with those assets available.

If a new Trump era is inevitable as Professor Huer seems to be saying , there may be limited ways to stand up against it. In these pages I have advocated general strikes and withholding taxes. These acts of disobedience would not be without violence and casualties in a Trump led dictatorship, but just maybe we could start the pendulum swinging the other way. Small acts now; big ones later.

Joel B. Levine

Easthampton