"Courage is found in unlikely places": Chris Kluwe, Charlie Angus, AOC, Zelenskyy and Europe, Mike Pence, FP Wellman, John Cole...

Taking one of my favorite Lord Of The Rings quotes as my text today, I thought I should highlight some of the people - both likely and unlikely - who are showing courage against the fascist hellhole that is today's America: 

Football player Chris Kluwe:

Parker Molloy / The Present Age 

Democrats Could Learn Something from Former NFL Punter Chris Kluwe 

Chris Kluwe's strategic protest shows exactly what's missing from the current resistance to authoritarianism. 

... Chris Kluwe, who has long been outspoken about social issues, got himself arrested at a city council meeting while protesting a proposed "MAGA" plaque for the local library. 

But before he did, he delivered a searing indictment of what MAGA really means: "MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for resegregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. MAGA stands for firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing. MAGA stands for firing the people overseeing our nuclear arsenal. MAGA stands for firing military veterans and those serving them at the VA, including canceling research on veteran suicide. MAGA stands for cutting funds to education, including for disabled children. MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy and most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement. You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is." 

 Then he did something crucial: He got arrested. 

Peacefully. 

Deliberately. 

And most importantly, strategically. 

He made sure his arrest would be theatrical without being violent. And guess what? It worked. The story got picked up everywhere from the LA Times to Sports Illustrated to Fox News. His message reached millions of people... 

MP Charlie Angus: 

Charlie Angus / The Resistance 

Speak Now or Forever Lose Your Peace 

Final Dispatch from NATO, Brussels 

 ...we can resist the Trump/Putin plan. My hope is that in the coming months, nations like Europe, Australia, Japan, Latin America, and Canada can work together to oppose the Trump gang. Trump is being reckless on so many fronts, and he will trip and fall. And this will be the opportunity in the United States to begin pushing back. 

 But my advice to fellow Canadians and our international allies is that we can’t wait or hope for America to get its act together. The resistance must start now. 

 I am hoping that a coalition from around the world will join Canada. But if not, we will stand on our own. Canadians will never kiss the gangster ring, no matter how hard the fight. 

Congresswoman AOC:

AOC is currently the de facto leader of the Democratic Party.

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— Francis Wilkinson (@franciswilkinson.bsky.social) February 19, 2025 at 5:43 PM

#FreeAOC #AOC #AOC2028

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— @DarkAOCvalkyrieGoddess (@darkaocvalkyrie.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 6:51 PM

There are moments in these deportation fights when I can just FEEL how pissed off they are that I’m Puerto Rican 😂 they want to threaten me with it so bad 😂

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 11:32 AM

And so it begins:

Weaponization of DoJ has begun

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— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 3:09 PM

Ukrainian president Zelenskyy:

European leaders back #Zelenskyy after #Trump falsely calls him a “dictator.” Germany, France, the U.K. and Czech leaders reject the claim, noting Ukraine’s constitutional wartime measures They warn against echoing kremlin propaganda and reaffirm Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader

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— Eugene McParland 🇺🇦 (@eugenemcparland.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 1:11 AM

“I liked Zelenskyy when he first became President of Ukraine. I liked him even more when he had the guts to stand up to Putin. Now that he also has the courage to stand up to Trump… I’m at a loss for words. The guy is a living legend. Слава Україні!” From @VjDombrovski… I couldn’t agree more ⬇️

— Liisa Sisu Fella 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇫🇮🇬🇧 (@liisasisu.bsky.social) February 19, 2025 at 10:08 PM

Europe:

This is huge.

West’s ‘crisis’ coalition grows as Trump rails against Zelenskyy – POLITICO https://t.co/2P84cIoVLD

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 (@acoyne) February 20, 2025

Canada is the new Ukraine. https://t.co/FUbYiRbTIt

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 (@acoyne) February 20, 2025

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had a call with President Volodmyr Zelensky today. Tellingly, the pair agreed that "any peaceful end to the conflict must include Ukraine at the negotiating table." (Trudeau was also on the phone with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni this afternoon.)

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— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) February 20, 2025 at 3:07 PM

 And even Mike Pence has flipped:

Well fuck, never saw this day coming... I agree with Mike Pence.#Trump #TrumpisaNationalDisgrace #TrumpisPutinsBitch pic.twitter.com/pi4PfbX4Un

— Smeary (@Smeary) February 20, 2025

I just hope we can keep on laughing at them: 

JoJoFromJerz / Are you f'ng kidding me? 

Everything is stupid. 

And other musings from our dystopian hellscape… 

 ...Let me just say this: we are living in the dumbest, most batshit insane timeline imaginable. Every single day feels like waking up in a script for *Starsky and Hutch* written by a coked-up proboscis monkey. Everything is either so evil it makes your teeth hurt, or so stupid it makes you want to yeet yourself directly into the sun. 

It’s like someone handed a toddler a crayon and said, “Here, rewrite the Constitution, the laws of physics, and maybe the menu at Taco Bell while you’re at it.” 

And now, here we are, watching society collapse in real time while billionaires build rocket ships shaped like their dicks.. . The whole thing is hysterical! 

Acknowledging the challenge: 

FPWellman / On Democracy 

A time of courage 

If you ever wondered what it would feel like to face a moment in history this is it 

 ...I have no doubt there will be more death threats to come and even someone might get the bright idea that they should take it upon themselves to handle it for Trump. I’ve already had two cars idling outside my house chased off by police in the last year. 

This is the moment you read about. I am urging our elected leaders to stand up. Get security. Hire someone to monitor the online threats. (I can recommend a few good firms). Train your family to be more aware. Don’t shrink from the moment. 

They want you scared. They want you to freeze until it’s too late. This is the time to find your spine or we will lose it all. 

We are so far beyond political fallout or the next election. We are talking about lives being lost as healthcare is cut. Programs removed that support millions. Hundreds of thousands of jobs simply cut with no plan and no idea who is being fired. 

Will you stand idly by in your comfort zone or step up?

John Cole / Balloon Juice 

Let the Show Trials Begin

...With Patel at FBI, I expect and unprecedented domestic surveillance program to begin, which should not be difficult to implement with the data DOGE already has at their, willing help from large data brokers like Zuckerberg and Bezos already bending the knee, and the techbros finally able to unleash the programs they have been trying to sell and many times succeeding in selling to state and local law enforcement and already tested and in use in places like Israel (I doubt you all remember the Pegasus spyware).

We’ve already seen the regime move quickly, boldly, and overtly to declare many citizens to be “unpersons” with their broad assault on the trans community. We are reaching the point, quickly, where anyone who the regime does not like will be considered illegal. Nothing and no one is safe from the whims of the regime.

There will also be large and violent crackdowns on public protest. I expect this to happen sometime over the summer when the impact of the full on assault of the whole government starts to really impact the American public at large. Inflation and joblessness are going to increase dramatically as the cuts take place and the broligarchy consolidate their wealth, and there will be a public backlash. When people realize they are losing their healthcare so the wealthy can get another tax cut, when they learn their autistic or special needs child can no longer get care at school, or that they are going to gut their social security or tax their roth ira to fund tax cuts for Jeff Bezos and so on. There will be anger and it will be public in the form of mass protests. There will be blood this summer, and the regime is eager to spill it. Trump wanted to do it in his first term, but was restrained. No longer.

None of this will be news to members of the black community and other minority groups, who have dealt with moderated versions of this for decades (and obviously far far worse in the previous century), but it will come as quite a shock to many of the people who just couldn’t stomach a vote for a black woman from liberal California. But they will get caught up into it.

I don’t think any of this is hyperbole, unfortunately, and your level of safety for now depends on what state you live in, but soon, that will be a moot point, too, as everything is federalized. States rights are an impediment when you are the god king and hold all levers of power. It’s ugly out there right now, and it is going to get worse.

As for myself, I'm not absolutely sure that I will step up when I need to. 

But I hope I will. 

I hope we all will.