Yesterday, what passes for the US Congress these days sold our country out for fascism. Not to put too fine a point on it, you know.
The DC Democrats put up all the fight they could. Some will claim they did nothing at all, but those people are wrong. The fact that the Dems could do so little is not their fault – this time. In the end, what may turn out to be the most disastrous bill in US history passed the Senate strictly along party lines by only one vote, and the House by just four votes, also strictly by party. One vote and four votes. Let no magaist say the word “mandate” ever again, especially where I can hear them.
I won’t go into all the details. Let’s just say the 2025 tax and budget bill will, in broad strokes, promote eugenics by slashing access to health care, housing, and food assistance for the most needy, inflict terror and violence by turbocharging the size and budget of the masked goon squads hunting immigrants and protesters in our streets, throw the US economy into total chaos, and consolidate even more power into the hands of that stupid orange dirtbag they’ve made their god.
Said stupid orange dirtbag will sign this piece of shit into law today, July 4th, America’s Independence Day, just to add insult to the injury.
It’s easy to feel discouraged and cynical about the irony of celebrating the 4th of July in the midst of fascists actively dismantling democracy before our very eyes, but consider:
Wasn’t the United States of America created out of revolution against tyranny?
Hint: Yes, it was. That’s kind of what we’re about as a political body.
Have we been perfect at it? No, never. Have we lived our professed ethics? Not even close. Have we also acted like tyrants against others and against our own? Yes, we have and do.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the US was indeed created specifically to throw off the chains of tyranny. Our failures only show that we’re not done. The revolution is ongoing.
So on this July 4th, 2025, I invite you all to embrace the ideal of what the USA is supposed to be about, and to take your stand on it.
Last winter, I blogged about new years and fresh starts, and how we actually get multiple chances to start over as the cycles by which we measure time complete and begin their loops. We get a solar new year at the Winter Solstice with the restart of the Sun cycle, a planetary new year in early January with the start of a new Earth orbit, and a lunar new year after that with the restart of the Moon cycle.
Plus, each of us gets to claim a personal new year on our birthday. I decided that for everyone in the world. You’re welcome.
That’s four chances every year to take stock, measure growth, celebrate accomplishments, refresh goals, and start next chapters.
I’d like to add a fifth annual fresh start – a civic new year on the nation’s founding day.
Every country can do this on their own national anniversaries, of course. For us Americans, our civic new year would be the 4th of July, obviously – the day when We the People of the United States take off from work, have a bbq, some parades, fireworks, and I propose from this year forward, take some time to assess our progress towards building a more perfect union, towards realizing Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
I would like to add political action to our Independence Day celebrations. I don’t mean conformist pantomimes of red, white and blue cosplay and singing our unsingable anthem. Rather, I want some good, loud marches in addition to the parades, with lots of signs calling out the unfinished work of the Republic. Impromptu town halls where we call our elected officials to account for themselves – again. Strongly worded letters to the editors of legacy media to remind them of the responsibilities that come with being protected by the First Amendment. Social media progress reports by everyone with any interest in anything, showing the status of boycotts and labor actions, the scorecards on the issues in contention, and lists of how our Senators and Representatives have been voting lately.
And I’d like to add the positive ideals of civic life to the holiday as well. Let’s normalize no longer taking our public services for granted in this country. Let’s make the 4th of July a day that celebrates the practical things we gained by our revolution – our courts, public libraries, and schools, our civil servants in all the departments, the Post Office (everyone loves the Post Office), our lands, waters, and parks, and of course, our Constitution.
We don’t need another military holiday in the US, or another day for capitalists to exploit national myths to push sales. We need a holiday that reminds us of how we got this country in the first place, what it’s supposed to be, and why it matters enough for each of us to do something about it.
We need a We the People Day.
And we have one. We call it Independence Day, and it’s the day when Americans were invented and defined as a people who cannot be oppressed because we will not be oppressed.
So, here we are on Independence Day, our civic new year. Where do we stand, and where should we go next? What resolutions should we make to become better citizens over the next twelve months?
Okay, no sugarcoating. Where we stand is in deep shit. We have completely botched our job as citizens. Sorry, but it’s time for some radical acceptance starting with tough love.
Everyone knows this country suffers from a chronic infection of racism, violence, and social dominance ideation. All we ever do about it is treat the symptoms when they flair up, while never addressing the underlying condition. We ignore it until it builds up enough, and oopsie-whoopsie Civil War. Then a little soothing cream and a Constitutional Amendment, and oh dear, decades of KKK violence. Look, just keep it covered so it doesn’t spread and we can keep going to work, okay? But it does spread until thank the gods, another crisis interrupts it. Yay for world war, eh? Oh, but dammit, now they’re murdering civil rights workers. Ugh. Okay-okay, we’ll take this seriously. Pass a bunch more laws, and actually enforce them this time, and look, it’s working. We all feel much better now, right? Let’s get back to work and forget it ever happened. It’s in the past.
Only it’s not in the past. It’s in the bones and muscle of our society. It’s a condition America was born with, and because we don’t deal with it honestly to neutralize it – make the required behavioral and structural changes for our civic health – it keeps coming back again and again and again. Each outbreak of it is potentially lethal to our body politic.
We understand this when we’re talking about diabetes or cancer. When will we understand and accept it in the context of the society we depend on just as much as our own bodies?
So the assessment of our progress is that we are in the midst of another acute outbreak of our societal illness. We’re not the only ones. This toxic, destructive, antisocial mindset of fear and aggression is rooted deep in the US, but it’s common among humanity. Many countries are dealing with similar situations right now, and it’s spreading like political covid. Our outbreak is one of the worst, though, so we really need to deal with it.
Where do we go next? Well, we are in crisis, so this year, we need to focus on the crisis. But we can’t fall into our traditional habit of only doing the short-term fixes without thinking about long-term reforms to prevent future flair-ups. We must transition off simple suppression of active symptoms and move towards intervention and preventive management for life – for the sake of our lives.
From today through July 4th, 2026, let us focus on breaking the maga fever.
Let’s sanitize our communities from fascist goon squads and the fear and danger they bring with them. Know your rights and use the rules to your advantage. Call the real cops (no matter what you think of them). Like they always tell us – if you see something, say something.
Unless the goons are the ones trying to talk to you. Then keep your mouth shut. If they want to talk to you, they can show their faces, their IDs, and their warrant, and then they can make an appointment with your lawyer.
And be smart about videos and photos. Only show the people and faces you want to. Nobody needs to be able to track everyone who was protesting peacefully before the brownshirts showed up.
Generally conduct yourself with safety in mind. Cultivate situational awareness. That means take the damn buds out of your ears and put the damn phone in your pocket once in a while. Know your route and exit options everywhere you plan to go. Do not post your safe maps on your social media, for fucks sake, omg. And follow the safety measures recommended by civil rights activists all over the internet. We all see the info every day.
Basic community safety measures like this will go a long way towards deflating the threats the fascists are using to bully us into submission.
Let’s cleanse our political discourse of lies, propaganda, and bullshit. Let’s learn how to tell good from bad when it comes to information and news sources. Rely on primary sources as much as possible and swear off relying on social media gossip mills.
Apply “see something, say something” to political information, too. When we see the propaganda, bullshit, and lies, call it out, every time. Let nothing slide unchallenged, no matter who says it. We need to hold our own and ourselves to account as well.
Let’s cleanse our public offices of corruption by shining the bright light of public attention on them constantly. For real, public officials need to remember who they work for, and it’s not the ones paying their bribes.
Make 2025-26 be a maelstrom of town halls, crammed constituent office hours, overwhelmed phone lines and emails. Fill media with demands for investigations. Bring the receipts from the states and districts. Hell, organize recall elections. It doesn’t matter if they’re almost impossible to pull off. They get attention. Let’s help our electeds experience the same worries and stresses we voters are, thanks to their political choices. You know, to help them understand where we’re coming from.
Oh, I’m sorry, GOP politicians, are you feeling exhausted? Do you dread going to work and looking at the news every day? Are you worried about losing your job? Welcome to the party, you “bunch of little bitches.” This is the bed you made, so you get to lie in it with the rest of us.
If they don’t like it, they can fix it easily. All they have to do is switch their obedience from Trump to their constituents. Or they can quit and go home. Simple.
And if they refuse to cooperate? Well, that’s what the petty recalcitrance of pure spite is for, because until they do what We the People want, let them never enjoy another swordfish and whiskey dinner in peace.
I think those are three good starting points for the civic new year in a fascism epidemic. We can put the rest of our energy into building our personal strength and resilience.
Let’s start building community-based options for the services the fascists are taking away from government. I’m talking about food and health care access, education for our kids, housing, legal services, community security, communications, financial services, etc.
Yes, we’re all dealing with the horror of watching fascism rise again in the world, but don’t underestimate the stress of how difficult they make ordinary daily errands. How many of us feel scared going out for lunch, for fear our meal will be interrupted by an armed abduction? How many of us lose sleep over our bills, our parents’ nursing homes, our kids’ safety at school, what to do about our neighbors’ pets if they suddenly disappear?
Nobody can live under such constant ambient pressure. Understand, this is a deliberate tactic of oppressors. They exhaust resistance by literal exhaustion.
So we’re not going to do that, okay? They want to take control of all the details of our lives, but we’re going to keep that control, however we manage it. We don’t need to get precious about details, right? We’re going to take care of ourselves and our needs as we see fit. End of.
And we’re going to remember this precept: The most fundamental and effective form of resistance is to keep doing what the oppressors don’t want us to do.
They don’t want us to figure out for ourselves how to get food, housing, medicine, etc. They don’t want us to choose how and where we work and spend. They don’t want us to resolve our disputes peacefully amongst ourselves. They don’t want us to relax and be happy, or feel free to play with our families in parks, or eat at cafes. They don’t want us to make our own music and art.
They want us to need them for everything.
Resistance is not needing them for one single damn thing.
Therefore, I propose three Citizen Resolutions for US Civic New Year 2025:
- Practice radical acceptance. Acknowledge the work that needs to be done and make a start. Effort is worth more than blame.
- Be rude. Screw respecting public officials. Those lazy, crooked assholes need to get to work or get out. Let them know that.
- Do not obey. Fascists don’t want America to exist. So be Americans, the whole nine yards, every day. Be the Americans who kicked these bastards’ asses not just in WW2 but in our first Civil War, and our Revolution, and the Civil Rights Movement, and all the other movements towards a better world since 1775. Screw them, they don’t get to tell us what to do.
Happy Independence Day.
There are no American kings.
Notes: This essay belongs to the Liberty Gravy category of the Jen Fries Arts: Arting Life newsletter.
The illustrations are selected works from my portfolio, ones carrying specific political messages. All my work is political. You can ask me how, or figure it out yourself.
Omenology: The body of this essay contains 2,388 words. The numerals of the word count total adds up to 21, representing spiritual fulfillment and transformation, and reducing down to 3, representing creative expression. These two numbers align with the tarot cards The World and The Empress. The Empress signifies joy, abundance, and celebration. The World signifies self realization and expansiveness. Together, they unite micro and macro awareness, local and global action, self and society. The 2 and 8s signify balance and success, as well. So, having reached that number, I stopped editing. (“Omenology” is a word I made up today.)
Jen Fries Arts 