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Opinion
Start Building the World You Want to Live in After Trump's Dark Age
As Trump demolishes the old and drives America toward a darker future, the Democrats’ instinct has been to grieve, resist, and dream of restoration. But restoration may be the wrong goal.
Oct 19, 2025
President Donald Trump recently followed through on his threat to use the federal government shutdown as an occasion to fire government workers on a mass scale.
Shutdowns are temporary, yet the effects of this one seem likely to be permanent. It’s a kind of limbo, a foretaste of the old government being phased out, but with little clue what might replace it.
Such things have happened before in history.
While imprisoned in 1930 for opposing Mussolini’s fascism, the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously wrote, “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” L.S. Stavrianos’ 1976 book The Promise of the Coming Dark Age now seems dated, but raises a provocative question for our time: Can something new and better evolve from these dark times?
We need to envision a positive future with equal and ample opportunities for everyone to realize their full potential.
As Trump demolishes the old and drives America toward a darker future, the Democrats’ instinct has been to grieve, resist, and dream of restoration. But restoration may be the wrong goal. That’s the rueful lesson Polish democrats are drawing from Poland’s shift back toward authoritarianism.
Even if Democrats’ dream scenario—retaking the House in 2026 and the Senate and presidency in 2028—comes true, the world we knew isn’t coming back. What the Trump administration has destroyed—for example, dismissing 1,300 State Department employees in 20 minutes—may take 20 years to rebuild.
Then there are the nightmare scenarios. Republicans might rig future elections. Trump could consolidate an increasingly repressive police state.
Either way, we face a prolonged dark age. Surviving it will require more than a diet of “resistance”—we also need hope. We need to envision a positive future with equal and ample opportunities for everyone to realize their full potential.
There are practical steps in this direction that communities can take starting now. Neither left nor right, such actions would help bridge partisan divides and hedge against national systems that may soon start failing. They could include:
Greater localism. We could start shifting from full-throttle globalization toward more diversified, sustainable, and self-reliant local economies.
Trump’s tariffs disrupt the world economic order via top-down fiat, without offering any path out of the ensuing chaos. We need the opposite: bottom-up strategies to buffer communities against market turbulence and repression.
Reinvigorated localism could also enable communities to supplement whatever remains of the national safety net by reviving traditions of mutual aid.
Stronger, smaller democracy. More localized economies could lay the groundwork for more decentralized, egalitarian, and participatory governance, empowering communities to shape their own destinies.
Face-to-face community. We could step back from our screen-saturated lives to rebuild in-person ties. American communities are increasingly siloed. We could foster healthy pluralism by creating more opportunities to build personal connections across differences.
Soulful work. What if we built a more enriching job market?
We could shift work toward “caring, craft, and cultural” occupations. We could focus automation, robotics, and AI on reducing dangerous and mind-numbing work, and on lowering the cost of strategic essentials like solar collectors and medicines. And we should resist allowing AI to displace people from fulfilling work.
Ideas like these once seemed fringe or utopian. But as our democracy morphs into corrupt oligarchy or outright fascism, they may soon become deeply practical—even imperative.
Fully realizing them would eventually require matching changes at the national and global levels. But communities don’t have to wait—they can start now, working with resources locally at hand.
We need to recognize that something profound has shifted and a new epoch is coming. But instead of abandoning hope, this transitional period is the time to envision and begin building the world we want to inhabit on the other side.
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Some Signs I Saw at the No Kings Rally
If we are going to save the country, it’s clear it’s going to have to be done by the millions of people like those who attended this rally.
Oct 19, 2025
The rally was in Livermore, California, a burgh of about 85,000, 50 miles to the east of San Francisco. This is a small, exemplary sampling of the many hundreds of signs carried by the many thousands of protesters.
“Memo to the fascists: peaceful protest is not violent insurrection.”
“ICE is Trump’s Gestapo.”
“When cruelty becomes normal, compassion becomes radical.”
“If you love America, this is how you show it.”
“No Dick-tators.”
“Super callous fragile racist lying nazi POTUS.”
“No faux-king way we’re gonna take this.”
“It’s bad enough that even introverts are here.”
“The reason you should care is not that it could happen to you, but that it’s already happening to others.”
“Hate never made a country great.”
“So many concerns; so little cardboard.”
“If I had a nickel for every time Trump lied, I wouldn’t need Social Security.”
“No kings. No felons. No pedophiles.”
“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”
“No troops in our cities.”
“Only YOU can prevent fascist liars”
“If you’re doing what’s right, why do you need to wear masks?”
“Citizens, not subjects”
“In a democracy, the opposition is not ‘The enemy within’”
“I’d rather be a fierce patriot than a loyal subject."
“Sorry, Trump; we are NOT intimidated.”
“Trump: Is Netanyahu blackmailing you? Release the Epstein files.”
“Orange lies matter.”
“The best way to protect our rights is to exercise them.”
“We are the King family and even we say ‘No Kings.’”
“Protest while you still can.”
“Freedom is not a state of mind. It’s an act.”
“If you love America, this is how you show it.”
“Trump: you can’t arrest all of us.”
“I will defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
“Nobody paid me to be here. This is the 'Free' part of ‘Freedom.”
“Ikea has better cabinets than Trump.”
“Democracy dies in silence.”
“USA; King-free since 1776.”
“Why does Trump release Santos but not the Epstein files?”
“Trump is the real outside agitator.”
“Liar. Con man. Pedophile.”
“Not antifa. Just anti-fascist.”
“I don’t bow, to Kings, or anybody.”
“Silence is complicity.”
“Hey, Kristi Noem: We’re not animals. Don’t treat us like your puppy.”
“OMG GOP WTF.”
“Stop pretending your racism is patriotism.”
“The manifesto of resistance is called ‘The Constitution.’”
“Freedom doesn’t wear a crown.”
“I believe Stormy Daniels.”
“Hope is stronger than fear.”
“I’m not taking civics lessons from a 34-time convicted felon.”
“Power of the people is stronger than the people in power.”
“In a time of pervasive lying, truth-telling becomes a revolutionary act.” ~George Orwell
Trump has learned how to neuter those centers of power that might challenge him: law firms, universities, media, etc. His press secretary has called Democrats, “terrorists” and “criminals,” a predicate for silencing or eliminating them. If we are going to save the country, it’s clear it’s going to have to be done by the millions of people like those who attended this rally. Get YOUR signs ready. It’s going to be a long march.
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The MAHA Commission Won’t Fix Public Health or Our Food System
RFK Jr. sold out on pesticides, but we can course correct if as a society we reprioritize health and start making decisions that benefit people over corporate greed.
Oct 19, 2025
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. started talking about pesticides, a lot of people got their hopes up that someone might finally fix the broken food system. But instead he bowed to corporate oligarchy when he listened to Big Ag rather than recommending that we stop exposing ourselves to toxic pesticides. This toxic food system wasn’t always our reality, and it doesn’t have to be our future.
In the United States, it is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) job to regulate pesticides. Pesticide manufacturers apply for registration of active ingredients by submitting research (often industry funded) claiming they are safe and effective when used as directed. EPA determines its registration decisions based on a risk assessment and other supporting documents, then a public comment period follows. However, EPA relies on industry-funded research for these decisions, when time and again we have seen the pesticide industry hide evidence that its products cause harm.
Take the herbicide paraquat for instance: Paraquat is a highly toxic pesticide; one teaspoon is enough to kill an adult. There is no antidote for paraquat poisoning. This herbicide is commonly used in the United States as weeds become increasingly resistant to glyphosate (the active ingredient in Bayer’s industrial formulation of Roundup™). Paraquat is banned for use in 72 countries. Exposure to paraquat has been increasingly associated with Parkinson’s disease and other chronic conditions like cancer, but Big Ag has successfully pushed back against calls to ban this pesticide in the US for decades.
But this issue is bigger than one chemical; there are hundreds of pesticides in use in this country, and all of them have the potential to cause harm. Be it weeds, bugs, rodents, or fungi, the purpose of these chemicals is to kill what they come in contact with. Our consolidated food system encourages farmers to prioritize quantity over crop diversity—meaning that the largest farms in this country are monoculture operations (farms growing one crop on massive swaths of land). One problem with monoculture is that the pest pressures are significant. It requires high inputs of agrichemicals; you either need a huge amount of labor to pull weeds and hand-pick pests, or you apply increasing quantities of synthetic pesticides to manage pests. Year over year, as farms use more and more pesticides, weeds and pests develop resistance, requiring more frequent application or resorting to stronger, more toxic formulations. This is a vicious cycle that traps farmers by keeping them on a “pesticide treadmill.”
Agorecology is an economically and ecologically viable alternative to our current food system’s foundation of extraction.
This monoculture, ultra-processed food system that relies heavily on toxic chemicals is also making us sick, with microplastics being found in our brains (plastic usage in agriculture is also a growing concern and a major contributor to microplastics in soil); PFAS contaminating our water (many pesticide formulations contain or are themselves PFAS); and children being exposed to pesticides in their backyards, at parks and schools, and in utero. At the same time, farmers are being squeezed by a system that makes it harder for small and medium-sized farms to make a living, with no protections in place except for the corporate players.
It wasn’t one thing that set us on the path to this reality where our food, water, soil, air, and bodies are contaminated with fossil fuel derived agrichemicals and microplastics; there were decisions and policies that over the course of only a few decades cornered us into this reality. The good news is that we can course correct if as a society we reprioritize health and start making decisions that benefit people over corporate greed.
A food system built on agroecology is one that doesn’t rely on agrichemicals to function and is therefore not captured by corporations. An agroecological food system in America looks like thriving and decentralized community food systems, where the people growing and consuming food have control over what goes into and comes out of their food system; grow food without reliance on agrichemical inputs or patented seeds; work with the environment rather than against it; and prioritize health, safety, and collective well-being.
Agorecology is an economically and ecologically viable alternative to our current food system’s foundation of extraction. It is actively practiced around the world, and it existed in what we now call the United States of America long before pesticides were introduced. Our job today is to shift our extractive mindsets to ones that prioritize health, in line with Indigenous wisdom.
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We Live in an Age of Public Bullying; What Can We Do About It?
Bullies, starting with super-bully Trump, need to “get some of their own medicine.”
Oct 19, 2025
Professor Emeritus Roddey Reid could have retired from the University of California San Diego to a life of deserved leisure. Instead, he has just published a handbook on "Political Intimidation and Public Bullying," which is increasingly dominating government, business, and civil society.
A guest this week on my radio show and podcast, Professor Reid was followed by Professor of Law Robert Fellmeth from the University of San Diego, a leading critic of unbridled anonymous speech fostered by Silicon Valley companies to boost profits.
Reid argues, Newt Gingrich launched this political onslaught in 1994 when he took over the GOP, led the Republicans to victory and became house speaker. “To be clear,” Reid continues, “political intimidation and public bullying are forms of psychological and physical political violence… meant to injure, humiliate, isolate, coerce, and even destroy opponents and entire communities.” These interviews should spark a civic rebellion.
The political intimidation operates in both open sight—from the belligerent bully-in-chief Donald Trump, and in the shadows with serious anonymous threats to members of Congress, judges, and their families. Combined, this viciousness has meant the difference in razor-thin votes in Congress. For example, the violent-talking, unfit secretary of defense being confirmed by the Senate. Other Trump nominees, who are also staggeringly inexperienced, totally obeisant to Trump’s wrecking of America in daily violation of the Constitution and federal laws, have also squeaked through Senate confirmation votes.
Political bullies focus on the weak, vulnerable, and powerless. You don’t see Trump going after and cutting programs servicing big-time corporate welfare kings through subsidies, handouts, giveaways, and bailouts in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
Reid is systemic and illustrative in his fast-paced book titled Confronting Political Intimidation and Bullying–privately published to make it very up to date through August 2025. In his last chapter, he conveys 13 strategies for citizens to use locally in response.
Cumulatively, this mass “callout” could descend upon Congress and state legislatures for a more systemic regulatory agenda.
Such legislative activity in Sacramento, California is already taking place to deal with the central delivery mode of such bullying—ANONYMITY—according to Professor Fellmeth. A long-time advocate of curbing the dangers of internet anonymity, including to children. Fellmeth urges a decisive ban on most anonymous assaults, leaving open some exceptions for whistleblowers and others with a need to protect their privacy and self-defense. To accomplish this selectivity has to involve regulation of the Silicon Valley profiteers and electric child molesters, led by the duplicitous Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of META. His major declared mission is to drive people from reality and live their lives in his virtual reality. A quick safeguard is to require anonymous speech to be pursued by law enforcement when it embodies physical threats and deliberate psychological torture. Naming and prosecuting the perpetrator will serve as deterrent to other potential anonymous predators.
Moreover, Fellmeth, who has written several articles on AI’s rapidly intensifying damage to youngsters, wants a regulation mandating identifying AI creations as such to forewarn the public. (See Professor Fellmeth’s article: "AI is already harming our children. Are California lawmakers going to do something?" January 30, 2025).
Bullies, starting with super-bully Trump, need to “get some of their own medicine.” That means those attacked with nicknames need to counter with nicknames, rebutting phony allegations and revealing the brutal impacts of their bullying on innocent people and families in both red and blue states by the vicious and cruel Trumpsters. Otherwise, the “Big Lies” without rebuttals become soliloquies, and therefore believable to millions of people and influence millions of susceptible voters. (See our prescient and useable book Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All.)
Political bullies focus on the weak, vulnerable, and powerless. You don’t see Trump going after and cutting programs servicing big-time corporate welfare kings through subsidies, handouts, giveaways, and bailouts in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
His latest vindictive cuts—some boomeranging against his own desired policies—were outlined in a recent Washington Post feature by lead reporter Hannah Natanson. His latest “firings”—suspended by a federal district judge in California–targeted services for students with disabilities, inspectors who check the defects of federal housing, and employees who help regulate hazardous waste and pollution, according to the Post. Frothing at the mouth, Trump called those fired “people that the Democrats want,” as if conservative Trump voters and their families want to breath and otherwise be exposed to dangerous pollutants. The same flailing dismissals will strike what the Post described “as vulnerable Americans–school children, low-income families, homeless people, and senior citizens.” Trump is steered by the seriously hateful Russell Vought, the White House Budget chief and preparer of the Heritage Foundation’s notorious Project 2025 blueprint for Trump’s fascist dictatorship. It doesn’t matter that these and previous firings, without cause, are illegal in numerous ways. After all, didn’t Trump tell you in July 2019 that “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President”?
Here is an illustration of the institutionally insane wielding of the axe by indiscriminate haters that is hurting Trump voters and families alongside their Democratic counterparts. Trump and Vought want to layoff “workers with top secret clearance responsible for monitoring and protecting the United States from biological, chemical, and nuclear threats.” Earlier Trump and Vought drastically cut federal health scientists, safety regulators, and critical benefit dispensers in the tens of thousands.
Another instance of mindlessly cutting federal support for slammed hard-pressed community colleges, the recipient of lavish praise by Trump over the years for their job training curricula.
He is betraying Trump voters, with regular treachery! It is time for the people to say, “Donald Trump, you are fired.” (See my May 2, 2025 column: “YOU’RE FIRED!”–GROWING MILLIONS OF AMERICANS ARE REJECTING TRUMP)
You can listen to these interviews on radio stations in central cities or by visiting RalphNaderRadioHour.com.
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