On Saturday, June 30th, I attended my first rally in many years. Silver City  turned out maybe 250 people–it is a smaller town.  Named for the silver mined here a hundred years ago, it could now as easily refer to the hair color of many residents. Like me, most of the attendees were in their sixties and seventies years of age.

We weren’t reliving the era of the sixties and seventies, when we protested against the Vietnam War and celebrated with  a strong sense of schadenfreude, Nixon’s resignation concluding Watergate.  Most of us on Saturday, were reinventing those earlier days in a new era. The era of the first  American  President elected by Russia. Well, OK, he wasn’t literally voted in by Russia–but without their help he likely wouldn’t be in office today.

Yes, as Hillary claimed in a pre-election debate, Trump IS a puppet. Just look at the way he genuflects before Putin–castigating American allies, subverting the G-7, the EU, NATO, etc.

Soon, Trump will attend a NATO conference, during which he will more than likely insult America’s allies even more than he did at the G-7 meeting. Allies whose products he is placing tariffs and other trade barriers on that will cost American jobs, cost American farmers and other producers lots of lost sales and American consumers more money for all sorts of goods. But hey, a trade war is simple and easily won (WRONG!)

The Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed unanimously that the US intelligence community’s conclusions. Russia “meddled” in America’s 2016 presidential election in hopes of electing Donald Trump. Such a limp word, meddled, that hardly conveys the depth of Russian’s intervention and attack America’s democratic process.

Trump still fears to fully accept this fact publicly–“mustn’t anger Putin,” he thinks to himself.

How many Russian oligarchs, government officials, celebrities, etc., attended Trump’s inaugural events to celebrate our so-called President? Orders of magnitude more than in any other inaugural. Doesn’t that confirm his status as Russia’s puppet–an American President elected by Putin himself?

Following the NATO conference, Trump will meet in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin. Reports are that some of the face time will include one-on-one discussions with only the two “leaders” and their translators (at least this time Trump is supposed to have an American translator–unlike that other meeting). What do you suppose they will discuss? Here’s my guess:

• Coordination of which candidates in the 2018 midterms that Trump wants Putin to slam via social media bots, etc., and which ones he wants Putin to support
• Coordination on ruckuses to raise in advance of the midterms–immigration, racial animosity, attempts to split the various wings of the Democratic party
• Possibly which Supreme Court nominee Putin would prefer–despite the fact that the meeting is on the 16th and Trump says he will announce his own choice on the 9th (watch for a change in that announcement)

It’s hard to imagine this America is the one the founding fathers created so many years ago. We revolted against a king and now there are those who appear sanguine in Trump’s escalation to a throne and are happy to hold a sycophant’s court to assist him.

The people at the rally I attended, like many of those in the modern era of resistance against the would-be-king, were discussing the pragmatic efforts they will be taking, like calling, visiting, and otherwise connecting with their elected officials. Marching in the street is NOT the sum total of their resistance. They will also be working for candidates that won’t be doormats for Trump. If you live in a America, consider whether fireworks and festivities should be the sum total of our celebration of independence. If it is, the days of democracy are numbered.

Here’s my take on making Trump’s campaign slogan a success: