The era of Tyrants is upon us.

I am not sleeping well again. My slumber is too little and too light. It's choppy and pitted with uncomfortable dreams. It's a new normal that I have been dealing with since I became sick five years ago.

Trump's inauguration wasn't helpful to a good night's sleep because it wasn't the peaceful transition of power between political powers but a coronation for authoritarianism. It was as unprecedented and earth-shattering to our society as Napoleon, in 1804, crowning himself emperor rather than having the Pope place the crown on his head.

Photo by Adrian Botica on Unsplash

If Harris or Biden had been inaugurated yesterday, it too would have been a coronation for fascism. It would have been as outrageous, and unsettling as Trump's return to Washington. After all, the Democrats enabled, endorsed and promoted the worst genocide in the 21st century, and that discredits their claims of being a political party of democracy and ethics.

But, like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, who "always depended on the kindness of strangers," if it was a Democratic Inauguration; we'd have clung to our delusions. We'd have been allowed to continue to believe that good people still had the means to tame neoliberalism.

Instead, after Trump's return to the Presidency, we are like a cancer patient, who has been told there are no treatments left. No matter how far someone sticks their head in the sand, they can't avoid the fact- that what unfurled in Washington yesterday was the first day of a strongman's dictatorship.

On Monday, I greeted Trump's second term with nausea and dread because I live in Canada, which is on his shit list. He is intent on imposing crippling economic tariffs on Canada and Mexico to destroy the sovereignty of these two countries. They haven't been imposed yet. But Canada's business leaders, the political class and corporate news media have, despite bluster about retaliatory tariffs, worked like it is 1938 to appease Trump and American fascism. They accepted his lies that Canada is a major source of fentanyl and migrants being smuggled into the USA. Once you accept the terms of Trump's warped reality as truth, you have surrendered to his authoritarianism.

During Trump's inaugural speech, he declared war on the Trans community, migrants and minorities. He threatened Panama with an invasion and pledged to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. He promised his Presidency was about to be a "Golden Age," for America, as if he were a sovereign of a Kingdom rather than a President, with a fixed term in a Republic.

In January 2020, as Covid began to unfurl across the world most of us were in denial that the pandemic would irrevocably change society for the worst. We thought about it the way the generation alive in 1914 viewed the start ofWW1.It would all be over in a few months. Five years later, look where we are- caught in the weeds of fascism, public healthcare is almost destroyed and COVID is still causing mayhem. We are faced with a cost of living crisis to rival the one in the 1930s.

Trump's answer to it all because he is a cynical kleptocrat is to destroy the environment and then the climate with an expansion of oil extraction across the USA. There is no consolation in knowing they, too, will die in the chaos of climate collapse. Before that occurs, most of us will be killed by them, as they assert total domination over our society.

The 1% and Trump don't care if the environment is devastated or if life becomes unliveable for much of humanity. Extreme wealth gave them the hubris of the mythological gods of Greece.

ln January 2020, I was newly diagnosed with cancer which made me acutely aware of the fragility of life. My gut told me then that nothing would be the same again for me or the world. Today, with the return of Donald Trump to the Presidency, my gut has that same dread I experienced in 2020. He is a pestilence of fascism, and many of us won't survive him or the oligarchs who back his regime. There is no longer any established politics that can protect us from this enveloping dictatorship. The era of tyrants is upon us.

Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription, gift subscription or tip. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it is all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John