The Counter Attack

Pennsylvania wasn’t a blip, it was the first counterstrike in a long war for democracy

A guest article by Kevin Gaughen of the Liberal Party and long time NAFO member.

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Kevin is a friend who personifies the diversity of NAFO. He lost his Libertarian Party to ruSSian psyops and authoritarian incomers. Unlike many, he chose to make a stand and has campaigned for individual liberty and not for personal influence or money. He is the reason I know NAFO is not another “quotes” leftist/NGO online group. We are genuine supporters of liberty.

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Yesterday was the municipal election in Pennsylvania where we chose judges and local politicians.

Republicans got their butts handed to them, even in red counties.

This should surprise no one who lives stateside. People have lost their healthcare and their food assistance. They cannot afford gasoline or rent. Our military is occupying our cities, migrants are being deported to concentration camps without due process, and our government is completely rogue and beyond the rule of law. Americans are stressed out, broke, and pissed the fuck off. Yesterday was a loud referendum on the MAGA junta.

The tide is turning, and we will probably see an even larger blue wave next year during the congressional elections.

Should the Democrats win a majority of Congress in 2026, there’s a very real possibility that Trump will be impeached, convicted, and sent to prison. Trump knows this. I’m certain he can feel the walls closing in.

I cannot imagine that the only president in US history to have ever attempted a coup will suddenly do a 180º and begin honoring the results of free and fair elections. He hasn’t before, and he won’t in the future. Trump is too much of a narcissist to acknowledge the will of the people. He’ll never concede or resign because he hasn’t one noble bone in his body, and he doesn’t care what his people want. All Trump cares about is himself, money, and staying out of prison.

Prison is inevitable the moment Trump leaves office. To forestall it, he will need to do something drastic.

I have a BAD feeling about the future.

One possible way Trump could escape accountability is by going full autocrat. Basically, Trump would become a dictator that no one can remove from office. But how would he do this within our constitutional framework? Well, he wouldn’t. Trump would have to step outside of our laws and have his Supreme Court buddies rubber-stamp it like they did when they gave him blanket immunity. Basically, the Supreme Court would make him a king, though they wouldn’t call it that explicitly.

To avoid a mass uprising in the wake of such a decision, there would need to be some political will for giving a president totalitarian powers. Not only a plausible legal explanation for it, but a majority of the American public would need to be *fervently in favor of it.*

Typically, dictators sell extraordinary power grabs to the public via national emergencies. When there is no emergency, the aspiring autocrat creates one via a false flag operation. The Reichstag Fire and the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia are historical examples of this principle. I predict there will be some kind of big, serious event in the near future - a major threat that will scare Americans so badly that they’ll be willing to trade their freedoms for security as they did during Covid or 9/11. I could even see Putin helping Trump to orchestrate such a feint.

Trump only has 12 months left to consolidate power before the midterms. It’s now or never, so expect an engineered calamity of a magnitude that will give him the pretense, and the public opinion mandate, to cancel elections and stay in power forever.

Trump will have help from powerful friends, many of whom are also keen on staying out of jail. They will do what they must to prevent a regime change. The billionaire-laden Dark Enlightenment movement (Musk, Thiel, Andreessen, etc) will pour its vast resources and considerable information warfare capabilities into Trump’s self-coronation. Not because they care about Trump, but because they too want to end democracy. If you think that’s hyperbole, read the things those men have written.

Sometimes we forget what democracy actually is and why we’re fighting for it. Democracy means THE PEOPLE are sovereign. It means THE PEOPLE hold ultimate power to decide their own future. Democracy is the theory that political power comes from the bottom and is merely delegated to those at the top, and that delegated authority can be revoked.

The oligarch class doesn’t like this system. It’s unpredictable, it’s costly, and it’s risky for their cash flows. They don’t want common people, whom they see as lessers, to exercise control over a political system that could affect them adversely. They view us non-billionaires as labor cattle on their debt farms, and therefore we should enjoy the same suffrage that livestock has.

When we turn on the TV, we’re led to believe that the rift in our country is Red Team vs. Blue Team. That it’s about abortion, gun rights, welfare, or whatever. It’s how they spin it, but it’s not what’s happening. What is actually going on is a shadow world war: the autocratic world is trying to destroy the democratic world.

Elections are merely one theater of this war, one avenue to victory. The information space is another, which is why those in the MAGA orbit are so keen on buying up news outlets and social media networks; they want to control everything the voting public sees, hears, reads, and thinks. Occasionally, the war on democracy is kinetic with real bombs, which is exactly what’s happening in Ukraine.

We must not underestimate the scale or importance of this conflict. To frame it correctly: we are in a worldwide, existential fight to determine whether human beings have a right to govern themselves.

What we pro-democracy folks are doing now is every bit as important as what the allies did in WWII. In fact, it is a continuation of the same fight.

All the money and muscle is behind the bad guys. The anti-democracy movement still controls both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, the White House, the Military, and most of the media. They have foreign states, corporations, and dozens of billionaires on their side. We are up against a colossus.

These are long odds, but yesterday’s election was a ray of hope after ten months of anxiety and chaos. We hit the monster hard, we saw it recoil, and we feel a new hope in our bones. This war is far from over, but now we know there’s a fighting chance. There’s a possibility that we could win.

We must not get overconfident. The men who want to silence us will not give up, because this is a fight to the death for them too. The anti-democracy crowd is in a time crunch. If they cannot institute a full autocracy by the end of Trump’s term, they will face blistering consequences. They will be tried, convicted, stripped of their wealth, jailed, and maybe even executed for treason. Expect them to treat this as fight for survival. And they’re awful people, so don’t expect them to fight like gentlemen.

Things are about to get very ugly and uncivil. Those in power will attempt to crush us and foment civil unrest. They will use our own government as a weapon against us. They will do whatever they can to scare or beat us into submission. The coming year will be the most dangerous period in our nation’s history since the Civil War.

If you’re reading this, it’s because you understand the fight we’re in. You are educated enough to know what’s on the line, and you can imagine what dark times humanity will face if we lose.

Suit up. We need you.