[note: there are some sound troubles in opening, and a little toward the closing of this video, due to gloriously human imperfection: fingers over the mic. ope. the transcripts are AI slop, and i’m trying to edit them but it’s taking forever.]

this is tragic, and it also reeks of the kind of deadly butler-pennsylvania-style political theater we have come to expect from this increasingly desperate regime.

it’s also a good time to remind you that the regime intentionally installed a 22-year-old with zero experience to head US “terrorism prevention.” it’s also a good time to point out that the prevailing domestic terror we’ve been watching unfold has been at the hands of white nationalists, and now they’re trying to throw off their scent. this feels like just-in-time coordinated false flag s**t.

i’m infuriated. national guard members enlist to serve their states in times of actual emergency, not be used as red-shirts for white christian nationalists trying to hold onto power during a failing coup.

why does this reek?

the guard has not been an aggressor here. they got deployed to stand around, pick up trash, and get stiffed by the trump regime. i also get a clear sense they resent being made to occupy their nation to effect a police state.

remember: trump refers to the armed forces as “suckers and losers.” he’s been using them for props. he already sees the armed forces as disposable. he doesn’t care if they live or die. never has.

for all these reasons, i find it highly suspect that guard members would, in this of ALL moments, be targeted for violence. i know violence “doesn’t always add up,” but things have been not adding up for too long not to notice a pattern.

this screams (once more with feeling): “reichstag fire!”

it reminds me of the shooting outside the ice concentration camp, where the only person killed in the “attack on ice” was an abducted immigrant. and the shooter was killed.

no motive to unpack. odd that.

two people died.

it’s as suspicious as the alleged brown person who stole noem’s purse filled with gobs of cash.

they ever find that purse or nah?

it’s as suspicious as the death of a well-known christian nationalist podcaster, who was getting very critical of the regime and whose death was blamed on trans people and then “the radical left,” when the shooter was homegrown in nat-c culture.

fbi now says the shooter “isn’t cooperating with authorities.”

so i reiterate: the math ain’t mathing.

this reads as a direct attack on our apolitical, nonpartisan military

an apolitical, nonpartisan military has been a cornerstone of american democracy; it’s how we ensure no one tries to “king themselves.” this attack feels as manipulative as it is violent— a ploy to get the armed forces on the regime’s side: “these people hate you and this country!” or some such nonsense.

do not fall for the reichstag rhetoric

this is a regime desperate to start a civil war in order to justify cracking down on a free people. it’s abundantly clear white christian nationalists think the rest of us have no rights.

just today, nazi political figure nick fuentes remarked:

If I were president on day one, I’m bringing the National Guard everywhere. I’m talking hundreds of thousands of National Guard in all the major cities, and we are putting that s**t on lock. It is going to be martial law. […] Well, I would just take away the right to vote for tons of people. Women for sure, but also I’d raise the voting age to like, 25 in general. I would probably take away the right to vote for, you know, maybe people that have no stake, no skin in the game. Because here’s the thing, even the men. I look at a lot of men who are students and, you know, they’re 21 years old and their parents are paying for their apartment and they’ve never had a real job and they’re out there telling everybody this is the way the world has to be. Well, how do you know? You know, if you don’t own property and you don’t know, like, how the trains run. If you know, because if you, let’s say you even own your own home. You need to know a little bit about how the world works. You need to know about weather. You need to know about moisture. You need to know about, you know, like basic things for how we have a human habitation. You know what I’m saying? Property developers uniquely understand these things. Taxes and insurance and code and how money is made. Like, they understand what makes the world go round. An 18-year-old that is renting an apartment and never had a real job and is basically, their parents are paying for everything. They don’t have a car.

read that as many times as you need to.

ask who wins, who loses, and who’s on the hook in this scenario. ask yourselves if you think we can just midterm our way out of this.

christian nationalists do not believe in the constitution of the united states. our own national intelligence has repeatedly warned us that they are the greatest threat to our democracy.

a twenty-year-old guard member, sarah beckstrom, has died. he father held her hand as she succumbed to a mortal wound; that’s how he spent his thanksgiving: with his dying daughter. twenty-four-year-old andrew wolfe is still in critical condition. i can only imagine how his loved ones are feeling. these are kids— people my students’ age. i am filled with rage, especially knowing how many of my students enlist (in part) to be able to afford college or climb out of the debt-hole that is the usa’s economic ponzi scheme. these young people swore an oath to defend our constitution, and they got pulled up and under by a draft-dodger, felon, and insurrectionist for his political theater.

that same treasonous draft-dodger wants to court martial and execute the decorated veteran, astronaut, and senator from arizona, mark kelly, for taking part in a public-service campaign reminding intelligence and armed forces that:

(1) they are being pitted against the american people

(2) they are under no obligation to follow unlawful orders.

and now we see the manipulation at play: an ambush attack on unsuspecting guard members, no doubt orchestrated to turn the armed forces against their neighbors, and to turn neighbors against each other.

sarah beckstrom. andrew wolfe.

these are two real people with friends, hobbies, and dreams.

this regime doesn’t care about actual human beings.

we’re furniture to them. props.

fear is the mind-killer; engaged community is the antidote

white christian nationalists are desperate and will try anything to stay in power. expect a steady string of false flags. they know the other side of this is prison for them.

let me remind you, once more: don’t get trapped in their story. don’t listen if they try to tell you that you suddenly don’t have rights. we don’t listen to traitors who are trying on loop, as project 2025 directs, to subject the american people under the insurrection act. there’s no goddamn insurrection.

do NOT try to argue with an alternate reality and get pulled into the trap:

refuse to turn against your neighbors.

refuse to abide by a fascist trying to restrict your rights.

we must, ourselves, refuse to follow unlawful orders.

if you are asking our armed service members and intelligence not to follow unlawful orders, knowing the risk to their lives (given who’s at the helm), then we must back up our armed forces with our own refusal to follow unlawful orders.

you and i are the only ones backing up our military right now. no one else is coming. they are counting on you as much as you are counting on them.

don’t cower. don’t give up the ship.

do not despair: organize

we do not have to abide by their theater of lawlessness and disorder.

now is time to organize peacefully in your local neighborhoods.

now is time to build parallel systems of support around food, shelter, safety, medical care, solidarity economies, art, play, and kinship.

choose nonviolence and noncompliance with the regime.

we must hold the line for each other— in honor of every single neighbor killed as a prop for weak men’s power-games.

you and i matter.

the who people who died matter.

our neighbors who have been abducted and tortured in ice facilities matter.

our neighbors who have died as a result of war crimes at the hands of this regime also matter.

every single person in this country who has died at the hands of a white nationalist police state matters.

we can’t heal what we cannot feel: we must begin again to matter to each other.

we must turn toward each other.

true patriotism in this moment demands our compassion, collaboration, creativity, and courage to act— to build the world we wish to see in the face of threats and ruination.

we the people rebuke moral collapse.

we will hold the line together.

e pluribus unum.

out of the many: one

wish — by flightlessblrbs

weirdo’s postscript

i drafted a version of the essay, below. and then, feeling a teacherly instinct, hopped online to hold a “home room,” the way generations of educators have held space for their students in times of mass grief and confusion. i am not your teacher, you’re my neighbors, and i am glad to know you. these days, i’m feeling my way toward an expansive version of what community college teacher could be in this moment. there’s a reason jd vance says people like me are “enemies of the people”: it’s because when we learn things in community, we are changed for the better. when education serves the people, it empowers the people.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit muppetgender.substack.com