Donald Trump

Growing up with a K-Pop Kid

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

October 2, 2025

Fifty years ago, I was 11 years old and somewhere between my Elton John phase and my Kiss phase. All the girls in my class were in their Bay City Rollers phase. Now I have an 11-year-old and she’s firmly in her K-Pop phase. Yeah, there’s a new Taylor Swift album out tomorrow but that pales in comparison to having every single incarnation of the new album by Stray Kids (available at Target). I know, because I’ve had to drive her there to get each version. “I’m spending my own money, Dad!” I laugh because I was right there, spending my chore money on Kiss posters.

Three thoughts.

Thought One: I love the evolution of music. If you would have asked me in 1975 what the pop music of 2025 might sound like, I never would have guessed the post-modern electro-clash of South Korean K-Pop groups. It’s like music from another planet. Just blast “Ceremony” by Stray Kids and tell me what you are listening to. But it’s infectious. Is it “noise” (Get out my yard, kids!) or a brilliant innovation of the pop music genre? The rock and roll ethic is youth music is supposed to set the younger generation apart from the older generation. My Dad’s parents hated Elvis and my dad hated Run DMC. I’m supposed to hate this music but I’m fascinated by it. Sorry, Cozy. I’m in.

Thought Two: I used to lecture about “teenybopper” culture in my Sociology of Youth Subculture class. About how research shows that the “culture of the bedroom” allows pre-teen girls to experiment with heterosexual norms of dating. I’m from the seventies, so their were a lot of girls buying Tiger Beat for the pin-ups of Leif Garret and Shaun Cassidy. Cozy’s Stray Kids box sets come with similar swag that ends up on her bedroom wall. Her and her friend screamed yesterday as they pulled out the pictures of the members of the boy band, including Hyunjin, who she declared was her “husband.” Classic teenybopper. How many women my age were sure they would marry Donny Osmond?

Thought Three: Music is such a great way to bond with your kid. Some families have sports, or religion, or animal husbandry. Our house has always been filled with an unhealthy obsession with music. Taking Cozy to see Taylor Swift last year was something we will both talk about for the rest of our days. Being present for her present K-Pop obsession is a great gift and she knows I appreciate it because I was in a similar spot. (There is more than one picture of me in Kiss make-up.) Andi and I took Cozy to see the film Demon Hunter at the theater and she sang every world. On the fourth of July, Cozy and her girl squad were crammed into my Subaru and they put “Gnarly” by KATSEYE on repeat and full volume and sang at the top of their lungs while they threw Snap n Pops at pedestrians. It was bliss.

Thanks to Facebook routinely reminding me, I am often lamenting over pics of Cozy the Toddler. Or Cozy the Second Grader. I posted a lot of pictures of her and that was a great part of her and my life. Cozy the Middle Schooler has all kinds of new joys to offer. Yeah, I want her to get off her phone and clean up her room (That’s another conflicting conflict to explore), but there is so much for me and this kid to learn about each other. Me at 11 was on my bike, her a 11 is on TikTok. We’re different people in different times. Me at 11 was obsessed with Watergate and my first trip to Washington, DC. Cozy is more than aware that Trump is threatening her country and her city, in particular, but she distances herself because her father is so invested in it, often asking why I spend so much time on the protest front line.

So the music connects us. The night she was born, I held her in my arms and sang, “Yellow Submarine.” I can imagine myself on my deathbed with her singing me some K-Pop tune from the 2020s. I asked her yesterday, “What do you think the music of 2075 will sound like, because you’ll be there?” She said, “Like robots.” I said, “That’s what I said 50 years ago.” We’re both right.

Responding to the Murder of Charlie Kirk: How to find calm in an insane nation

~ Randy Blazak ~ 6 Comments

September 11, 2025

It was a call from a reporter. That’s how I found out that right-wing activist Charlie Kirk had been shot. I didn’t know enough to make a comment to the media. My brain started making a list who could have been responsible:

  1. Far right groups who think that Kirk’s Turning Point USA is not extreme enough.
  2. Right-wing groups who think Turning Point USA is too extreme.
  3. Someone having a mental health crisis.
  4. Someone personally connected to Kirk, like a spurned lover or someone he financially ripped off.
  5. Someone from the Trump camp, hoping to knock the Epstein files out of the news cycle and/or angry with Kirk’s demand that Trump release the files.
  6. A Russian plot to create political instability in the U.S.
  7. An incel frustrated over Kirk’s success as a family man.
  8. A nihilist who worships death and chaos.
  9. A suicidal individual seeking fame on their way out.
  10. An accelerationist who wants to hasten societal collapse.
  11. A right-wing “patriot” hoping to spark a civil war.
  12. A student hoping to harm the school where it happened.
  13. Someone from the left who opposed Kirk’s right-wing positions.

The immediate response to the shooting said everything about America. Some on the right (assuming they knew who the shooter was) called for violence on the left. Some on the left responded with the quip, “the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.” Most expressed regret that we’ve gotten to this point. My social media feed was filled with hysterical MAGAs screaming about the “violent left,” while the left filled the feed with quotes from Kirk himself about the cost of gun violence in the protection of the second amendment. What a shit show.

This needs to be said. Charlie Kirk was a racist, homophobic, transphobic misogynist. He profited from spreading his brand of “free speech” hate. But he also encouraged public debate on these issues, not violent conflict. And he didn’t deserve to be slaughtered in front of his wife and children. He deserved to be ridiculed for his toxic beliefs. One day, he could have seen the light and become an advocate for tolerance. Now he’s just dead.

So on this 9/11, where does are nation go from here?

The United States is on the proverbial ledge.  Hours after he announced the death, from the Oval Office, Trump blamed the “radical left” without even a suspect in custody. Activists in Portland are on high alert for retribution. In 2020, we saw right-wing actors outside Portland create “Pro-America” caravans to attack local Black Lives Matter protestors. The rhetoric in extremist forums, like 4chan, state the Kirk killing has green lit an open season on leftists. Could our Fort Sumpter be Utah Valley University? Has the civil war begun? Do I need to arm up to protect my family from gangs of Proud Boys attacking Portland? America is a powder keg, with troops on the street and endless chatter about right and left.

The good news is, America is not divided as Fox News would have you believe. Watching MSNBC whitewash Kirk’s hate mongering might be evidence. While the media (including MSNBC) leans right, the vast majority of Americans are happily in the middle. Surveys find a general consensus on “divisive” issues like gun control, abortion, gay rights, vaccines and even tariffs. That’s because, while we might debate an issue (Transgender swimmers, go!), our core values across the political spectrum are relatively stable. Conservatives and liberals, MAGA and Bernie Sanders fans, we generally value education, public safety, privacy, equality, fairness, and justice. Research shows when people from different political positions first share common values, political civility returns to the discussion. We can heal this divide.

Every 9/11, I like to focus, instead, on 9/12 – that incredible feeling of national unity we felt following the attacks. We have a choice this 9/11. We can push our peers farther to the extremes and tip the nation into an unwinnable civil war that will plunge our beautiful nation into years of traumatic violence. Or we can find that common ground and create a rebirth of our vibrant multicultural democracy. We can put down our doom scrolls and meet out neighbors, rebuilding community. Charlie Kirk’s life was dedicated to dividing us. Perhaps his horrible death can motivate us to reject violence and incivility and find what binds us. The attacks of 9/11 still tear at my heart, but the resilience of 9/12 gives me great hope.

Are We There Yet? On Dictatorship, Civil War, and Revolution

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

From The Blazak Report on Substack, August 21, 2025.

August 21, 2025

Usually my time machine fantasies involve things like going back to 1965 to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium, or to 1415 to see if the Battle of Agincourt was anything like Shakespeare and all those movies depicted. These days I’m trying to leap ahead 100 years to see how 2025 turned out. Will 2125 be a new feudal era, another Dark Ages, where elite technocrats hold the all wealth and power and the rest of us are just miserable renters? Or will we have chopped the heads off the authoritarians and preserved democracy for another century?

There’s no guarantee that the United States lasts another five years, let alone a hundred. I’ve seen plenty of nations come and go in my life and Trump and his handlers are dismantling democracy so fast, I don’t have much faith that we will have free and fair elections in 2026. If Texas is any indicator, Trump and the GOP (now Guardians of Pedophiles) are setting up the apparatus of permanent rule.

But there’s a “but” there that I will get to in a minute.

There’s a lot of hand wringing at the moment around these three questions:

Are we in a dictatorship? It certainly feels like it. Trump is busy destroying the checks and balances of our constitutional democracy, there are troops on the street, and he is attempting an Orwellian rewrite of American history. But there are almost 900 federal judges who can gum up Trump’s plans and over 3 million federal workers who can throw in plenty of monkey wrenches. While the mainstream media has capitulated as much as congressional Republicans, the internet is still wide open and the journalists of social media are doing the hard work of covering fascism in real time.

Are we in a civil war? Not yet. If the National Guard starts firing on civilians, probably. But polls show the vast majority of Americans disapprove of Trump and his tactics, including the Gestapo-like sweeps of immigrants. We are not “brother vs. brother” in the 1861 sense. Yet. There’s a former Marine and current ICE protestor who told me that we shouldn’t “look right or left, but up.” He talks to conservatives (and ICE agents when they detain him) about joining this fight. More and more people are leaving MAGA as they figure out that Trump is only serving his billionaire oligarchs.

Is it time for revolution? This is a tough one. The people of 2125 may ask why Americans in 2025 didn’t stop the authoritarian takeover when they had the chance. (We love to ask the same question of 1933 Germany.) We know the heavy hand of the state is already upon us. Just look at how the entire Department of Justice was mobilized to mete out swift justice to the lawyer who threw a Subway sandwich at a federal agent. People throwing rocks at ICE vehicles are being quickly arrested. And the NRA is strangely silent.

I want to believe this can be resolved with a massive nonviolent uprising, but there may be a growing voice that advocates for offing the king and his corrupt court. The nightly battles at the Portland ICE building seem like rehearsals for storming the Bastille.

So here’s the “but.” We don’t have the advantage of 2125’s perspective. If there’s one thing I learned from Joe Strummer it’s that the future is unwritten. A whole bunch of things could happen. Donald Trump and JD Vance/Peter Thiel could drop dead (please, sweet Jesus, do us this solid), and America could wake up to the great harm done. The GOP could decide to take back its soul (led by the ghost of John McCain). The Democratic Party could get it’s shit together, focus on tariff-inducing inflation, health care, and making sure our elections are fair, and we, as a democratic nation, could burst Trump’s narcissistic bubble.

So, yes, it’s time for revolution, but it doesn’t have to be a violent one. Once MAGA feels the hit of the “big beautiful bill,” the ranks of the resistance will swell. It’s already happening. The protests at the Heritage Foundation, the Epstein scandal, the closing of rural hospitals, direct actions confronting returning members of Congress, and the fact that Sesame Street has been foreclosed on by Donald Grump will bring in Americans ready to fight and shut the machine down. This is just the beginning of our resistance.

There’s still more of us than them.

“The people have the power to redeem the work of fools.” – Patti Smith

The Real Trauma of Trump 2.0

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

From The Blazak Report, August 11, 2025.

NOTE: This piece was originally provided to paid subscribers to The Blazak Report on Substack.

August 11, 2025

Unpacking the impact of traumatic events on our brains is an adolescent science. We’re just beginning to understand the ways acute and chronic trauma affects how the parts of the brain work. Much of what we do know is because of the courageous sharing of war veterans. This journey of understanding is detailed in the highly readable book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by V.A. doctor Bessel van der Kolk. But the short version is that trauma can freeze the brain in the fight/flight/freeze mode. Our amygdala hijacks our prefrontal cortex and we are forever on the battlefield.

Fortunately, we’ve also learned that people can heal their deepest traumas. Once PTSD officially became a diagnosis in 1980, treatment plans followed. But the hard truth remains that it is next to impossible for trauma to heal when there are new attacks coming in. An open wound will never heal when it is constantly being picked at. And that brings us to the trauma of Trump.

So much of our nation’s history has been a piss-poor attempt to heal the scars of the past. The Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020 was a desperate plea to heal the racial wounding by American police. We clearly diagnosed the problem and began implementing treatment in the form of meaningful reforms and prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion as American values. And then in 2025, it went all off the rails.

Donald Trump is the abusive husband, standing at the door, threatening his immigrant wife with violence if she leaves. Or if she stays.

There are so many groups who are suffering residual trauma from Trump 2.0.

First women. Trump’s Supreme Court rolled back women’s reproductive rights in his first term. While out of office he had to face a jury of his peers for one of his many sexual assaults and America still elected the “Grab ‘em by the pussy” rapist. His war on women has only ramped up in his second term, shored up by a cast of misogynists, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who belongs to a church that thinks women should not have the right to vote. The gang of Epstein pedophiles roams free, protected by the GOP. How can girls and women feel safe knowing the federal government has been taken over by incels?

Next immigrants. So much for the pledge for Trump just going after the “worst of the worst.” Children with cancer, nursing mothers, and any brown person within ICE’s reach has been grabbed by masked goons and sent to disgusting internment camps or Central American gulags. Legal residents, asylum seekers, dreamers, veterans, and, yes, citizens have been caught up in ICE’s “one-shade-of-not-white fits all” mass deportation plan, as Stephen Miller screams for more. The anxiety of my students, some DACA, some from mixed-status families, some just Hispanic, is palpable. Many immigrants are refugees from violent police states like El Salvador and Syria, carrying massive trauma loads of their own, hoping to find peace and safety in the United States. And now masked men with guns are smashing their car windows and ripping them away from their families.

Veterans are also on this list. We got the memo after the Vietnam War that we need to take better care of our veterans, recognizing the scars of service run deep and long. What was derided as “shell shock,” is now viewed as the very real journey of living with PTSD. Tom Cruise movies aside, we had a national call for healing in a rare example of bipartisanship. Right or left, we all agree that we need to do everything possible to support our veterans. Since January, the cuts by Pvt. Bonespurs and his fellow civilian Elon Musk have devastated struggling vets. They include $30 billion from disability benefits and $1.6 trillion in health care cuts for vets over the next ten years. Most recently, Trump is denying early retirement for transgender members of the Air Force. Why? Because he can. It should be noted that not a single member of the Trump family has served in the military. Not one. He has referred to them as “suckers and losers.” Their wound has been ripped back open by a rich brat from Queens.

We could go on and on. Trans people because of his childish “there are only two genders” executive orders. Native Americans because of his war on tribal sovereignty. Protestors because MAGA officials have promised to use lethal force against them and “put them in trauma.” And all queer people and people of color because of his undoing of decades of progress by ending federally funded DEI programs. And there are so many more. I have a Latina green card holder in my life and she recently told me that she “low grade hates white people” because they are completely oblivious to the stress she must endure every waking hour living in Trump’s America. I totally get it. I mean, wouldn’t you?

Trump and his MAGA masters are driving America into a new Dark Ages. The last Dark Ages was centuries of the most brutal torture. More than princes and princesses, it was random drawing and quartering. The amount of new trauma that’s coming our way while Trump and his goons golf on New Epstein Island may not be survivable. And that’s their goal, because the traumatized are less likely to fight back.

That’s why we have to fight now.

Raising a Daughter in Epstein’s America: Cozy Turns 11

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

August 17, 2025

Eleven years ago today, I was driving west on the Sunset Highway like a bat out of hell. Andi was in labor and we had to find some place to have this baby. We had planned a natural birth in a bathtub birthing center, but our daughter Cozy had started to poke her head out and said, “Nope!” and was retreating back into the security of the womb. The nearest hospital had no room at the maternity inn, so my barely mobile wife, her mother, and the midwife hopped in the Prius and headed west. St. Vincent hospital was on the very edge of town and I was assured that it was still in Portland. This child would be born in Stumptown.

Fortunately, Cozette was born at 9:25 pm in Portland, Oregon, not Beaverton, during the second term of Barrack Obama. That night seemed like the most perfect exhausting evening on earth. Our daughter was here and the world was hers. Little did we know what was ahead.

I had hoped for a girl because I want to help put strong women into this world, who aren’t saddled with the marginalizing messages girls have typically gotten from their dads growing up. This was a feminist household. But easier said than done. We are always working against our patriarchal programing. And then came Donald Trump to make everything so much worse.

Cozy turned two during Trump’s first campaign for the White House. She was too young to hear the reports of the man who would be king bragging about grabbing women, “by the pussy,” and all the credible reports of sexual assaults by the alleged billionaire. (He still hasn’t released his taxes.) She never heard how he talked to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Although, she did put the ballot in the box for me and shouted, “Hillary!”)

Cozy was in first grade on January 6th and already knew Donald Trump was a very bad man. But it was his second term that made things the most challenging. The constant news coverage of Trump and his pedophile ring has just filled the air with the most disturbing sex talk. I can’t even listen to NPR with her in the car. But she already knows it all.

At 10, I got my puberty memo, so I knew Cozy was already in the zone. I bought a supply of menstrual pads for when it officially gets here, but the fact that the style among her and her friends is the visible bra strap means we’re fully in it. I knew it was coming, just not this soon. And now the normal relatively innocent adolescent sex chat has been colonized by the flood of chat about Epstein’s rape of underage girls and the protection of those fellow child rapists by the President of the United States.

I keep flashing back to the days when the GOP was the “party of values” and rich Republican ladies would clutch their pearls over the lyrics in rap music. Now the GOP has become the Guardians of Predators and I’m doing everything I can think of to protect my child from them. We’ve hit the point where children are safer with priests than they are with Republicans. It’s a race to the bottom with Trump, and the old man is in a full on sprint.

Maybe the whole “innocence of youth” thing is a myth. There are kids shooting up schools, after all. But I had a naive hope that I could save my daughter from the reality of our sick culture that elevates rapists and refuses to punish wealthy white sex predators for a few more years. She knows she’s a target. There’s no way in hell I would leave my daughter alone in a room with the President or any of his uber creepy MAGA cult. (Many of Trump’s white nationalist following believes the age of consent should be 14 so men can marry children, so there’s that.)

If there’s any silver lining to this disgusting state of affairs, is that Trump’s rape culture has forced us to talk to our daughter about sexual safety early and often. And Cozy is clear on her boundaries. She’s already shut a classmate down who sent an inappropriate text. It’s horrible at age 10 she had to but she knows how to protect herself. But the other side is the non-stop sexual content she must see as she endlessly scrolls through her TikTok. I want to believe it’s all Taylor Swift but I know it’s mostly Sabrina Carpenter. Our baby is surfing in a sea of sexual messages, and not all are affirming.

Tonight, Cozy will celebrate her birthday with a big overnight party. They will want to keep me and any other adult at arms length. May they all be safe, happy, healthy and live with ease. Welcome to adolescence, Cozette. I am still here to protect you, but I’m going to let you start to lead.

What Do We Do When the Violence Comes?

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

From The Blazak Report on Substack July 10, 2025

If we’re using history as our guide, we know it’s coming. The state sponsored violence against citizens. It’s already here at the hands of ICE and the violence against women’s body’s in the restriction of reproductive rights. But we can expect more waves of escalation. An ICE abduction that goes sideways when they try to kidnap an armed individual who does not want to be deported to some third country gulag. Protestors shot by National Guard who are unsure of their engagement orders, brains in fight or flight mode. The attempted arrest of Trump’s political prisoners who stand up to the weaponization of federal police. Critics of the regime who end up dead as is common in Putin’s Russia. We are a powder keg nation, one Kent State away from exploding. And that may be exactly what Trump wants.

Trump loves to cosplay strongman. He’s already sent the Marines to Los Angelos. He’s hellbent on turning America into one of those “shithole countries” he shit talks about. The slightest escalation could cause him to bring the hammer down so he can prove he’s an “alpha.” Then he has his pretext for suspending elections and cementing his police state rule. History has told this story before.

So how do we respond to the worst provocations of state violence?

The right has long argued for the need of a second American revolution against the multicultural liberal democracy that has sought to dethrone straight cis WASP men. (Can we start using SCWASPM, or is that too much?) The left is now quoting founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Hidden among the peaceful protestors have been anarchists holstering side pieces. Is this the preamble to civil war?

I will admit the thought has crossed my mind. As someone who has had some weapons training, arming up for the coming shit show has been considered. But then I realize that’s a Hollywood fantasy of me protecting my family from Proud Boys and federal forces with an unlimited supply of ammo and slow mo John Rambo rage. It looks super cool in my head.

There will be blood. And there will be calls of retribution.

But, again, if history is our guide, we know that non-violence is the path. This isn’t the 18th century. For the last hundred years the model for the restoration of democracy has been built on mass uprisings that used peaceful means. They don’t always work. I’ll never forget watching the carnage in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But sometimes it has. (I also remember watching The Philippines and the People Power Revolution of 1986.) There will be casualties and it’s going to be heartbreaking. But the dictates of civil disobedience requires us to throw our bodies upon the wheel. Those deaths will be the seeds of a rebirth of democracy in the United States and their names will be cherished.

This moment, this terrifying moment in this terrifying history, could use a singular voice. We need an MLK or a Václav Havel to constantly remind us that the peaceful path is the most effective. To help us to channel our rage. An army of left-wing Timmothy McVeigh’s will not bring us the revolution we need. We can storm the ICE Bastille to liberate the prisoners of Trump’s race war. Or we can use our moral authority to transform those jailers to join us in the great experiment of democracy. In the absence of our Dr. King, we will have to be that singular voice.

We must hold the line and not become them. We’ve got the numbers and the moral arc.

On the question of violence

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

June 21, 2025 (Originally published in The Blazak Report)

There are times when I see the logic of violence. If an ICE agent was trying to abduct a loved one and I was armed, I can imagine my lizard brain telling me to do whatever it takes to save that person from being disappeared from view. This country was founded in violence. Violence was used to free us from tyranny 250 years ago. And violent protest has occasionally played a role in making America great. The role of riots after MLK’s assassination played in the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 is an easy example.

But America is plagued by the dark side of political violence. The deadly shootings in Minnesota by a Trump supporter is only a recent example. And the death at the No Kings rally in Utah was the result of a protest “peacekeeper” trying to stop a man with a gun but shooting a fellow protestor by accident. The narrative of “civil war” has never felt closer

.

I’ve had many people ask if I have a gun or urge me to get a gun. I’ve comfortable with guns but I have a kid in the house, so that changes things. I want through the FBI Citizens Academy and got some good firearm training, but who exactly would I be shooting? When I see ICE agents brandishing weapons or heavily armed Marines in the streets of Los Angeles, I wonder who are they planning on killing. Every gunshot fired is fired with the intent to kill. Nobody shoots a gun just to scare people.

All this is to say, that while the pressure for violence seems to be ramping up, nonviolence is still our path. Even famous pacifist John Lennon said he would use violence to protect his family, but America is not there yet. We still have a clear ethic of doing this with non-violent civil disobedience. I’ve certainly had violent thoughts in this moment. Seeing the hell being levied on our communities by Gestapo-like ICE raids led me to wonder if we could protect those people by just burning all the ICE offices down to the ground. But ultimately people would be hurt or killed and then we’re worse off than we were before. We can do this without fire.

Growing up in the shadow of MLK in Atlanta led me to study Gandhi’s tactics more closely. We take the moral high ground when we throw our bodies against the wheel of death. And, as was the case in India, some of our bodies may be crushed. It seems inevitable that in the clash between protestors and Trump’s federalized goons there will be protestors killed. We could have Kent State on a weekly basis. And Trump will say they hated America and we will make them martyrs, but they will be dead either way. And then there will be those on our side to call for violence as a form of protection. It’s the old MLK vs. Malcolm X dynamic.

I’ve assigned Malcom X to my students for decades, because I want them to know where that “violence as self defense” impetus comes from. I get it. If Marine tanks roll into Portland, there’s going to be a cash course in Molotov cocktails in the Rose City, I’ve already posted the Doors lyric, “They got the guns, but we got the numbers.” You can feel the tension rising. But Mel Gibson fantasies aside, what does that actually get us?

It should be perfectly clear that Donald Trump is a madman. A senile, syphilitic madman. He’s willingness to jump into to the Israel-Iran war should be proof enough. Hundreds of protestors dead as Kristi Noem “liberates” the supposed “socialist” cities on the West Coast would be a trumpeted as a MAGA victory. And then we are in a civil war. We must maintain the moral high ground.

So there are two strategies here that must be kept up in the planning of all actions.

First is the value of peaceful resistance. Things are going to get ugly. Rumors of DHS deputizing Proud Boys and bounty hunters may turn out to be true. They will try to provoke a violent response so they can bring the hammer down, even employing agent provocateurs, so they can claim, “Antifa fired the first shot!” We must resist the impulse to hit back. Non-violent monkey wrenching can take many forms, from human barricades blocking ICE vans to (and this was a YIPPIE trick from the 1960s) loosening the lug nuts on the tires of said vans.

Secondly, these Marines, police, National Guard, and even ICE agents are Americans. They swore an oath to the Constitution, not to Stephen Miller or the Mango Mussolini. We have to encourage them to lay down their arms and walk away from this fascist abuse of the legitimate work they are bounded, by law not Trump, to do. We have to start diffusing the tools of authoritarianism by taking way their cudgel.

June 14 saw 5 to 13 million Americans in the street (depending on your sources). The people are sick of what this madman is doing. Yeah, they got the guns. But we got the numbers and that should be enough.

Note: I’m currently in LA to check on things. I was at the ICE detention center downtown where a half a dozen armed National Guardsmen stood watch, fingers on triggers.

Cooling Off the Hot Air of the Manosphere

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

April 28, 2025

I’m trying to navigate my newfound celebrity. For whatever algorithmic reason, my Instagram account has exploded. At this writing I have over 62 thousand people following and over 3 million views in the last 30 days. That includes a certain star of Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club. I’ve gone viral! My 90-second takes on the state of political crisis are generating a vibrant dialogue from people around the world who are concerned about the fate of American democracy.

And it’s also brought out the trolls.

It’s shouldn’t be surprising that right-wing trolls target my masculinity. They call me “gay,” “beta,” and “cuck.” It’s the same language of the schoolyard bullies who called me “fag” and “pussy.” One troll said, “I bet he can’t even do 20 push ups.” (I immediately got on the floor to make sure that I could.) Somehow they associate caring about democracy with being feminine and they associate being feminine with being weak. These “alpha men” must not know any actual women. And their AI girlfriends don’t count.

I’ve written endless words in this blog about the ginned up “mansophere,” the booming world of performative masculinity that is there for boys and men who can’t navigate the social changes that include seeing girls and women as human beings. These are the fragile fellas that rally for Trump and rail against all things DEI, that think the man should be the king of his castle. They love MMA and rapists like Andrew Tate because they  mourn the loss of the myth of unrestrained male id, to fight and fuck whoever they want. Trump allowed them to escape 4chan and take over Washington. Pete Hegseth is the Incel god.

The fragile troll boys aren’t much of an issue for me. I learned how to deal with them in high school. Redan High had a notorious bully named Ted who one day during lunch, unprompted, said, “Blazak, you’re a pussy.” I shot back, “Well, Ted, I guess you are what you eat, you dick.” I escaped while he tried to figure out what I had just said. These guys are never too smart. They can’t argue policy. They only have ad hominem attacks on how much you’re not like their avatar on Grand Theft Auto V.

Where the danger is in how these “alpha men” treat women and how they vote. The gender gap among the youth is widening. According to a recent NBC poll, only 24% of young women approve of Trump’s performance, but 45% of young men approve of Trump’s shit show. I see this in my college students. There are young men, including men of color, who see the MAGA movement as “preserving” a world where men had status over others. The idea of sharing power cripples them with fear. Trump, the sexual assaulter, with the porn star wife, is their redemption.

So they come after me as a “soy boy libtard.” It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Their hollow macho fantasies of fascism will ultimately bite them in the ass. This isn’t their imagined Roman Empire and it was never meant to be. But trying to beat them down only triggers their fight response. We need to learn how to talk to these boys and men to bring them into the family of man and woman. Alpha Men might just need a hug.

Save America – Adopt a Republican

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

April 18, 2025

This national divide we’re in feels like a ramp up to civil war, brother vs. brother. But instead of the “We Want to Keep Slaves” Confederacy versus the “Let’s Just Brutalize Indians” Union, it’s MAGAts versus Libtards. Have we ever been so divided?

I’ve been writing about the Great Schism in this blog since 2015, when Donald Trump came down from Billionaire Heaven on his golden escalator to blather about Mexicans being “murderers and rapists.” But since my work on a federally funded de-escalation project, I’ve been pushing a controversial approach to the conflict, talk to the other side instead of yelling at them.

Trump and DOGE ended the funding for our 3-year project to reduce political violence, but I have a new audience; Instagram. For whatever reason, my Instagram account (@blazakr) has exploded, from 2000 followers last week to over 43,000 (including some favorite celebs). The algorithm gods have said, “You must take this message to the people.”

Here’s the simple truth. The 2024 election gave Trump the White House and both chambers of Congress. Trump and his MAGA acolytes believe America handed them a mandate, even though Trump got less than 50% of the votes. (77.3 million Americans voted for the Orange Don, but 108.5 registered voters didn’t even vote.) Since January 20th, Trump and his D.C. droogs have gone buck wild, shredding the very fabric of our democracy. DOGE has thrown over 65,000 Americans out work (and countless jobs that relied on federal funding, like mine). People have watched their 401Ks tank as Trump cosplays tough guy with tariffs. And between the ejection of due process protections and official buffoons chatting war plans on leaky apps, in 89 days the world has watched America collapse into a shithole nation.

Can America be saved?

Trump and his elite democracy death squads are hard at work dismantling the guardrails of our sacred system of checks and balances. His complete disregard with the Supreme Court’s unanimous order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador is just one example of the collapse of the rule of law. Tik tok time is running out for the USA.

But there are still options on the table. The millions of Americans taking to the streets is a central strategy. The 2020s could make the 1960s look like the 1950s in terms of protest actions. But I’d like to offer an additional strategy to rescue this 249 year old citizen ship.

Talk to Republicans.

We have to build a majority and there are some important populations to bring on board our pro-democracy movement. The first are Trump voters. That includes the thousands of Trump voters who voted for Biden in 2020. Many of these people are not happy with what Trump, and his boss, Elon Musk, have done to their country. They are farmers and (former) federal workers, parents of kids with disabilities, and old white people who were about to retire.

I tend to lump Trump voters into three categories. There are the MAGA cult members who think Trump is Jesus. They refuse to believe he has ever lied or committed a crime. The 2020 election was stolen because he told them it was. The only way to reach them is with a serious deprogramming regiment. Then there are the fascists. They loved the cruelty of Trump 1.0 and they want Trump 2.0 to bury our multicultural democracy once and for all. They are accelerationists who fuel the chaos and dream to create a white ethno-state from the ashes.

But the third group are perhaps the biggest. They are the casual Trump voters. They voted for Trump because he told them he would drop the price of groceries and adult diapers on Day 1. They thought a businessman would make a better president than a Democrat big government liberal. Many believed the complete crap that came out of Trump’s mouth about “illegal aliens” and “transgender athletes,” and the complete crap that came out of the right wing noise machine about Kamala Harris. Many supported Nikki Haley and held their noses to vote for Trump.

These people can be reached. Many of them are already protesting in front of Tesla dealerships and raising hell at Republican town halls. They are ripe for the picking. But they won’t be won over by being told how stupid they were for voting for Trump. They share many common values with us, including caring about our democracy and the future our children face. And many care about the immigrants in their churches and communities. This is the time to unclench the fist and open the hand.

This same appeal to decency and democracy instead of cruelty and barbarity can be made to the millions of Americans who didn’t vote. We need them, too. The very existence of this nation is on the line. We might not all be perfectly in sync on Gaza or GMOs (but at least we are on the same page about Greenland), and that’s OK. We need to drop the dogma and show up for the promise of America.

The other population to reach out to are elected Republicans. Many have sold their souls to Trump and live in fear of his wrath if they waver in their loyalty. They kiss his ass profusely out of terror of being accused of a thoughtcrime, being a RINO. But there are others who see the cracks in MAGA and are facing re-election in 2026. They know Trump’s War on Woke won’t win over the electorate when eggs are $16 a dozen and retirement accounts have been zeroed out. They include the Reagan Republicans who can still hear the ghosts of John McCain and Mitt Romney. (I know Mitt is still alive, but you know what I mean.) The constituents of these R’s should flood their offices and town halls with demands that they stand up to the Trump-Musk assault on America.

I can’t believe that I’m going to say this, but we need Republicans right now. Yeah, I’m pissed that that Kamala Harris is MIA in this fight, but you know who could really taken Donald down a few pegs? George W. Bush. Yeah, I know, war criminal. But good God, if anybody could peel away some good ol’ boys from the Trump train, it’s W. and his folksy charm. There are Republicans who know that Putin is the bad guy and that undocumented immigrants deserve kindness not cruelty. They need a permission structure to abandon MAGA.

Look, I’m as radical as the next sociology professor. I think capitalism is a death trap for the masses. But I’m willing to put my righteousness to the side while we save this democratic experiment that is America. That’s why I’m urging every liberal, progressive, radical, libertarian, and vegan pagan priestess to adopt a Republican. Reach out to one Trumpie, whether it’s a co-worker, family member or U.S. Senator. Make them your pet project.

Instead of screaming at them (the temptation is real), ask them how they’re doing. Be curious about their lives and then steer the conversation to our common values and how we’re not red and blue Americans, but just Americans. Stay calm and kind. Discuss the harm done to people you know. Don’t get distracted by silly tirades about “men in girls’ sports.” Stay focused on preserving the fabric of America’s Constitutional democracy. Fighting on social media is fun but where has that gotten us? Let’s try something different. It’s just us. No them. And many of these attempts will be complete failures, but some folks will flip and that might just enough to save us. Kill MAGA with kindness. They won’t know what hit them.

Watching the Death of Nation in Real Time

~ Randy Blazak ~ 4 Comments

April 1, 2025

A hundred bucks says Donald Trump has never read the U.S. Constitution. Or The Bible. Or a book. His latest blather about running for a third term is either an overt telegraphing that he’s going to pull a Putin and declare himself “President for Life” or it’s another distraction from that fact that he and Musk are crashing the system so they can scoop up the pieces.

Either way, America is screwed.

I’ve written ad nauseam about the elements of the Trump movement that map directly on to the rise of fascism, starting back in 2015. The parallels this time around are even more stark, including hollowing out America’s system of checks and balances (starting with firing inspector generals), alienating our long term allies (Blame Canada?), flaunting the rule of law, especially due process, and the vision of expanding empire. Leave Greenland alone.

In 70 insane days, Trump has transformed the United States from a democracy to an anocracy. Anocracies are hybrids of democracy and authoritarianism. Russia has elections, but they are Putin-controlled cosplay. Trump is playing by Putin’s playbook, step by step, where a democracy is transformed into a dictatorship, with the support of the loyal oligarchs. And when your favorite oligarch is the richest man on the planet it’s that much easier.

The damage Elon Musk is doing to America may be irreparable. The 2400 Americans that Musk fired from the CDC today will have ripple effects across the world, but especially in communities that voted for Trump who require federal support in disease prevention. But, hey, MAGA got to own those liberal scientists! America is unravelling. Our safety net is being shredded. Social security is next. Our national security is already splayed open on the Signal app. The nation collapsing. And it’s not in slow motion.

Trump, his drunk frat boy sycophants, and the crafty billionaires that cleverly steer the President of the United States have a plan, to remake America into Russia, a feudal state where the landed gentry collect the wealth and the rest of us pay the interest on our debt to them. Trump going after DEI, civil rights protections, and vote by mail is all part of the race to autocracy. All that was great about 20th Century America is being erased before our eyes.

But in a moment straight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we’re not dead yet. We still have time to jump off the corpse wagon.

The natives are restless. Protests are growing all over the country, including in red states. Americans are waking up to the threat. Sociologist C. Wright Mills called it the sociological imagination. When you are aware of your values and those values are under threat, the crisis moves you to develop a wider analysis. If you value American democracy, this is a fucking crisis. And the irony is that it will be disaffected Republicans who tip this thing into a national surge against Trumpism. Yeah, Idiocracy requires idiots and there will always be MAGA cultists who will follow their orange god off a cliff, but we can do this without them. We need Reagan Republicans and the ghost of John McCain. (Eighties Me can’t believed I just typed that, but this is an emergency!)

This is go time, America. It’s time for old baby boomers and young Gen Alphas to make noise, monkey wrench, flood the courts, take to the streets, sit in, stand up, and stop this madness. Or there will be a point when we can no longer claim to be free.