“If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.”

This from Timothy Snyder, author of “On Tyranny.” This after multiple weeks of the current presidential administration deporting nonwhite U.S. citizens, some of whom were just out picking up a pizza, to El Salvador, a country they had never so much as visited. These people had their proof of citizenship on their person, but “immigration” authorities either didn’t look or didn’t care. I shouldn’t say “deported”; these people were sent straight to a foreign prison—charged with no crime, let alone convicted.

Let no one say this isn’t relevant to Hartford. It’s absurd to think that just because it hasn’t happened here yet, it’s not our business. Is this a platform welcoming of civics, or isn’t it? That’s the only question relevant now.

I’m old enough to remember when Joe Biden wouldn’t suspend the filibuster to pass the voting rights act. Biden and other party leaders claimed the filibuster would be useful when their party was in the minority. Well, where are they now? Are we not currently in a desperate-enough situation to warrant a filibuster until this is stopped, and reversed? Will the so-called opposition party mount any opposition whatever? Or will Bernie and AOC urge us in the next election to vote for Gavin Newsom? (A man who recently video’ed himself throwing away the possessions of people without homes.) If they’re told to endorse such a sleeze, we have reason to fear they will.

This is the danger of faux progressive efforts: redirecting real rage into useless ends. It’s why we need a viable third party. It’s why we need to not buy into the duopoly’s lie that voting third party is a wasted vote. The only way they keep their power is if everyone believes the lie.