 Last spring, we wrote to you about the NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, a menace to Big Brother and a hero to millions of people who don’t want the National Security Agency spying on their emails, texts and phone calls. (For details about why and how the U.S. Justice Department tried to imprison Tom, click on links at the bottom of his essay below.) After a very long ordeal, Tom won his battle with federal prosecutors. But during the last couple of years, he’s been fighting a very different kind of adversary. As he recalled recently, “Hard to believe that I found out, after a multi-week hospital stay two years ago and then a relapse a few months later requiring another hospital stay, that I had a rather advanced (equivalent to Stage 4) form of lymphoma that also penetrated my bone marrow, both kidneys and the majority of my lymph nodes throughout my body.” Tom is still speaking out for civil liberties and against mass surveillance by the “national security” state. And we want to share with you what he wrote to us at the RootsAction Education Fund: The significant and even life-threatening health challenges I faced admittedly consumed my energy and sapped my strength for quite a while as I fought to remain alive and then regain my health through a lot of aches and pain and seemingly endless checkups and appointments. This past January (after I went through a follow-up referral biopsy at NIH in December of 2023), I received an updated diagnosis for a rather rare form of a blood cancer lymphoma called Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, also known as lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma. The good news? The latest set of recent results from detailed advanced blood tests over the past few months shows I am stable and improving! My treatment regimen now consists of a second generation targeted oral therapy combined with certain supplements and a modified diet. Glad I am still here, as I still have a lot of life left to live in me! So let me take a moment right here and now and express my deepest gratitude and heartfelt thanks for all of your thoughts and continuing support. Whether or not the rare whistleblowers at places like the NSA go to prison, a key official goal is to drive them close to the poverty line for the rest of their lives, deprived of pensions and rendered unemployable for all but low-paid jobs. While Tom Drake remains deeply in financial debt, we are in his debt — morally, politically and ethically. You can help repay that debt with a tax-deductible donation for the Whistleblowers Public Education Campaign. Three-quarters of every dollar will go directly to Tom, while the other quarter will help sustain the civil liberties work of the RootsAction Education Fund. Another brave NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, said: “If there hadn’t been a Thomas Drake, there couldn’t have been an Edward Snowden.”  And now, here is Tom’s new essay that he asked us to share with you: ___________________________ Post-Election Reflections By Thomas Drake
This essay reflects my initial reaction, angst, analysis and summary reflection following the largely working-class-supported MAGA movement putting their strongman in the White House once again, but this time on steroids with few guardrails as Trump views the results of the election as a “mandate” from the majority of the people that voted. I also share my reflected analysis on what is happening to America as it drifts further right into “soft” autocracy.
I am admittedly struggling and feeling a bit empty and hollow after the U.S. election that Trump won democratically — especially when I look into the unblinking mirror of human history and a Trump who is dedicated to preserving, protecting and restoring the “whiteness” of American history and the still-dominant patriarchal culture via a very-much promised autocratic style and his impending return to power on 20 January 2025.
Trump also said that he was the front edge of retribution and would go after the enemies from within. Some of us also know exactly what happens when the government goes after whistleblowers and reporters with malice and intent when the government doesn’t like it and takes great exception when they expose government wrongdoing, scandals, corruption and violations of the law and the Constitution.
In that regard, I am also increasingly feeling like an internal emigrant in my own country and beginning to re-embrace my own alienation after I faced down many years in prison, living a very fragmented and turned-inside-out life when the government opened up a multimillion-dollar criminal investigation of me, then indicted me under the Espionage Act after I stood up and spoke truth to the highest levels of government as a whistleblower about the severe abuse of power by the government and the unleashing of mass surveillance, 9/11 intelligence failures and massive fraud, waste and abuse.
I was brought to the brink of bankruptcy, declared indigent by a federal court, am still heavily in debt from the ordeal as the government prosecuted me as an enemy of the state from within, experienced a dramatic loss in income, have no pension or retirement, barely get by on a very modest fixed income and for the past couple of years my health really suffered and went way downhill as I battled a rare form of lymphoma cancer diagnosis with all the high costs and expenses that came with it.
Veterans Day this year was also a very sober day for me as I remembered my own history and family history serving the nation in the armed forces. My father helped defeat fascism in Europe — during the utter horror and conflagration that consumed the globe in WW2 — as a sole survivor when he jumped out of his B-25 going down in flames behind the lines on a daring OSS mission.
I served over nine years plus in the Air Force during the Cold War on the front lines of aerial reconnaissance and electronic warfare and another five years plus in the Navy during the ’90s at the Pentagon as an intelligence officer in the National Military Joint Intelligence Center. Many of my fellow aircrew and military members I served with have now passed away.
Is a special Tomb of History getting readied and opened for placement and an ignoble internment for the passing away of the American Century (with all the contradictions living up to its ideals including the entrails of Empire, the politicization and weaponization of the military industrial complex and national security establishment), the collapse of “good enough” governance, the reality of a dismantled democracy suffocated by democracide, rights overcome by might, liberty and freedom giving way to fear and force and the fading out of the Constitutional Republic — replaced out in the open by at least a “soft” form of autocracy and oligarchy from within as the wave of the future?
Must admit that the America and its Great Experiment, in the form of the Constitution that I took an oath five times to support and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic, is increasingly hard for me to recognize as America tacks a different course that’s more authoritarian. Maybe real, sustainable, self-governing democracy that is civil and civilized is merely a fantasy?
Why?
In part because the Great Con on America pulled off and led by Trump did win democratically, outperforming the status quo of traditional democracy with a plurality of voters — as the white working class, swing voters and the bulk of the manosphere cast their ballots for Trump, mostly out of perceived rage, dislocation and blame the incumbent — wrapped by real daily economic displacement and insecurity, plus real and perceived discontent with longstanding resistance to neo-liberal policies (including cultural wokism and replacement theories), persistent anxiety about getting by (let alone getting ahead in pursuit of the largely mythic American Dream), plus clearly lower enthusiasm for the incumbent VP running as its “new” standard bearer.
Also clear that the majority of voters were still not ready to cast their ballot for a non-white, child of immigrants, multiracial woman into the highest office of the land, while many millions sat the election out and didn’t even vote at all in a highly polarized and politically divided nation.
Turns out that the voters who did turn up to vote, even though they only blew through the usual democratic norms by a very small margin, clearly did NOT want to continue or go along with status quo democracy and voted against the deficiencies and dislocations of normative American democracy.
More Americans in the lower income brackets voted Republican instead of Democratic, for the first time in decades. Also turns out that undue fearmongering does not make for a winning campaign strategy either, nor does defaulting to moderates and normative democracy. People wanted a change candidate and Trump spoke to that sentiment as well as fanning the flames of economic populism. The bulk of voting working-class Americans ate it up as their own and found the mirage and illusion they wanted in Trump.
There was also a huge messaging problem as Democrats played it too safe with little everyday substance and failed to build their own populist agenda with universal programs and connecting to the reality of everyday Americans, not getting their pain and angst and over-reliance on gaslighting memes like DEI, calls for cultural reparations and losing the center of America. In other words, the Democrats simply snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Democratic Party pleas to save the establishment bipartisan democratic order went over like a lead balloon as a rejection of status quo governance as everyday non-college graduate, working-class middle and heartland America were once again ignored and got further behind in realizing the dream of reasonable wealth and progress for their lives, families and future generations. There are also just too many Americans increasingly viewed by too many Americans as others, enemies and undesirables from within — when a retrograde nationalist patriarchal white supremacy protection racket is ascendant and going back to a militant MAGAfied future.
This arguably dystopian emerging near-term future is characterized by promised agents of the State pursuing the “cleansing” of America, extreme corruption, minoritarian late stage capitalism, cronyism and chaos with few, if any, constraints. In addition, the U.S. will see the further merging of vast private holdings and interests with unbridled brutal and brazen government power, public grift and duly appointed viceroys enforcing loyalty to a new American State ruled imperiously in a celebrity-infused, autocratic fashion by dear Leader.
And yet true faith and allegiance to our very humanity and the defense of our fundamental inalienable universal rights are needed now more than ever as the needs of the many outweigh the needs of just a very few at the top or only the one in charge.
Meanwhile, despite the storm clouds massing on the horizon and the howling winds already blowing through the door, I will still continue to break bread with the proverbial Phoenix Bird of Freedom and authentic, public service-based generative democracy.
It is this endangered bird, seemingly on the verge of extinction, that can rise from the ashes of Pandora’s Box — after all the furies escape — riding on the wings of hope burning brightly with the oxygen of liberty and justice as well as mercy, for all — keeping that flame alive.
But my prediction for at least the next four years? Get ready for a very bumpy, high wire inverted roller coaster ride in America while spending most of the time flying upside down.
Now that Trump is democratically re-elected by many non-MAGA “good” Americans, he does have an opportunity to remake and retake America back in his own image. Yet each day Trump jumps the shark of America, and acts out his own branding of and upon America (whether people like it or not), will bring the next hard core installment of high toxic drama and chaotic anarchy — broadcast daily as an ongoing soap opera, where many Americans cannot turn away and will simply find it great entertainment, until it isn’t.
Apathy of We the People could actually hasten the demise of what’s left of democracy in America because an ascendant strongman autocracy hanging with the oligarchs is a lot more fun to watch while living in the cultural coliseum and sitting in the stands as a vicarious spectator amused by the sport and combat of dramatic entertainment, edge-of-your-seat suspense, rank deceit and political intrigue played out on the field of reality TV and social media memeing and miming.
Real democracy is NOT easy. Real democracy that matters is truly hard as it depends on at least an active super minority of civic and community minded people serving each other — representing the majority (or at least the plurality) for all — to flourish and thrive. Otherwise democracy dies amidst all the lies and goes into default and gets unceremoniously kicked to the curb and placed out on the block to the highest bidder, the biggest bully or both.
For a free, largely self-governing society to survive, let alone thrive, the people must themselves protect and defend it, as civic-minded citizens owning and exercising responsibility and holding the line against anybody who wants to take their own rights and liberties away.
Reminds me of a Thomas Jefferson quote:
“…if a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” — extract from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey
The Sharks of Kakistocracy are already jumping the Second Coming of the Trump Administration. Get ready for a renewed four-year season of political soap opera branded popcorn and drama-filled episodes on steroids in the U.S. with lots of circus act chaos, confusion, vendettas, and revenge.
But also remember that the system IS also rigged in America by and for special interests, big money politics, billionaire oligarchs and outright normalized grift and corruption creating a massive wealth gap and about to get even more rigged and the gap wider under a Trump 2.0.
This will also increase the perversely incentivized temptation by the billionaire class merged with far right political power to further consolidate and accelerate the selling out and selling off of America — increasing wealth for themselves and creating a gilded mirror of a gated America that they will fiercely protect and defend.
This election may very well establish the high water mark of the American century in history, as it ushers in a rush of nativist nationalism and late-stage capitalism while making a mockery of democracy and taking a sledgehammer dedicated to the deconstruction of democratic institutions. And then there is the clear ascendancy of Trump and his MAGA acolytes — inflated by a hyper social media echo-chambered system of information influencers swaying many millions of everyday Americans — by feeding fears and fueling angst about the future.
Any resisters or dissenters will get run over, fired or simply plowed under. The biggie tent mafioso-ring circus is back in town with all the clown cars ganging up and riding around. Meanwhile, fireworks for all the rest of us to sit back and enjoy! It’ll be a hoot! Chaos and calamity will rule!
Yet, will Trump succeed in overloading the system with shock and awe given his picks and selections to occupy and take over the organs of government or will he overreach? I would not bet against him as he tests the limits of his immunized powers with impunity.
One thing I can predict? We will not see a kinder, gentler nation. Trump 2.0 is not benevolent. He will roam the land like a predator with brazen malevolence while seeking to destroy any and all who get in his way, under the imprimatur and power of the government. Scales of justice will turn into hammers of vengeance. And people were saying Trump did not mean what he was saying on the campaign trail. Really?? He’ll just get a lot meaner as he centralizes power.
Things will probably get FAR FAR worse this time around when compared to Trump 1.0 with full immunity for Trump 2.0 and his minions under cover of official acts as conferred by the Supreme Court. His confederate syndicate will go on wild immunized crime sprees with a weaponized DoJ used as raw blunt political tool going full tilt throttle against anybody standing in the way, while hyperfueled by revenge, retribution and hate doing Trump’s bidding. I predict a near total inversion and collapse of traditional U.S. democracy, as we know it, as it gets demolitioned under Trump this second time around with maximum lawlessness and disorder as cruelty and sowing fear is the point. The worst of America is taking over and on the make and on the take as a special version of Pandora’s Box is opened up and Trump’s MAGA fury is unleashed on America. Maybe that will eventually wake up the rest of the U.S., and those who did not even vote, from their long slumber.
It takes a village to raise democracy but razing democracy through plunder and purging the malcontents standing up against abuse of power does not rescue it, either. And blowing up the village to save the village only leaves the village in ruins and turns the homeless villagers into political refugees — within their own country or worse. Is the U.S. entering a very uncertain period with Trump at the helm leading a cultural civil war against the heart of democracy? Or can civic and civil minded American commonality and decency return with a renewed, generative democracy in a reinvigorated form to save the village?
Just all too easy to ride hell bent into town and then tear apart, gut and destroy democracy. How about just quietly going about, without any performative fanfare, the hard requirements of repairing, improving and building up democracy? ___________________________ PS from the RootsAction Education Fund:
Living in what is supposed to be a democracy, we get vital information because of the courage of whistleblowers. You can make a tax-deductible contribution in support of Tom Drake.
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Background:
>> Jane Mayer, The New Yorker: Thomas Drake -- "The Secret Sharer"
>> PBS: The FRONTLINE Interview with Thomas Drake
>> Jesselyn Radack, The New York Times: “Whistleblowers Deserve Protection Not Prison” |
