The Fire This Time: Why 47 and the Forces Behind Him Must Be Stopped

There comes a moment in history when silence is betrayal...when the machinery of oppression grinds so loudly that to ignore it is to become complicit. Today, that machinery is powered by Donald Trump and the shadow architects of Project 2025, a blueprint for tyranny disguised as policy. Their aim is not governance but domination...not democracy, but a resurrection of Jim Crow in modern garb. The question is no longer whether they pose a threat, but whether we, the people, will muster the courage to stop them.  

The parallels between Trump’s America and the darkest chapters of our past are too stark to dismiss. Consider "The Birth of a Nation", a film that draped white supremacy in the robes of art, celebrated by critics even as it demonized Black humanity. Griffith’s masterpiece was not an anomaly; it was a prophecy. It revealed how easily bigotry could be polished into respectability, how hatred could be framed as heritage. Trump, too, has mastered this alchemy...turning lies into dogma, cruelty into policy, and fascism into a campaign slogan. His movement is not a deviation from American history but a continuation of it, a reminder that the specter of white supremacy never truly left; it merely adapted.  

And yet, the greater danger lies not in Trump alone, but in the systems that enable him. The Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute are not think tanks...they are war rooms, plotting the dismantling of civil rights, the gutting of social programs, and the codification of minority rule. Their vision is clear: a nation where power is hoarded by the few, where dissent is crushed, and where the color of your skin determines your place in the hierarchy. These are the "men behind the curtain," the architects of a silent coup, and their plans are already in motion.  

But let us be clear: this is not a fight Black America can wage alone. History has shown us that when the oppressed rise, the state responds with batons and bullets. White allies (particularly those who claim progressive values) must move beyond performative outrage and into the streets, the courts, and the halls of power. The privilege of safety was never ours; it is time they risk theirs. The GOP’s fecklessness is not an excuse...it is a challenge. If they will not act, then the people must.  

Nor can we afford illusions about the forces arrayed against us. The same Christianity that justified slavery, the same capitalism that thrives on exploitation, the same courts that sanction state violence...these are not broken systems. They are working exactly as designed. As Fannie Lou Hamer warned, "Nobody’s free until everybody’s free." And right now, freedom is under siege.  

The path forward demands more than resistance...it demands reckoning. It requires confronting the truth that America was never a democracy for the marginalized, but a empire built on stolen land and stolen labor. Trump is not an aberration; he is a mirror. And in that reflection, we see the urgency of this moment: to organize, to mobilize, and to fight...not just for an election, but for the soul of a nation teetering on the brink.  

“If we do not dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time!”

Baldwin’s haunting warning resonates with the legacy of the Trump era...a time marked by heightened racial tension, xenophobia, and authoritarian leanings cloaked in patriotism. His plea for moral reckoning reminds us that if America continues to deny its history and forsake justice in favor of fear and control, the consequences won’t come gently. The “fire” Baldwin foresaw feels less like prophecy and more like present warning...a call to confront the soul of a nation teetering at the edge of its own contradictions.

The fire next time is already here. The question is who will rise to put it out.

Stop 47 to Save the Nation’s Soul

In this twilight hour of American democracy, we must speak not with fear, but with a fire rooted in truth. We must speak as those who have always known how to hold two Americas in our hearts: one that sings of liberty, and another that shackles the innocent. Donald Trump is not just a man nor merely a politician...he is a symptom, a signal flare, and a final warning. If he is not stopped, not merely debated or fact-checked but stopped, then the descent from republic to regime will be swift and merciless. This moment demands of us what every turning point in Black history has demanded...courage, clarity, and a relentless confrontation with the truth.

In 1915, The Birth of a Nation emerged from white imagination, dressed in technical brilliance and soaked in racial hatred. Critics praised it as a cinematic marvel while Black communities bore the weight of its propaganda. It did not invent hate...it merely gave it voice. It cast the Ku Klux Klan as saviors, portrayed freed Black people as brutes, and laid cinematic bricks for the modern white supremacist state. This was not art for art’s sake. It was art as assault. Now, over a century later, we see a different kind of performance on a national stage, one where power masquerades as patriotism, and the lie is told so loud it drowns out justice.

Donald Trump walks in that same cinematic shadow...not because he made a film, but because he made a movement out of grievance, spectacle, and fear. And like Griffith’s film, the danger is not in the man alone, but in the country’s eagerness to follow him. We cannot afford to laugh him off, psychoanalyze him, or dismiss him as a fringe figure. Whether he is battling dementia or not, he is lucid enough to dismantle democracy. His ignorance is weaponized. His cruelty is celebrated. And as before, it is Black and Brown bodies who will bear the brunt of this nation’s regression.

We must reckon with this: White America will survive whatever economic or political chaos Trump unleashes. That is the insurance policy of whiteness. But Black America (our schools, our neighborhoods, our votes, our very lives) will not. When Trump dismantles protections, pardons white supremacists, or purges the federal workforce of dissenters, it is not an abstraction. It is a direct assault on us. And still, most politicians only posture. They gesture, tweet, and fundraise, while the GOP’s silence makes them complicit.

The architects of Project 2025, namely the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute, are designing a state where dissent is criminal and diversity is purged. These are not think tanks...they are war rooms. And still, the media treats them as legitimate. But we must not. Their blueprints are a return to American apartheid, built not with white hoods, but with red ties and legalese. To defeat Trump is not enough. We must dismantle the infrastructure that birthed him.

Some of our pseudo allies dare not name these enemies. They share dinner tables and workplaces with them. They clutch pearls online but sleep soundly at night, knowing their whiteness shields them from the knock at the door. Let us be clear: white liberalism, unaccompanied by action, is betrayal. And it is high time our so-called allies choose: comfort or courage.

To those whispering about reforming the system from within...where were you when Trump’s Supreme Court stood unanimous against a wrongly deported man like Kilmar Abrego Garcia? Where were you when religious orthodoxy, especially Christianity, became a gilded cage for the oppressed and a throne for the oppressor? We are being told to wait, to trust in processes that have always failed us. But as Shirley Chisholm said, “If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” The time for waiting is over.

Barbara Hillary told us that Christianity raped the Black mind deeper than the shackles of slavery ever did. And what do we see now? $7 to $10 billion tithed monthly by Black Christians to churches that do nothing as our communities burn and our rights are stripped. Religion, when used as sedative instead of sword, becomes a sin. We must interrogate every institution that promised salvation and delivered subjugation.

This is not simply about Trump. He is only the face, the Frankenstein. The real monster lies behind the curtain: billionaires, corporations, and covert power brokers who long ago decided that democracy was inconvenient. Kennedy named them...those who expand power by infiltration, not invasion. These men wear no uniforms. They sit in boardrooms, not bunkers. But they are at war with us, nonetheless.

Trump, like The Birth of a Nation, is only shocking to those who do not know the script. But we know it. We lived it. And we recognize the climax before it arrives. The Supreme Court now bends to power. Elections are being undermined in plain sight. Even midterms may not be safe. We must not play defense. We must declare this a people’s emergency and organize with the same audacity that birthed every movement we've ever won.

Black Americans, be wary of the trap. The system wants you to strike first. It waits for a protest to spin into unrest, for a window to break, so it can declare martial law and bring the tanks. It needs your anger to justify its violence. Be wise. Organize. Strategize. Not in the streets just yet, but in every boardroom, ballot box, and digital space.

And to our African kin: stop fighting each other while the real enemy remains untouched. The few white populations left on the continent wield outsized power because the house is still divided. Know this...solidarity is your salvation.

Meanwhile, China rises. The Global South speaks. Colonized nations are no longer silent. As the West scrambles to preserve the myth of its supremacy, the world tilts toward justice. But make no mistake: the old powers will not go quietly. They will scream “immigrant crisis” while building new walls. They will clutch the Constitution while gutting its principles. They will hold up Jesus, but crucify the truth.

This is not a crisis of politics. It is a reckoning of the soul. Malcolm X told us capitalism requires racism...and America has never proven him wrong. That’s why we must stop pretending this nation simply lost its way. It was built this way. The founders wore wigs and wrote liberty into parchment, while holding our ancestors in chains.

Still, as Fannie Lou Hamer declared, we are “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” But that fatigue must now give way to fire. To fight Trump is not to defend the broken system. It is to demand a new one. One forged not in myth, but in memory and struggle and sacrifice.

To stop Trump is to stop the final unraveling of a nation already dangling by a thread. But more than that...it is a call to Black Americans, to the marginalized, to the historically betrayed: we have always been the conscience of this country. And the conscience must now roar.

Let us act not with fear, but with faith...not in their institutions, but in our collective power. Let the nation remember: every great fall begins with silence. And every great rise begins with truth, shouted in the face of tyranny.

Let us shout. Let us rise. Let us stop Trump...before the soul of the nation becomes its final casualty.

The Apocryphal Savior in a Broken World

I have a deep appreciation for Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), especially those that offer profound insight into the nature of consciousness, interconnectedness, and the afterlife. However, I find myself at odds with the ones that center around a singular, dogmatically defined “savior” particularly those that name Jesus Christ as such. From a historical and linguistic standpoint, this figure (referred to in Western tradition as “Jesus Christ”) is, at best, apocryphal.

Let’s begin with the name itself. “Jesus” is a Westernized adaptation of “Yeshua,” and “Christ” derives from the Greek “Christos,” meaning “anointed one,” “king,” or “ruler.” If this person truly walked the Earth, “Jesus Christ” would not have been his actual name. The name we assign to someone carries profound meaning and power (especially in spiritual and historical contexts) yet many believers seem eager to overlook the Western linguistic overlay imposed on this figure.

More critically, I find it difficult to reconcile the notion of a global “Savior of Humankind” with the world’s current condition. If such a savior exists, the persistent wars, systemic injustice, and deep-rooted hatred across the globe do not reflect the intervention of a benevolent, redemptive force. Faith aside, the evidence of transformation on a global scale is hard to see. 

This is not a dismissal of spiritual wisdom, but rather a call for deeper discernment. Authenticity matters. Names matter. And when we reflect on our spiritual experiences, especially those as sacred as NDEs, we owe it to ourselves to question the cultural filters through which those experiences are interpreted.