By Rob Okun
Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway Don’t block up the hall…
―Bob Dylan
A two-week truce. We’ve temporarily slipped from the hangman’s noose. Still, there’s a madman president on the loose.
We are living in an Upside Down moment, and the danger is no longer metaphorical. You don’t need to have watched Stranger Things to recognize that the threat is real, not lurking in another dimension. It’s prowling in the White House, and no blinking lights are spelling out SOS.
This is what an Upside Down world looks like: Donald Trump, an accidental president, openly threatening catastrophic violence against another nation’s civilian infrastructure, while those with the constitutional authority to stop him hesitate, equivocate, or remain silent.
No matter what happens next, history will remember: On Easter Sunday 2026, Donald Trump posted a message so reckless, so unhinged, that it would be disqualifying in any functioning democracy. Threatening the destruction of Iran’s power plants and bridges, invoking apocalyptic language, and wrapping it all in bravado, he revealed not just poor judgment but a fundamental disregard for human life and the rule of law. Two days later, he added this warning: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
The response was immediate—but not where it matters most.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut spoke out about the Easter threat: if he were in Trump’s Cabinet, he said, he would be calling constitutional lawyers to discuss invoking the 25th Amendment. Others echoed the alarm. Even some of Trump’s most reliable allies on the far right voiced scathing criticism.
For a brief moment, it seemed possible that outrage might translate into action. It has not…yet.
Unfortunately, there is little credible evidence that the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet are engaged in serious discussions to removing Trump under the 25th Amendment. Vice President JD Vance, a critic of the war, nevertheless has shown no sign of breaking ranks. How is it possible that loyalty—political, ideological, or personal—continues to outweigh constitutional responsibility?
And Congress? Missing in action. Despite clear authority under the War Powers Resolution, a Republican-controlled Congress has done nothing to rein in Trump—and is showing no signs of changing direction.
So it is falling to the American people to do what elected officials are failing to do: unseat a president unfit to serve.
Activists in organizations like CODEPINK mobilized emergency protests in Washington and across the country, integrating opposition to the Iran war into the broader pro-democracy resistance.
Protests against the war need to be as ubiquitous as daffodils in spring—visible, sustained, impossible to ignore. The anti-Vietnam War movement did not stop the war overnight, but it changed the political calculus until continuing it became untenable.
What about the military? Senior officers and military lawyers understand what’s at stake. Orders to deliberately target civilian infrastructure—power grids, bridges, population centers are war crimes (an absurd notion since war itself is a crime.)
There are laws limiting actions in armed conflict, and they are not optional. It applies to those who carry out orders, not just those who give them, creating a tension within the chain of command. Last fall, six members of Congress posted a video reminding service members, “you can refuse to carry out illegal orders.”
Meanwhile, the judiciary, often imagined as a final safeguard, has—for now—remained largely silent. Courts do not move at the speed of crisis. They require time. And time is an enemy of this moment.
So where does that leave us? With a reality both sobering and clarifying. The formal mechanisms of restraint—Congress, the Cabinet, the courts—are stalled, reactive, or unwilling. The most immediate pressure is coming from two places: people in the streets, and professionals inside the system trying to hold the line. Neither is sufficient on its own.,
The millions at No Kings rallies have been doing their part. Now, perhaps, they’ll take a new tack. Imagine citizens moving from street protests into the halls of Congress, confronting their representatives in their Washington offices and home districts. Asking, insisting, refusing to leave without an answer to a simple question: What are you doing—right now—to stop him? To stop the madness?
We know this Congress can’t be counted on to act on its own. Apparently, it will only act when the cost of inaction becomes too high—politically, publicly, unmistakably.
The people have begun doing their part. Congress must now do theirs.
Rob Okun (robokun50@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is editor emeritus of Voice Male, which has long chronicled the profeminist men’s movement.
