Complacency is the road to dictatorship. Dictator-in-Waiting Trump, and his think-tank loyalists, are collecting the ingredients, and refining the recipe, for an authoritarian regime, should he win the 2024 presidential election. Further, and this may be more frightening, they are perfectly open about their plans. They seem to think that the American public will actually embrace such a move, rather than fight it. However, they are also contingency planning. According The Washington Post, Trump plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on the first day of his new administration, so he can dispatch the military to counter any demonstrations that might resist his policies.
Why might he need the Insurrection Act? The Washington Post piece also notes Trump intends to turbo-politicize the Department of Justice, and order prosecutions of his former aides and officials, along with anyone else who has, or might, criticize him. Perhaps he thinks the country won’t let him ride roughshod over the rule of law without reacting, so he wants to be ready to deploy the army against the inevitable protestors.
Does that sound like the moves of a responsible President of the United States? Absolutely not. It’s the time-honoured move of a dictator.
The Post’s report states that one-time Trump stalwarts and staffers, like former chief of staff John F. Kelly, former attorney general William Barr, his ex-attorney Ty Cobb, and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark A. Milley, have all been specifically singled out as the first targets of his dictatorial agenda. That agenda also singles out other officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice, as well as President Joe Biden and his family.
Have you ever heard of a better plan for authoritarian lunacy? And, in the United States?
Leading Trump’s Insurrection Act initiative is Jeffrey Clark, a Trump-era Department of Justice oficial, who is currently being prosecuted for his part in an alleged scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. According to the Post piece, Trump intends to control the entire federal bureaucracy with appointees like Clark, who are willing to do his bidding. (Told by a colleague that there would be riots in the streets if Trump sought to stay in office despite losing the 2020 election, Clark is said to have responded, “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”)
How much of this Trump power-lust is new? In December 2022 he called for the termination of the Constitution, so he could return to the presidency. Over this past summer, ABC News compiled a list of the people Trump said he wanted indicted or jailed for their crimes, including ex-FBI Director James Comey, former special counsel Robert Mueller, Steele dossier author Christopher Steele, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and former national security adviser John Bolton. You may recall that locking up Hillary Clinton was elemental to his 2016 campaign.
It’s tempting to think about all this as the rantings of an egotistical lunatic, and therefore not to be taken too seriously. HEY! PEOPLE, THIS PERSON IS RUNNING FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES, AND IS AHEAD IN THE POLLS!!!
I would add one of my favourite sayings, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you”.
The plans of Dictator-in-Waiting Trump are so blatant, out-in-the-open, and consistent that you have to wonder why no-one has really taken up the banner of combating them. Forget his “opponents” for his own party’s nomination – they have amply demonstrated they haven’t got the guts. Forget the Republican Party itself – for the same reason. I would almost say forget the Democratic Party – they are being myopic, naïve, stupid and disorganized. Trump’s lunacy is the perfect weapon against him, but no-one has the guts to call it out. Democrats – it’s time to get nasty and really go after this lunacy. When he gets back into the White House in a year, it will be too late.
AND, WHERE IS THE THIRD ESTATE? Trump’s plans are so obvious that it defies belief that the media has not hounded him, interviewed the planners of his strategy (they are obviously arrogant enough, and confident enough in their ideas, that they would love to be interviewed) and blown the whole Path-to-Dictatorship sky high. The media pontificates about being the conscience and defenders of the people. Where are they when we need them?
It is not only the rantings of lunatic Trump that we should worry about, however. The atmosphere created by Trump has given oxygen to other lunatics in the various branches of local, state and federal governments. Republican state legislators, in several states that have passed “right-to-abortion laws (voted by the people, no less), are filing suit to overturn those decisions, made by the people. This week, North Dakota state representative Brandon Prichard was much more explicit. Opposed to the State’s measure on abortion, he wrote, “Direct democracy should not exist…. It would be an act of courage to ignore the results of the election….” According to James Bickerton of Newsweek, Prichard has previously called for Republican-dominated states to “put into code that Jesus Christ is King, and dedicate their state to Him.”
We used to crucify heretics. Maybe we should resurrect that punishment for those with heretical intentions against the US Constitution.
MEDIA, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU STARTED EARNING YOUR LIVING, AND ACTING AS SAVIOURS OF THE COUNTRY – A ROLE THAT YOU HAVE CLAIMED, AND SANCTIMONIOUSLY PROJECTED, FOREVER. IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF TRUMP AND HIS BASE NOW, JUST WAIT TIL HE’S BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE – YOU’LL ALL BE IN JAIL….OR WORSE.
Am I being paranoid? Damn right. But, as I have said many times, and repeat again, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. History tells us that complacency is the road to dictatorship. Just because we all think that couldn’t possibly happen in the United States doesn’t mean it can’t, or won’t.
Completely agree and I am very worried about what has and is happening in the country. We MUST keep him out of the White House.