Trump & Co. have just blown by the "SPEED, NO LIMIT" sign on the road to tyranny, By Hal M. Brown

 

The Trump blitzkrieg smashed into the speed sign in their juggernaut to conquer democracy. They are now in the village where we live which is on the other side of the hill.

Maureen Dowd is not Walter Cronkite, who on Feb. 27, 1968 appeared on television and delivered an editorial claiming that the Vietnam War was “mired in stalemate.” (Read article). He was the most trusted news anchor in America, if not the most trusted person in the United States. LBJ knew that when you lost Walter Chonkite, you basically lost support of the country.

Certainly not everyone reads The New York Times. For one thing it requires a subscription to so unless you go to the library. There are many people who never even heard of Maureen Dowd. She became a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine in 2014. In 1999, Dowd received a Pulitzer Prize for her series of columns on the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. She has been a regular columnist for the Times since 1995.

Yesterday she wrote “Fail Ceasar,” a column well worth reading if you have subscription.

This is how she began her column:

“Remember, I can do whatever I want to whomever I want.”

It sounds like President Trump, to the world. But it was Caligula, to his grandmother.

At least America’s Emperor of Chaos has not made his horse a consul. Yet.

A horse might be better than some of the sketchy characters surrounding Trump.

After pillaging and gutting the U.S. government, the Western alliance and our relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump is thinking of himself as a king and cogitating on a third term. He basks in the magniloquent rhetoric of acolytes genuflecting to an instrument of divine providence.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference this week, a group calling itself the “Third Term Project” erected a sign depicting Trump as Caesar. A wag on X wondered if they knew what happened to Caesar.

She concludes:

Many who had hoped to tune out Trump this time realize they don’t have that luxury. It’s far more dangerous now. There are frightening moments when our 236-year-old institutions don’t look up to the challenge. With flaccid Democrats and craven Republicans, King Donald can pretty much do whatever he wants to whomever he wants.

If you don’t have subscription you can read a summary of the column in RawStory in their article titled 'Far more dangerous': NY Times' Maureen Dowd shares terrifying realization.

If only Maureen Dowd was Walter Cronkite. If only the country had a Walter Cronkite. There is no single person with the ability to sway a large portion of the public to see the truth of what Trump is about to turn the country into.

To the contrary, many people in the media are still trying to minimze what he is doing. They try to cherry pick all the things that they think have been impediments to his turning the country into a dictatorship and they tell us that this means the blitzkrieg can be turned around. They won’t even call it a blitzkrieg, which means lightening war, even though it is an appropriate term because this is how the Nazis conquered Europe and parts of Russia. Their blitzkrieg could barely be slowed down, let alone stopped.

The optimists point to MAGA setbacks in court and public opinion polls showing an unprecedented low approval ratings for Trump and the things he is doing. They suggest that everyone contact their representatives in Congress. They advocate going to actual protests. Show Trump how many people are against him, but better hope no protests turn violent, or even lead to minor law breaking, since this will give Trump an excuse to declare martial law. 

The Meidas Touch Network YouTube channel announced it has more viewers than Fox News a few days ago. 

If you follow their news (see below) you might think we are winning the war against Trump and Trumpism:

Regarding the Trump & Co. rationale for many of their actions, I want to emphasize something I don’t think has been reported. I believe that the entire DOGE, anti-woke, and anti-DEI personnel purge is an attempt to rid agencies and departments of as many people as possible so they can be replaced by obedient foot soldiers. While some MAGA officials probably believe this is important, I am certain Trump, and possibly Musk, see ginning this up as being a means to an end. I also don’t see any strong belief with Trump that immigrants are really “poisoning the blood of the county.” Hitler might have this believed this about Jews, but I think this was a position heavily promoted by Trump to rally his troops into a fear fueled fever so they would support him.

In his Substack yesterday Robert Hubbell (Profile) wrote “Reflections on the news through the lens of hope.” The key word is “hope.” So many people, quite understandably, can’t cope with the levels of anxiety and despair that believing the country is about to turn to tryanny will lead to will cause. Just about every post in The Contrarian, the Substack started by Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen, lays out ways to fight the good fight against Trump. For good measure, to keep morale up they have recipes and a pet of the week - gotta keep that sense of optimism.

This is part of what Norm Eisen wrote in “Spring Training-for democracy:”

But there are stumbles too. Pitchers don’t have their pitches down. Batters are rusty and out of sync. Teams have made major personnel changes since the championship parade last November—but the new rosters haven’t quite gelled yet.

The same is true of the patriotic opposition to Donald Trump throughout the first month of his administration. Across the country, Trump’s illegal actions are being stopped by the courts, they’re being protested in the streets and questioned at increasing volumes in town halls. For every illegal action, pro-democracy lawyers and organizations (some bipartisan) are working to file multiple lawsuits and have multiple demonstrations against it. The coalition of pro-democracy forces has won many fights—but not all of them.

Take Friday. The coalition had three important wins: a judge issued a preliminary injunction against Trump’s anti-DEI policies, another court blocked DOGE out of Treasury, and SCOTUS refused to interfere with a lower court order reinstating a wrongly fired agency head. There was a loss too: a judge denied a preliminary injunction in one of the cases to protect USAID. And there were two new major lawsuits: AP sued the Trump administration over being unfairly banned from press pool access, and NYC sued over $80 million in FEMA funds being withheld. (h/t Ryan Goodman.)

Just like my Dodgers and everyone’s teams in spring training, it feels like democracy is still gelling; still working to hit its stride. Team Democracy will not triumph in every contest, although, on the whole, I thought Friday was a good day and fairly representative. (I can’t resist noting that our team at State Democracy Defenders Fund is undefeated so far in the dozen-plus cases we have filed or worked on in the past month. Remember, by subscribing to The Contrarian, you are supporting those legal efforts, in addition to enabling our journalistic efforts.)

He is keeping that optimism flame alive!

I received the image above via email asking for donations. I’m supposed to believe that Trump and Musk are really shaking in their boots. It says it’s a miracle, IT’S A MIRACLE!”. I don’t believe in miracles. If a highly contagious lethal virus which only infected psychopaths became a pandemic, I might might change my mind about this. 

Joyce Vance titles her Substack today “A little Morning happiness” and has three photos of her chickens. She prefaces her photo essay with “There has been too much news lately to take a night off, which means I’ve been hearing, increasingly, from some of you who want a few chicken pictures to interrupt the doomscrolling. So here you go.” I can appreciate the need to take a break to keep one from desending into a pit of anxiety and despair. She concludes: “Back to serious things: In case you missed it, last night’s piece on the Friday Night Massacre in the military is an important one and the Kash Patel piece provides some important context about the confirmation of prior FBI Directors that can be helpful in explaining why this confirmation was both wrong and a serious departure from how Directors are selected and confirmed.”

There are exceptions to those who are downplaying how Trump’s juggernaut is damn near unstoppable. One is Sabrina Haake who writes a Substack called The Haake Take. In her column “Dear President Zelenskyy” she concludes by predicting violence in our homeland:

As the world’s wealthiest men team up to impose maximum harm on the world by embracing Nazism and partnering with Putin, one of the world’s most lethal dictators, please take heart. It’s obvious violence is coming to the US, but America will sort itself out. We always do the right thing, as Churchill reportedly said, after other possibilities have been exhausted.

I close here in shared weariness in knowing there really are evil men in the world who will do anything for power and wealth. Also, in sympathy and apology, heartbroken for both our countries, but not defeated.

Read the most recent Haake Take :

Trump has just fired top generals. He knows he has to control the military to achieve his dictatorial goals.

Kash Patel has reassigned something like a thousand FBI agents from DC to offices around the country. These are senior agents who made their way to the DC office because they were the best of the best. No doubt they will be replaced by agents, people with guns and the power to break down doors and arrest people, with Trump loyalists. Some of them may be members of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, or J6 insurrectionists.

It is debatable whether members of the military swear an oath to not only obey the Constitution, but also to follow orders from the President. It could be argued that obeying the Constitution takes precedence over obeying the President when he issues an unconstitutional order. (More about this here.)

If a soldier defies a order because it is considered by them to be unconstitutional, I doubt the new JAG officers in the different branches will look kindly on this. Hegseth has fired not only top generals, but also the top military lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force (reference).

Congress has been neutered. The Republican members are so desperate to hold onto their positions that they are willing to bend at the knee for Trump. Those up for reelection in two years think Trump, and Musk with his money, can make sure they lose a primary. They don’t want to admit that there might not even be a free election in two years. There might not be a functioning Congress. 

If Trump has his way, within two years the three co-equal branches of government won’t exist with each one acting to restrain the other, and as intended by the Founders, keeping the country from becoming a monarchy.

We still don’t know what will happen if the Supreme Court issues a major ruling limiting Trump’s imperial power. My hunch is that he will defy the order and dare them to do anything about it. Of course, they can’t. Trump controls all the means to enforce federal law.

If Trump has his way the only law enfocement left in the country will be local police departments and state National Guard units. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this could end up in a kind of civil war. When we go to our granddaughters indoor soccer games in the winter we drive by a large Oregon National Guard facility with lines of military vehicles outside. I’ve said to my partner that I could see a time when they were deployed to the Idaho border to protect our state from their National Guard which Trump and Hegseth ordered to take over Portland and other cities in the state because they are sanctuary cities. (Reference)

If only we were merely on the road to becoming a country like we were under English rule before the War for Independence. Compared to Trump, King George III, imperialist that he was, was a sweetheart.

On Friday I wrote “We’re on the road to tyranny” using the illustration which you see I modified for this Substack.

In just two days the actions from Trump & Co. led me to revise this image and so it will illustrate my title. It is meant to show a cloud of exhaust from the Trump tyranny blitzkrieg just having gone over the horizon. It is out of sight there, but it really has just begun to take over the village on the other side of the hill. The village is us.

As I finish writing this I have MSNBC on.

They are talking about how important it is to take everything Trump says and does seriously. They say we must not dismiss his words as hyperbole. Michael Steele said that we need “militant democracy.” I suggest that the last time militant democracy against a power as formidible as Trumpism was successful was in World War II.

We'e on the road to tyranny, By Hal M.Brown

 

There was good and bad news on Rachel Maddow last night. It was the same news. The news was that Trump's favorability rating in the polls are horrible. Does this sound like good news? This is one way to look at it. I see it though a dark glass. Trump only believes in polls when they favor him, but he knows that when mulitple polls are unfavorable towards him they are correct.

As polls turn against him this will hasten Trump's drive to cement his dictatorship. He will keep testing the limits until something unconstitional or illegal that he does goes to the Supreme Court.

When it does, he hopes the ruling will be in his favor, but I have little doubt that if the court rules against him, he plans to ignore the ruling and see if he can get away with it.

He's been able to fire highly competent people and install loyalists in their place, to close down federal buildings, to ban DEI references, to get Musk's team of DOGE warriors into numerous departments where they can mess with computer data and, most tellingly, shut down USAID despite the public outcry over the deaths that this was causing

This is penny ante stuff compared with what he intends to do. He wants to be eliminate the American democracy and become the ruler for life of an authoritarian regime. In order to achieve this he can't merely issue orders which defy the Constitution and undermines democracy unless he has the hard power of the state to back them up.

Trump also has shown every indication that he will abandon Ukraine, drop out of NATO, and develop some sort of alliance with Russia.

Trump believes he controls all the hard power mechanisms in the country. I am sure he relishes watching his heavily armed ICE agents, who look like SWAT members attacking a drug kingpin's lair, storming into some house using flash-bang grenades.

Trump, with the approval of Kash Patel as FBI director, now controls all of the departments that can exercise hard power. By hard I mean that they have guns and the power to arrest people, and worse.

Steve Bannon is pushing for Trump to run for a third term. Whether this would pass constitutional muster with the Supreme Court remains to be seen and it might be irrelevant. If Trump succeeds in turning the country into a dictatorship he doesn't need to run for office. If he knows that the majority of voters won't vote for him, he won't bother setting up a fake election so he could win. He could just suspend elections.

I fear that Trump will find an excuse to call some kind of national emergency. This could be as simple as ginning up a lie about needing to stop a fentanyl influx, or protests that even if they aren't violent he says could turn violent. Once Trump knows he controls the military, he could find an excuse to invoke martial law.

Forget the Posse Comitatus Act, he'd just ignore it.

It isn't a sure thing that just because Trump has put loyalists in control federal hard power that the foot soldiers will do their bidding. All of them swore oaths, but there's a contradiction in, for example, the US Army oath. Soldiers swear to obey the Constitution, but also sweat to obey the orders of the President of the United States.

Even if a large number of his hard power Gestapo and SS troops quit or accept early retirement, their places could be filled by people like members of far right militia groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keppers. Kash Patel could fill some of the expected vacancies in the FBI with the J6 inssurectionists.

The speed limit sign we are approaching on the road to tyranny says “SPEED, NO LIMIT.” The United States is accelerating along this route. Soon it may be unstoppably barrelling down this road. I see tyranny as being just over the horizon. There’s still hope that the brakes can be slammed on, but how fast we get to the point of no return remains to be seen.

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Government by thugs and thuggery, By Hal M. Brown

 

Can I be blunt? Sure, Hal, why not? Another way to put what Trump & Co, have done is put us on the very slippery slope of having governemt run by thugs who delight in their thuggery. From Musk's 20-somethings in DOGE, one of whom brags about what might be a case of Epididymitis (look it up) to the more intimidating J6 insurrectionists who probably will be hired as FBI agents once Kash Patel takes over, they are all thugs.

We already have ICE agents who think they are police officers (who should be protecting and serving everyone) because it says police on their body armor. They even used flash-bang grenades to round up some immigrants. Why, one might ask. Because it was a good show which was meant to intimidate, to send a message. Thom Homan and, of all people, Dr. Phil the bloodthirsty psychologist could have been imagined by Bram Stoker, might as well be weilding bludgeons. Even nicey-nice Goldlocks Pam Bondi might as well be Queen of Cruelty Catherine de Medici.

Add every calculating Jame Bond villain together and throw in steel-tooth Odd Job and we have the cast of villainous characters Trump and Musk (I don't know which one would be Auric Goldfinger), with the help of Stephen Miller and the Heritage Society, have put together to destroy or dominate the world.

I wish this was like a James Bond movie where, with daring do, and in the early movies with a little Walther PPK pistol (which perhaps Ian Flemming meant to be ironic because it was the handgun of the Gestapo and German police) and a little help from his CIA friend Felix Leiter and the Bond girl of the day, because he always prevailed. Anyway, I doubt MI6 will save us now.

This isn't fiction. Jack Reacher isn't going to help us (New series season Feb 20th for fans). The GOP managed to elevate their hero to the presidency. Love him or hate him he sold himself as a superhero and even sold AI images of himself as a muscle bound hero. That, and as someone ordained by Jesus. I wanted to believe Kamala was our Wonder Woman. She couldn't pull it off although in one of the comics she actually ran for president and won. (I had a copy of the cover on my fridge door until she lost.)

Lacking a superhero we have to win the coming battle through sheer numbers and smarts. Being righteous isn't enough. Perhaps we have tp learn how to be ruthlessly righteous.

It can't happen here. Some people "get it" and want it. Some people don't "get it", don't want it, and may vote for it. By Hal M. Brown, MSW

J.D.Vance just put a sugar coating on what he and Trump want to turn America into. Those watching the debate who want Trump's MAGA dictatorship for the country saw through this as a performance to make Trump look reasonable, although, lest they believe he was more moderate than Trump, he made it clear he was a loyal co-pilot flying the end of democracy Trump airplane when he refused to say whether or not Biden legitmately won the election (see article).

There are those in America who are all in with Project 2025 to the extent they understand it in broad strokes, i.e., that it turns the United States into a White dominated authoritarian country. Among Trump supporters I expect there are at least a few who see that he is becoming more and more unhinged and know that if he doesn't succumb to dementia he could get seriously ill or die in office. This would make a very happy Vance president. (Image by Perhance Photo AI)

  I wrote about this yesterday (here). 

It has to be reassuing to the hard core Project 2025 Trumpers that should this happen his co-pilot Vance is there to keep the airship of state flying in the right, the very far right, direction.

Then there's a large group of Trump supporters who don't "get it" and don't want it. They see the Democrat's warning about the end of democracy as political fear mongering. Whether they know about the Sinclair Lewis 1935 dystopian novel of the name or not, they may think "it can't happen here" with the important addition "but if it does it won't effect me."

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia about the novel:

Having previously foreshadowed some authoritarian measures to reorganize the government, Windrip (the new president) outlaws dissent, incarcerates political enemies in concentration camps, and trains and arms a paramilitary force called the "Minute Men" (named after the Revolutionary War militias of the same name), who terrorize citizens and enforce the policies of a corporatistregime. One of Windrip's first acts as president is to eliminate the influence of Congress, which draws the ire of many citizens as well as the legislators themselves. The Minute Men respond to protests harshly, attacking demonstrators with bayonets. In addition to these actions, Windrip's administration, known as the Corpo government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by Corpo authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers. Those accused of crimes against the government appear before kangaroo courts presided over by military judges. A majority of Americans approve of these dictatorial measures, seeing them as painful but necessary steps to restore American power.

For those who don't think it can happen here and don't want it to happen here the message to get through their fog of denial is very simple. Vote for Trump and not only can it happen here, it will happen here. It is a visual cliche by now but bears sharing again.

Previous blogs.

The Democrats need to show the exit to all of these people. If Biden can't do it another candidate must. By Hal Brown, MSW

 

The costumed or normally attired MAGA's at the RNC and at Trump rallies and those in extremist groups like the man (below) used to illustrate the RawStory article Veteran newsman schools neo-Nazis: 'When I look at you guys, I do not think master race' must be shown the exit. If not our lives, our way of life depends on it.

Above is the photo RawStory used to illustrate their article.

You can read the article and watch the local TV station's video  where the reporter interviews the Neo-Nazis here. It shows a terrified little girl hiding behind her mother as she confronts the Neo-Nazis:

Compare the hand tattoos:

This is how the article concludes:

It was time for me to speak my truth.

"Can I be honest with you guys?"

"You're a loser, scumbag," Minadeo (a Neo-NAZI) responded.

"When I look at you guys, I do not think 'master race.'"

At that point, Boysheim (another Neo-NAZI) interjected, "You're old and about to die. Your time is coming to its end."

In fact, what I saw was a group of wounded, angry men who've never accomplished much in their own lives, looking for someone else to blame.

"You're worse than the Jews," Minedeo shouted.

Again, more of my truth: "I really feel sorry for you guys."

Boysheim shot back, "I don't give a f**k what you feel sorry for. You're going to be in a grave soon, you dumb f**king, sell-off boomer."

Minadeo chimed in, "F**k you, boomer."

As I walked away, I felt an overriding feeling of sadness.

These are really pathetic human beings.

They are the only ones who seem not to know it.

The two last sentences got to me because while these people are particularly pathetic human beings and do not know it, they are no more pathetic than all members of the MAGA movement who without really knowing what it means for the future of American democracy will say they believe in Project 2025. 

In fact if Trump is elected Project 2025 will be today's Mein Kampf.

By the time you read this we may already know whether Biden is going to step down. Hopefully he'll announce this decision at least by Monday so prominent Democrats and Republican anti-Trumpers who have considered him to be a weaker candidate than others can focus instead on wholehearteredly endorsing him.

He won't learn about my advice unless someone with a website that more than the few hundred who read my blog publishes something I write. For example, when we were watching the recent video of Biden walking up the stairs to Air Force One, my partner who sometimes says this to me said "if I were Jill and was by your side I'd be saying to you 'posture, honey, posture' perhaps adding it's only a few more steps until we get inside.'"

Meanwhile I hope that Biden makes the rational and right decision for democracy. For those who don't subscribe to The NY Times below is an excerpt from Maureen Dowd' column today, Lord Almighty, Joe, Let It Go!" I posted an excerpt:

Everyone wants Joe Biden gone.

Even the people who don’t want him gone really want him gone.

“Everyone’s waiting for Joe,” said one top Democrat. “And he’s sitting at home, stewing and saying, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ We’re doing things the Democratic way. We’re botching it.”

I have many happy memories of Rehoboth Beach. I went there growing up and have Proustian recollections of crispy French fries with vinegar sold on the Boardwalk. But now my gladdening images have been replaced by a maddening one: President Biden hunkered down in his house there, recovering from Covid, resisting talking to anyone who will tell him the truth, hoarsely yelling, “Get off my beach!” at the growing list of Democratic lawmakers and donors trying to warn him that he is pulling down his party and the country.

It makes me sad that Biden doesn’t see what’s inescapable: If he doesn’t walk away gracefully right now, he will likely go down as a pariah and ruin his legacy.

The race for the Oval today is between two delusional, selfish, stubborn old guys, and that’s a depressing state of affairs.

Dowd concludes:

Given that Biden said it would take the Lord Almighty to make him drop out, I have no doubt that Pelosi has been using their shared Catholic faith to guilt-trip the president into understanding the stakes, and what she thinks the Lord Almighty would want. Certainly, she might have said, she doesn’t like Trump claiming, as he did this week, that the Lord Almighty is on his side.

Really, what the Democrats need is a thrilling open convention, rather than a coronation. Trump just had one of those, after all.

Here's what Carl Bernstein had to say (reference):

One of the legendary reporters who chronicled the Watergate scandal says an irate President Joe Biden now recognizes he faces long odds to defeat former President Donald Trump — and could announce Monday that he's dropping out of the race. 

Carl Bernstein talked Friday night with CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC360," and said, "the president himself has now moved from being what was called 'contemplative' about his situation to recognition that it's very unlikely that his candidacy can be sustained."

That's true of his family as well, Bernstein said. Even so, the president feels "angry" and "abandoned" by Democratic leaders, including and most vociferously toward Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Yesterday I wrote Newsom/Whitmer is a made for TV winning ticket. They possess the "it factor" here.

Click above to enlarge image.

 

Read previous blogs here.