Trump is engaged in two fights against democracy. Both involve agents armed with guns. Are we a nascent police state? By Hal M. Brown

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This is the main page of HUFFPOST this morning:

The news about Trump defying a federal judge’s order is all over the media. There are lotsa guns in that story. In this instance it is ICE agents. There’s another story with lotsa guns. Rachel Maddow reported on it last night. You can see the 10 minute segment in the RawStory article here.

This is from The New York Times (subscription):

Musk’s Team Evicts Officials at the U.S. Institute of Peace

A bubbling dispute broke into a dramatic standoff that ended with police involvement and the Department of Government Efficiency taking up residence at the independent agency.

Excerpt:

A simmering dispute between the Department of Government Efficiency and an independent agency dedicated to promoting peace broke into an open standoff involving the police on Monday, as Elon Musk’s government cutters marched into the agency’s headquarters and evicted its officials.

The dramatic scene played out in Washington on Monday afternoon as Mr. Musk’s team was rebuffed from the U.S. Institute of Peace, an agency that President Trump has ordered dismantled, then entered it with law enforcement officers. Agency officials say that because the institute is a congressionally chartered nonprofit that is not part of the executive branch, Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk do not have the authority to gut its operations.

“DOGE just came into the building — they’re inside the building — they’re bringing the F.B.I. and brought a bunch of D.C. police,” Sophia Lin, a lawyer for the institute, said by telephone as she and other officials were being escorted out.

George Moose, who was fired as the institute’s acting president last week but is challenging his dismissal, accused Mr. Musk’s team of breaking in. “Our statute is very clear about the status of this building and this institute,” he told reporters. “So what has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit corporation.”

If anyone still disputes the evidence that Trump is now a dictator who, when defied, is willing to use his own Gestapo and SS they have their head so deeply in the dirt that it may be poking into the Earth’s substrata. If they bury themselves too much deeper in denial it will get pretty damn hot for them.

How far will this go? There’s a name for the kind of country we could become. It is called a police state. At it’s extreme it looks like this.

This is the Wikipedia defintion:

A police state describes a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive, and the deployment of internal security and police forces play a heightened role in governance. A police state is a characteristic of authoritarian, totalitarian or illiberal regimes (contrary to a liberal democratic regime). Such governments are typically one-party states and dominant-party states, but police-state-level control may emerge in multi-party systems as well.

Originally, a police state was a state regulated by a civil administration, but since the beginning of the 20th century it has "taken on an emotional and derogatory meaning" by describing an undesirable state of living characterized by the overbearing presence of civil authorities. The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force that operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state. Robert von Mohl, who first introduced the rule of law to German jurisprudence, contrasted the Rechtsstaat ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the anti-aristocratic Polizeistaat ("police state").

Russia and other totalitarian countries have their own versions.

Some of my friends say “it can’t happen here.” Others say it can happen here. I am seeing indications it is already happening and what we have is a nascent police state. Trump is testing the limits. Trump and Musk and their lieutenants want to see how far they can go. They don’t know what will happen but I am certain they have considered the possibility that there will be massive protests. I am just as sure that they have a contingency plan for this. They will wait until there’s a protest that gives Trump an excuse to say it is a national emergency and declare martial law.

From Wikipedia:

Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties may be suspended for as long as martial law continues. Most often, martial law is declared in times of war or emergencies such as civil unrest and natural disasters. Alternatively, martial law may be declared in instances of military coups d'état.

This would put the onus for carrying out unconstitutional, illegal, and un-American presidentiall on true patriots in the military. Would they bend to Trump and Hegseth or could we actually have a military coup d'état?

Update:

This is in response to Trump. But Trump has the guns. Roberts doesn’t. He depends on the respect for the rule of law.

Read my related Substacks below.

Read all of my Substacks.

.Holy F*cken Sh!t, Sabrina Haake!!!! My comment to you has become most of my Substact today.

In order to understand my title and my entire Substack today you have to read Sabrina Haake’s “Haake Take” today. Yesterday, my friend Sabrina asked me via email how I came up with ideas for my Substacks. I said that generally as I looked over the news an idea I hoped was an original take or perspective popped into my head. This morning the idea came from what she wrote in her Substack. 

 The oligarch takeover is America's tall ships moment 

 She uses a photo of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla’s Elon Musk at Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration for her illustration. She uses them to represent the tall ships. 

 She begins: 

 According to the theory, natives literally couldn’t “see” the ships, because they had no experiential familiarity with them. Quoting from What the Bleep do we know?, a paradigm-shifting take on human perception, native people ignored the huge ships because “their highly filtered perceptions couldn't register what was happening, and they literally failed to see them.” When Captain Cook/Columbus/Magellan sent their men ashore in smaller longboats loaded with guns, the natives registered what they saw and began their futile resistance. 

 She concludes: 

 I have wondered all my adult life how the Germans let Hitler happen. And now, like the man who couldn’t live without knowing how his wife died until he met her same fate in The Vanishing, I know. People didn’t react because most couldn’t see what was happening. Those who could see Hitler--Germany’s tall ships--didn’t believe what they saw. And those who both saw and believed their own eyes thought there would be a sane stopping point. There wasn’t then, and there won’t be now. 

 I used to live a couple of towns over from Plymouth, Mass. and often we went to the harbor where the replica of the Mayflower is moored. We visited Plimoth Patuxet (previously called Plimoth Plantation). I decided to use a painting of the Mayflower, the colonists, and members of the Wampanoag tribe from a Britannica article as my illustration. Read her Substack. 

Then read my slightly edited comment below: 

 Holy Fucken Shit, Sabrina!!!!!! 

 You nailed it in one analogy, one I haven't heard before. Then you segued into a comparison we all have used. The Native Americans couldn't see the tall ships. Even if they were bristling with 50 cal. machine guns, had cruise missile launchers, and the colonists had Marines with M-16 assault rifles, they would have been invisible. 

 I also grew up wondering about how everyday Germans could let Hitler happen. This may have because of being Jewish or just because my father served on a hospital ship in the war. The playbook for what is happening here, now, and may very well happen in a short period of time isn't Mein Kampf or Project 2025. It is in the history books but we don't need to look at them. It is common sense. 

Trump, his minions, and his enablers have already begun their blitzkrieg to turn us into some yet precisely undetermined kind of combination of a cruel dictatorship, a police state, and an oligarchy. Even Trump doesn't know exactly what it will be except that whatever it turns out to be he intends to be the absolute ruler for as long as he lives. 

 Those of us who understand his psychopathology aren't surprised by anything he does. Speaking of tall ships (and those container ships are tall), the latest order to have the military submit a plan for invading Panama, fits with his need to be a saber rattling ruler who strikes fear into everyone he aims his wrath at. Putin invaded Ukraine, Trump wants to invade Greenland and Panama. He's ready to declare war on NATO. 

 Democracy loving Americans protesting won't stop him. He wants to find an excuse to declare martial law to stop them. Court rulings won't stop him. He wants to defy the court proving they are impotent. Outraged Democrats in Congress and the outrage of media critics feed his cruel narcissistic hunger. 

Another Kent State Massacre won't stop him. He's a sadist. Bloodshed in the streets won't stop him. All this adds up to only one hope - aside from his death - to stop this. 

It is for the military to initiate a coup. Last week I thought it could be a what is referred to as "a soft coup." (From Wikipedia) "This is also known as a silent coup, an illegal overthrow of a government. Unlike a classical coup d'état, it is achieved without the use of force or violence." Now I am leaning towards a classical coup. 

This would entail, among other actions, tanks around the White House and the 82nd Airborne landing troops on the lawn. A general would be the acting president. The new administration would hold free and fair elections when the county was stabilized. 

 Additional thought: 

 Our tall ship moment is a combination of two groups of powerful people. One are the oligarchs who we knew had incredible control over our politics, but we did not know how malevolent they were. The other group are Trump, Musk, & Co. We knew they were malevolent, but weren’t sure they were all that malevolent. From what I can tell the oligarchs, with the possible exception of Musk, don’t call many of the shots. 

The shots may literally become real bullet shots since Trump controls the people with guns. It is still metaphorical, but when Trump and Musk say “shoot here” the oligarchs put on their noise suppressors and pretend nobody is getting hurt. 

When the armored FBI Tesla Cybertruck parks in front of our houses, By Hal M. Brown, Also: there's the brutal Chenchen leader helping the Russians who Musk gave a Cybertruck to. He put a machine gun in the back.

Summer, 1940, a small German city:

Isach Mendelsen and his family have just begun to eat breakfast. The two windows facing the street in their second floor apartment are open. They hear the morning hum of their small city, a few cars are going by, and there’s noise of the milkman's horsedrawn cart. They hear the chatter of people outside walking the streets and the sound of a few merhcants opening their stores. Then there is silence. They hear a car stop in front of their house. The engine turns off and the doors open and close.

Nine year old Hyman goes to the window and looks out and sees a new Citroën in front of their apartment building. There aren’t too many cars like that on their street.

“Mommy, daddy, there are men outside,” he exclaims. Isach goes to the window and looks out. Four men in trench coats and wearing hats are walking towards the door of their building. 

(Above: real Gestapo)

He knows who they are. The Mendelsens are the only Jews living in the building. He knows why they are there.

A year from now in a small American city:

Anti-Trump journalist Clark Putnam works from home. He’d been fired from his job at a local television station's news department for not towing the pro-Trump company line. He has barely been making a living writing a Substack about how the Trump adminstration is ruining the lives of ordinary people. With about 200 readers paying $8 a month to both read and comment on his essays, and his wife’s income from her job working at a convenience store. They’d exhausted half of the family savings. They knew it was a mater of time before they’d have to sell their house and find a cheaper place to live.

He has just finished breakfast with his family in their suburban home on a quiet residential street. It is a spring morning. He hears his neighbor start his lawnmower. 

He's mulling over what to write his Substack about. He has to write one every day. This is what his readers pay for. Gradually more people are deciding it is worth paying both to support his work and to be able to make comments. He gets about one or two new paying subscribers each day. That’s $8 or $16 a month but it adds up. This reminds him of the commercials on TV which show a sick or starving child and say “for only $19 a month, that’s only 63 cents a day, you can help this child.” (There’s a reason so many charities choose this amount.)

There was an ICE raid at a hospital where seriously ill immigrant patients were loaded into a van to be taken to a deportation center. That was a human interest story he thought people could relate to. There was also the news that the US Postal Service, long since put under the Department of Commerce, had announced that they would cease to allow mail-in ballots to be sent in postage paid envelopes. It seemed like a small victory that courts managed to stop from outlawing mail in voting but this was clearly an effort to make it more difficult. Mail service was so slow with postal workers fired and post offices closed that many people stopped even buying stamps since they rarely mailed letters.

Clark had settled into a mood of low grade depression and anxiety. He tried to breathe in the aroma of newly mown grass and clear his mind so he could decide what to write about. Then his neighbor's mower stopped. There was nothing unusual in that, but he had a sudden sense of dread that came out of nowhere. It prompted him to look out of the window.

What he saw chilled him to the bone. It was one of those armored Tesla Cybertrucks that the FBI was now using. He'd seen photos of them on the news. He'd watched as Musk met with Kash Patel and Dan Bongino at a Tesla plant where the vehicles were being manufactured. He heard Musk explain how powerful they were, how much gear they could carry, and especially how they could stop the bullet from an AR-15. There were videos on TV of FBI agents using Cybertucks as they raided high profile anti-Trumpers. Three or four of these futuristic vehicles pulling up in front of someone’s house was somehow more terrifying to watch than the same number of black Ford Suburbans. 

He thought he was small potatoes. He never thought they would come for him. He had the presence of mind to get the name of a decent criminal lawyer, just in case, and write it down, but in a panic he couldn't remember where he put it. 

He watched as four heavily armed men in FBI body armor exit the car and begin to walk towards the path to his house. "Honey," he said to his wife, "it's happening, they are here for me."

The back story:

This was first reported earlier in February:

'Sleazy corruption': $400M award reportedly for 'Armored Tesla' outrages Musk critics

It was denied but then new information came out yesterday:

A new document undercuts Trump admin's denials about $400 million Tesla deal

It never made sense that an armored Cybertruck would be appropriate for ferrying diplomats from place to place. It does make sense for the FBI Gestapo to adopt them their primary mode of transportation. When they do their raids they offer the protection from being shot at. If they need to pursue anybody they are incredibly fast. 

And finally, there’s this:

If they needed more firepower they could mount a machine gun in the back. (Read article)

Excerpt:

The warlord leader of Chechnya has mounted a machine gun on a Tesla Cybertruck that he says he plans to send to Russian forces on the battlefields in Ukraine.

Ramzan Kadyrov published a video on Saturday of himself driving the vehicle, which he said had been sent to him by “the strongest genius of our time,” Elon Musk, before it was adapted.

Musk later denied giving the vehicle to the Chechen leader. “Are you seriously so retarded that you think I donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general?” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.

In the slickly produced video, a grinning Kadyrov is seen driving the vehicle through an empty square in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital. He then gets out of the truck and stands behind the machine gun with an ammunition belt draped round his neck.

“We received a Tesla Cybertruck from the respected Elon Musk. I was happy to test the new equipment and personally saw that there’s a reason that it is called the ‘Cyberbeast,’” Kadyrov wrote on Telegram.

Kadyrov said he “literally fell in love” with the vehicle, which he said was “invulnerable,” “fast,” “comfortable” and “maneuverable.”

Now we know. Musk, who has threatened to cut Starlink to the Ukrainian military, has already helped the Russians. This is the General he gave the Cybertruck to:

For decades, Kadyrov has been criticized for alleged human rights violations. The US State Department sanctioned him in 2020, saying it “has extensive credible information” that Kadyrov was responsible for “gross violations of human rights,” including torture and extrajudicial killings. Kadyrov has also been sanctioned by the United Kingdom and European Union.

Monday’s Substack:

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A tale of the DOGE destruction disruption and more unintended consequences. By Hal M. Brown

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Ready, fire, aim," is how David Ignatious put it on "Morning Joe" today talking about the unintended consequences of the DOGE cuts. 

This pretty much sums up what has happened because of Trump's manic rush to initiate everything that is laid out in Project 2025 and make himself into a dictator. The authors of Project 2025 were sane, so a other things that the authors of the blueprint for autocracy hadn't thought of were added by Trump: Greenland, Panama, making Canada a state, Gaza, and a social media post justifying being a Napoleonanic dictator, for example. 

Here are some illustrations from various websites and photos I took while I had MSNBC and CNN on while I was writing this:

I wonder how many viewers and readers of far-right media even know about any, let alone, all of these. Some of them may not be disabused of their belief that Trump walks on water until, if they depend on Medicaid for crucial medical treatment, they look at their monthly payment and don’t understand why it’s been drastically cut. Others may have personal connections to the fired federal workers. A few may be friends with, or employed, immigrants who have been deported, or are fearful of being deported. Some may be parents of unvaccinated children who get the measles. The list goes on.

When an aggressor army is actually invading a country shock and awe is often effective. The Nazi blitzkrieg is an example of a success. Putin tried it against Ukraine but failed. Trump is only figuratively invading a country called Democratic America. He didn’t have to come on like gangbusters.

Trump could have avoided shooting himself in the face if he was prudent instead of reckless when he went about trying to become the dictator he aspires to be. He could have stiffed Musk after what was supposed to be a reward for his donations. He could have kept him out of the Oval Office and never allowed DOGE to exist. But Trump gets something about having the richest person in the world (or the second richest after Putin whose net worth is hard to determne), someone reviled by his enemies, as his co-president. He enjoys all the mockery coming from liberals about this. Trump is happy when he thinks he owns the libs.

It would have been difficult to find them, but he could have found competent loyalists to nominate for Cabinet positions and top jobs. Instead we have RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabard, and Pete Hegseth.

He could used strategic instead of mass firings.

He could have actually made sure that the only immigrants deported were violent criminals. He could have told Thom Homan not to be such a macho asshat and to stay away from Dr. Phil.

He could have just ignored the plight of Eric Adams.

He definitely shouldn’t have posted his Napoleon message. I expect that even some of his allies on the Supreme Court think this will make it harder to rule in his favor in certain cases. He just told them that if he disagrees with any other their decisions he can ignore them.

If Trump had just stuck with Greenland, Panama, and Canada, he’d have been better off. He could have moved slowly on everything else. He could have been judicious, a concept that shouldn’t even be in the same sentence with Trump.

Thankfully for democracy in America, he’s so thrilled by his reckless ride into a Caligula like monarchy that he can’t stop himself. He hasn’t had visceral feelings like this since Stormy Daniels agreed to go to bed with him.