It's not quite as bad as in horror movies yet, but the pictures tell the story as Trump gives DC tourists photo-ops of nascent fascism in action.

 

The photo above was used to illustrate a letter in the opinion section of The Washington Post disputing the accuracy of reports that the federal takeover of DC resulted in fewer people eating out. No doubt it was used because it showed four (really at least five) of these Trump SS walking in front of a restaurant.

As horrified as we should be by this utterly obvious, unnecceasry, and downright absurd display of meant to intimidate performance art, I saw three positives in the photo. Can you guess what they are?

Here they are: 

• None of the Trump SS are wearing masks.

• One of the members of the Trump Schutzstaffel1 has his name on his uniform.

• This shows interagency cooperation.

We can only guess what the four people whose faces or heads are visible are thinking.

The three that we see all look serious or oblivious. It is hard to tell which. Are they really on the alert for criminal activity or people who look like they are illegal immigrants? I’d like to believe that at least one of them is thinking “what the fuck am I doing this for?” Either that or they may be worried about how they’ll react if someone throws a sandwich at them.

We don’t know why one is looking over his shoulder. Perhaps he passed someone eating a sandwich.

There’s a fifth Schutzstaffel who we can identify because of his body armor, but all we can tell is he has massive biceps and is wearing the requisite tight t-shirt. 

Apparently being buff and showing off upper body muscles by wearing tight short sleeved shirts is a Trumpian requirement. Hegseth, RFK Jr., Margorie Taylor Greene, and AI images of Trump sets the standard for this.

The article 'It’s an affront': DC tour guide rips Trump's troop surge as a tourist 'spectacle' in RawStory used a photo that should be disturbing to any caring human being. 

Click here to enlarge just the photo.

Unfortunately people, like the two in this photo, will continue to be intimidated by the Trump SS for no other reason than they have black or brown skin. 

Look at their faces:

Waiting under a bus shelter used to protect you from the elements like rain and snow. This one doesn't protect you from ICE and their partners. The police still have the audacity to wear the uniform of DC police (who are supposed to protect and serve everyone) 

Meanwhile, Trump's next target city is supposedly going to be Chicago!

Read: ‘Your political circus isn’t welcome here’: Trump eyes federal crackdowns in more cities.

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Chicago is the next city in his crosshairs for the kind of federal invasion and occupation currently underway in Washington, DC—a threat that sparked defiant pushback from officials in the Windy City and beyond.

"After we do this, we'll go to another location, and we'll make it safe also," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to his federalization of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of National Guard troops from the district and five Republican-controlled states.

"We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago's a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we'll straighten that one out probably next," the president said, referring to progressive Brandon Johnson. "That will be our next one after this. And it won't even be tough."

Hopefully it won’t happen, but it’s possible that visitors to Millennium Park will end up getting interesting, and disquieting, photos of Trump’s SS lingering around the famous Cloud Gate sculpture, otherwise knows as “the bean.”

The Britannica explains why Chicago is called The Second City.

Chicago is called the “Second City” due to a combination of historical and cultural factors, primarily stemming from its rivalry with New York City and the name of a book by A.J. Liebling, who coined the term in the 1950s.

Now it looks like it is poised to become the second city Trump unleashes his SS on.

The photo on the top of the page is the famous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller “Psycho” which you can watch here.

Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

Leave a comment

Previous Substacks

1

While it may sound like the name of a German strudel Schutzstaffel was the name of the Nazi SS.

If the GOP or MAGA are having problems, does it even matter in the long run if Trump is planning to implement a police state? By Hal M. Brown

 .

The first two articles on RawStory at 6 this morning (Pacific time) were 'This is an earthquake': Strategist warns town hall furor signals midterm disaster for GOP and 'Back-of-the-napkin stuff': GOP senators feel double-crossed by deal cut by Trump. 

Just down their page, half the articles have either GOP or MAGA in the titles, and all of them are about difficulties Republicans, including Trump and Kristi Noem, are having.

Here are the main stories on HuffPost this morning:

The featured story is “How Trump Caved And Went Home With 'Nothing' In Talks With Chuck Schumer.” It is about how “The dramatic collapse in talks over the weekend doesn't bode well for the tougher job lawmakers are facing of funding the government next month.”

Does any of this matter? 

What if Trump’s move to make ICE into a small army targeting immigrants is just a trial run to see how much he can get away with?

It is an understandment to observe how often we are subjected to seeing pictures of federal agents and sometimes local law enforcement armed like they are about to raid a drug kingpin’s lair on our streets.

By now many Americans, especially those who haven’t seen this happening in person, have become complacent about this. They are so inured to seeing the images that they don’t feel any empathy for the people being terrorized or pang of horror that America has taken the first step to becoming a police state. 

Excerpt:

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 systemsas 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").

If the ICE actions were the first step, we may be seeing the beginning of the second step with the DOJ investigating Barack Obama and Jack Smith. While we haven’t seen Pam Bondi posing with a gun, another player in this dystopian drama, Kristi Noem, has been on numerous occasions:

Noem isn’t as intimidating looking as the ICE agents, but Trump would like nothing better than to see Obama, Smith, and his other enemies arrested by federal agents, who while not in SWAT gear, will be carrying guns too. 

I think he dreams, perhaps literally, of seeing Obama in prison. In between other actual dreams that arouse him (I’ll leave what they are about to your imagination), I wouldn't be surprised if he’s had actual dreams about Obama being in the notorious CECOT prison.

Putting the current news about Trump’s difficulties, and about what is going on the the Republican Party and MAGA in perspective, what does it all matter if Trump has implemented a police state before the next election? He could render Congress irrelevant, so who controlled the House, or even the Senate as well, wouldn’t matter.

The same would apply to the courts, up to and including the Supreme Court. When you have armed soldiers doing your dirty work, whether they are part of the actual military or not, traditional civil authority has evaporated and you have a police state.

The only thing that can stop a police state once it is entrenched is for another more powerful force to resist and destroy it.

Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

It looks like I am permanently suspended from Facebook, so if you are there I appreciate anyone who posts a link to my Substacks on the FB page. Otherwise, this post is public so feel free to share it by clicking below.

Share

Leave a comment

Very much related to this is Thom Hartmann’s Substack today:

Excerpts:

This is now the Trump formula:

— Manufacture a crisis. 
— Declare an “emergency.” 
— Seize powers the Constitution doesn’t grant. 
— Bypass Congress. 
— Bully or ignore the courts. 
— Use masked, secret police and the military against your own residents. 
— Send people to foreign concentration camps. 
— Build concentration camps within the United States. 
— Prosecute lawyers and judges. 
— Assert control over universities. 
— Merge corporate and state interests.
— Cow the media into silence about your corruption and crimes. 
— Then call it all “law and order.”

This sums up what both Thom and I are trying to say although Thom seems more optimistic that American’s are becoming aware of what is going on:

Increasingly, Americans are realizing that Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Donald Trump are all reading from the same authoritarian script that Hitler first authored, and if we don’t recognize the pattern soon, we may find ourselves locked in Act III with no exit.

Kristi Noem’s DHS made a stunning ‘confession’ with new Bible-quoting ads: column, RawStory

My comment: This quote, inaccurately attributed to Sinclair Lewis ( see Snopes) from his prescient novel "It Can't Happen Here" certainly applies to this article:

.