Yonatan Zunger over at Medium.com wrote an article yesterday titled, “Trial Ballon for a Coup?” It is well worth taking a few minutes and reading.
Yonatan highlights many of the things that the administration did over the weekend, specifically on Saturday that point to their intent to take over our government.
I can’t post them all here but he goes point by point outlining the things that happened, most you are aware of but there might be a few you didn’t hear about.
- Muslim ban, then lifting the ban on green cards and they did that.
- Leaving out Jews from the Holocaust Remembrance Day,
- Giuliani saying that the ban was for Muslims and that Trump had asked him how to do it.
- The Department of Homeland Security lawyers objected to parts of the ban but Bannon and Stephen Miller overruled them.
- He points out that the massive departure of State Department employees was not resignation but, “a purge order by the White House.”
- On Inauguration Day Trump filed his candidacy to run in 2020 and why that is important.
- Russia had promised Trump a 19% share in Rosneft state oil company. Looks like he got it, via shell companies.
There are more details about each of those points in the article and he links to other articles that have been heavily sourced.
What does this all mean?
I see a few key patterns here. First, the decision to first block, and then allow, green card holders was meant to create chaos and pull out opposition; they never intended to hold it for too long. It wouldn’t surprise me if the goal is to create “resistance fatigue,” to get Americans to the point where they’re more likely to say “Oh, another protest? Don’t you guys ever stop?” relatively quickly.
I can see that happening with a lot of the people I work with, they are just not engaged in politics and also have the, “It’s too big to fail” mentality.
Note also the most frightening escalation last night was that the DHS made it fairly clear that they did not feel bound to obey any court orders. CBP continued to deny all access to counsel, detain people, and deport them in direct contravention to the court’s order, citing “upper management,” and the DHS made a formal (but confusing) statement that they would continue to follow the President’s orders. (See my updates from yesterday, and the various links there, for details) Significant in today’s updates is any lack of suggestion that the courts’ authority played a role in the decision.
This is one of the things that scare me the most, that an DHS is willing to ignore the Justice Dept. Paging Andrew Jackson.
Yesterday was the trial balloon for a coup d’état against the United States. It gave them useful information.
I am reminded of Trump’s continued operation of a private personal security force, and his deep rift with the intelligence community. Last Sunday, Kellyanne Conway (likely another member of the inner circle) said that “It’s really time for [Trump] to put in his own security and intelligence community,” and this seems likely to be the case.
While a lot of people see the actions of the administration as being ignorant or just plain stupid, I’m beginning to see it as all a well organized plan. I don’t think they are as stupid as we think they are and we underestimate them at our own peril.
(Note, incidentally, that the DHS already has police authority within 100 miles of any border of the US; since that includes coastlines, this area includes over 60% of Americans, and eleven entire states. They also have a standing force of over 45,000 officers, and just received authorization to hire 15,000 more on Wednesday.)
If DHS goes along with the coup even those of out here in California will be in trouble. I still have a hard time believing they will, but right now it doesn’t look good.
Yonatan also goes into the ways Trump has set himself up to profit from this coup and then concludes with a point by point summery. I know everyone who quotes from an article stays please go read the whole thing, but in this case it really is important that you take a few minutes and read what he has to say. The share the article on Facebook, Twitter, everyone you can.
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