This article has appeared several times in my timeline recently:
Combining all of these facts, we have a fairly clear picture in play.
- Trump was, indeed, perfectly honest during the campaign; he intends to do everything he said, and more. This should not be reassuring to you.
- The regime’s main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.
- The inner circle is actively probing the means by which they can seize unchallenged power; yesterday’s moves should be read as the first part of that.
- The aims of crushing various groups — Muslims, Latinos, the black and trans communities, academics, the press — are very much primary aims of the regime, and are likely to be acted on with much greater speed than was earlier suspected. The secondary aim of personal enrichment is also very much in play, and clever people will find ways to play these two goals off each other.
If you’re looking for estimates of what this means for the future, I’ll refer you back to yesterday’s post on what “things going wrong” can look like. Fair warning: I stuffed that post with pictures of cute animals for a reason.
– Yonatan Zunger, Trial Balloon for a Coup?
I would ignore the title, and most of the argument building up to a coup d’Etat, that is just hysteria talking. The formation of a core group that will do the deciding is troubling, but for different reasons.
Pence is clearly angling to replace Trump. I think that has always been his goal. The congress doesn’t want to impeach Trump (bad optics) and the only way out of that is to confirm the cabinet so that they can vote to remove Trump; except that Trump has offered appointees that essentially can’t do their jobs. This creates another problem for congress because they have to act (bad optics again) to appoint a body to remove him, and the cabinet nominees he’s selected are not likely to vote to remove him (See the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution) So it’s going to have to get a whole lot worse before we will see action to remove this guy from office.
Meanwhile (as the OP article goes into) Trump is siphoning off cash as fast as he can get his hands on it, and is channeling it into offshore accounts (most likely) He’s planning on taking the golden parachute out of the White House when he is forced out.
As I warned everyone before Caveat Emptor. This is his standard business model. Stealing money and then walking away with it. If we want to stop this we are going to have to put pressure on congress now to hold him accountable and not just accept that he will escape with our money. We need him arrested and tried as a traitor. The 19% of that Russian Oil company, if it can be traced to him, should be enough to get a conviction if only we can get our hands on him and place him in custody.
But that means people need to wake up now. Not later, now.
I would add the following observations, having read Yonatan Zunger’s other articles on the subject and now having read the Stonekettle Station comments as well.
The issue that minorities will face if we let this sit until Congress acts on their own without our collective feet up their collective asses is why we should get mobile and active now. The fact that Trump has always been a thief means that he doesn’t measure success the same way the rest of us would measure it. If he leaves office with a fat load of taxpayer money and campaign contributions, he’s back in the black and set for the remainder of his life and his children’s lives. People can say whatever they like about him. He will know he has won, he has to money to prove it.
Money is all he cares about. Money is his measuring stick. We need to deny him his success in this venture and that means getting him arrested, tried and convicted.
Facebook musings reposted to the blog on the historical date they were written.
Postscript
As it turns out, I had far too much faith in the system being able to defend itself. The coup is still ongoing now. Has been for about six years. The next time Republicans take power it will be the end of the experiment in democracy in the United States if not the end of the United States itself. I don’t think I’m being hysterical in making this prediction, either. Unless the Republicans stop practicing Trumpismo there will be no United States in the future, there will just be the kingdom of Trump.
