Bye-bye American Democracy - Predicting the Worst
Bye-bye American Democracy
Predicting the Worst
Part 1 of 2
November 13, 2024
Be forewarned. This is gloomy.
Preamble
I woke up the other day with a post election epiphany about my own mental health. Ever since Trump came on the scene back in 2016, I have lived with a fluctuating level of apprehension about our nation. Trump injected into the news stream an incessant torrent of lies, idiotic ideas, and vindictive rhetoric that made me apprehensive. For eight years, I held my feelings at bay by writing on Substack and making political contributions. When this election came around, I hoped that Trump would get trounced and shoved into the background to mumble his grievances to himself. In short, I could finally relax a bit after eight years. My epiphany was that my hoped for relaxation may never come. In fact, things will get worse. Maybe you feel that way too.
My three previous pieces on Substack have been about: Trump’s personal psychology, what happened with the election, and what might be done to hold Trump in check. As events have unfolded in just the last few days, the future is becoming clearer and darker. It’s time to pull back the curtain on our apprehensions and confront the worst case scenarios Trump has in store for America. Foresight is forewarned and essential to resistance. Buckle up.
A New Mindset
We need to begin with a total remaking of our mindsets. Whatever bad things you can imagine, Trump will do worse. We no longer have the government we once had. On the outside it may have the facade of a democracy, but look behind the marble columns and what we have is a nascent criminal enterprise. We are in the initial stages of an authoritarian / oligarchic kleptocracy. Ours will be a government controlled by a dictator and a small group of ultra rich people who use that government to further enrich themselves.
As you read this, America is being remade into Russia before our eyes. The clearest immediate evidence of this are two things: the combination of Trump and Musk and the elevation of Vance to VP through the financial backing of a tech billionaire, Peter Thiel. The Trump - Musk combo joins the world’s biggest con man / crook at the head of government with its biggest erratic billionaire. This is an unprecedented alliance of mega money with MAGA malevolence. It is the start of a MAGA Mafia.
Better Brains Behind Trump
Trump’s recent actions reveal strategic thinking far smarter than what Trump possesses. Some group of people (Project 2025 ?) is in the background constructing and feeding Trump his plan of action . Whoever it is, they are very smart and very dangerous. Case in point – Trump has called on the Senate to go into recess so he can make “recess appointments.” Why?
Normally, Trump’s appointments to top positions, like the cabinet secretaries, require Senate confirmation. It’s part of the checks and balances for our democracy built into the Constitution. The Legislative Branch and the nation get a look at whom he wants to put in charge and to veto bad choices. The process is designed to “greatly prevent the appointment of unfit characters” as Hamilton put it in Federalist Paper No. 76. Trump wants to bypass this process.
It is no leap of speculation to know that Trump is after two things. First, to put into positions people he knows even the Republican Senate would reject, e.g., Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK, Jr., etc. Second, he wants to neuter the Legislative branch of government. He wants to cut them out of our democracy and this is his first step. If he can push the Senate aside on this issue, they forfeit their power. Matt Gaetz as the proposed Attorney General is Trump’s finger-in-the-eye challenge to the Senate to bow before him. He will keep pushing until they are even less than a rubber stamp for his actions.
Every autocrat needs to pull all power to himself. The Senate has historically protected its power to counter the president. This showdown between Trump and the newly elected Senate majority leader, John Thune, will be one of the first major battles for democracy. It is a redux of July 21, 1861 in Manassas, Virginia – the first major battle of the Civil War. The Union lost badly. Pay very close attention to this first fight.
Good-bye to Rules and Norms.
Now that Trump is president, there are no longer any rules or norms that apply to him. He can, and will, do whatever he wants. It may take a while to cast off the restraints of the Constitution, but he will try until he succeeds. The Democrats don’t seem to understand this. They think the game is still being played by the rules. There are no rules for Trump in his world. I know that is hard to wrap your head around, but it is essential to recognize the rule of law is gone and replaced by the rule of Trump. We are in a post-Truth and a post Rule-of-Law world.
Ignoring rules will enable him to place people in top positions who will not push back against him, e.g., the Senate recess play. He will tell the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court to sit down and shut up (although a less polite phrase comes to mind). Right now Trump has refused to sign the Ethics Agreement required for a presidential transition. Not signing allows him to receive unlimited amounts of money from undisclosed sources for his “transition.” This is a crook’s paradise.
Trump Will Cancel the Constitution.
If you think this is impossible, you have not sufficiently stretched your mindset. I suspect Trump will manufacture an incident or seize upon a large protest and use it as a pretense to invoke the Insurrection Act. He will impose martial law, call out the military, and “temporarily” suspend the Constitution until order is restored. “Temporarily” will be forever.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Trump will do even more by tossing aside the whole Constitution. That dismantles the entire structure of government, its processes, and all the civil rights of citizens including freedom of speech and the second amendment. There will no longer be the rule of law as we know it. Courts will be the veneer for providing legal cover for Trump’s edicts. Trump will become like King Lois XIV who said, “L’Etat, c’est moi” – “I am the state.” This is the heart of fascism. General Kelley’s words about Trump being a fascist will prove prophetic.
Trump Thugs.
Hitler had his “Brownshirts” – his paramilitary gangs that terrorized political opponents and Jews. Trump will release the January 6th rioters to send a message that violence in the name of Trump will go unpunished. The country will experience political terrorism for any of his opponents like the racial terrorism the KKK used against Black people in the Jim Crow South. In those times, Black people were dragged from their homes and murdered while law enforcement and the courts turned a blind eye. The Proud Boys will be happy to lead the way and Roger Stone will be the head of Trump’s clandestine Gestapo.
But actual violence is only one way to intimidate people. Welcome to the cyber realm of personal terrorism. Modern technology now enables individuals and groups to be attacked on line. Cyber terrorists can stalk, bully, and dox individuals. They can inflict emotional harm and reputational damage with lies spread over the internet. How does a victim shed the label of “pedophile” once it has been affixed to them on line? How do you brush off threats to kill your family? Troll farms in Russia, China, and North Korea can assist domestic cyber terrorists. It’s a whole new world of opportunity when the government gives free rein to bad actors who support it against the opposition. This already happens elsewhere in the world.
Attacking Individuals and Organizations.
Let’s turn to Trump’s attacks on individuals. Trump is out for revenge and he will use taxpayer dollars to get it. The first round of revenge will be firing people. That’s easy and quick. The second round of revenge will be the DOJ making up charges and dragging his enemies before his corrupted courts. He will do this with Jack Smith, Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, General Milley, Latitia James, etc. – anyone who stood up to him. He does not need to have a meritorious case, or even win the cases. All he needs is to bankrupt the victims by endlessly prosecuting them at taxpayer expense.
Beyond individuals, Trump will go after organizations that oppose him. Groups like Indivisible, the ACLU, even the Democratic party will get attacked. The House was about to pass bill HR9495 this week until people wised up and got it stopped. That bill would have permitted Trump’s government to label a non governmental organization (NGO) a “terrorist supporting” organization. It was a way to pull the tax exempt status of non profit organizations he hates. He has already threatened to confiscate the endowments of universities or at least tax them heavily. He can pull government grants for education and research from them. The same holds true for withholding federal funds from state governments and schools. Previously, that would have been unheard of. But now, Trump could tell FEMA to let California burn while he watches it on TV – a modern Nero. He could do the same thing with companies by telling the EPA to deny permits for new construction or the Commerce Dept. to charge companies with unfair competition practices, or the Labor Dept. to file unfair labor practice actions, or the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses. The opportunities for evil are endless.
International Chaos.
Trump’s destruction will not stop at our nation’s borders. I shudder when I imagine the damage Trump will do to the entire world. His climate change denialism will curtail work to reduce carbon emissions. “Drill, baby, drill.” We already know that by the end of this century coastal cities will be either underwater or constantly flooded unless dramatic steps are taken now. This is no exaggeration. Today’s youth and their children will live in a world unlike any we know from recorded history. Trump will make it worse.
Trump’s tariffs will spark an international tariff war among both enemies and allies. Worldwide inflation will ensue. Cost cutting to compensate for tariff charges will lead to layoffs and increased unemployment. A global recession will follow. All this thanks to the economic ignorance of one man.
Trump’s track record for international peace preservation is abysmal. He exited the Iran deal and now they are weeks away from weapons’ grade uranium/plutonium. He negotiated a terrible deal with the Taliban that set loose 5,000 Taliban prisoners who helped overrun the country. He closed multiple air bases forcing the U.S. into a single evacuation airport. He set Biden up so that a safe exit from Afghanistan was nearly impossible.
He kissed Putin’s ring in Helsinki when he took Putin’s word that Russia had not interfered in the 2016 presidential election. He told Putin to do “Whatever the hell he wanted in Ukraine.” Putin recently repaid Trump’s obsequiousness by having Russian TV broadcast nearly nude modeling pictures of Melania Trump while the TV hosts laughed. Putin’s message – “I own you.” Trump made love (letters) with Kim Jong-un who has expanded his nuclear missile capability and is helping Russia in Ukraine. Where’s the love in that?
Trump’s isolationist position will give Putin and Xi Jinping free rein for expanded aggression in Europe, Taiwan, and the entire South China Sea. Trump will create the conditions for the world to be at war in Europe and the Far East and it will come at the same time he has weakened our military leadership.
Wrap Up.
This is the end of Part 1. These are not all the bad things Trump can do. More of them can surely be found lurking in the 900 pages of Project 2025. These are merely ones that come to mind for me. I wish the picture was brighter, but I fear it is not. Waiting to see what happens cedes the battlefield to Trump. Resistance must start now by anticipating what is ahead.
Part 2 looks into the five forces that could stand in Trump’s way and how he will work to neutralize them.
If you believe in this message, please share it on social media and/or email it to your friends. The more people who gain insight into what lies ahead, the stronger and faster resistance to Trump can build. Apathy is the enemy.