End of the week look at the Trump/ MAGA GOP threat.
Dear TAT readers,
Phew… what a week and its only become more chaotic, as we edge towards the January 20th inauguration. It’s also, not all about Trump and his merry band of sexual predators, financial predators and felons. We all understand that he loves the attention, but if we are to get through the next four years with minimal damage, we cannot allow ourselves to be triggered by his circus-like diversions. There are countless severe, national and global security threats, and he will be involved in all of them for his own power and profit.
Today, I will attempt to offer a narrative of the domestic threats that revolve around Trump’s attempts to frighten us into submission. First a couple of points about why am taking this approach.
Trump is a chaos agent, and massive amounts of mis/ disinformation will come at us like the water out of a firehose. Separating reality from MAGA’s alternative reality is key to having success, in mitigating Trump’s purely selfish, immoral and un-American agenda.
Chaos for operators… equals opportunity. We must all become influence operators. The reason I say this, is that in my former military community it is understood, that those prepared, focused and with skills, can make progress while that everyone else is scampering around in a chaotic fit. Focus is the key and why I say to limit your efforts on culture war battles. They are a planned diversion to prevent us from focusing on what Trump and his minions are doing while that our attention is elsewhere and unfocused.
Sun Tzu | Art of War, Strategy, & Quotes | Britannica Sun-Tzu is taught incessantly in military schools for professional development Everyone has a congressman and that is where pressure is to be applied. Challenge them on their lies and conspiracy theories. Do it in writing and in venues like local newspapers, via Op-Eds. Do it at local townhalls. Read their voting records for free and online. Simultaneously, apply the same pressure to state legislators because they mimic those holding national office. They are your neighbors and will respond to local, public pressure. We simply cannot run a nation, on conspiracy theories, so demand that your politicians provide their sources and can demonstrate what they have achieved or not.
With the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos and others controlling so much of our data and the ability to censor in social media, local, in-person pressure becomes even more critical.
Look for expert input on the battles that you choose to fight. Simply recirculating memes by itself, is not helpful for a wide variety of reasons. Fact-checking alone, is also not productive. Fact-checking and including a short paragraph of sentences about the facts that show that MAGA activities are un-American and Christian Nationalist in nature, are critically important. This is called Narrative Warfare and what I just described, is but one of many effective tactics.
Divide and conquer. Join groups and divide up the tasks to be managed so that everyone doesn’t burnout. Four years of fighting is exhausting, especially since that we have already been fighting back, for a decade.
Finally, stop the constant broadcasting of “go Democrats, or blue wave.” This allows the MAGA crowd to keep this argument about partisanship. Framing your arguments in terms of true American values and actual religious beliefs rather than the Christian nationalist versions shoved down our throats, by MAGA, is the answer. This allows you to control the influence battlefield, not the bad guys.
Now, a few lines about this week’s challenges to our constitutional republic and global security. First, a map of sorts regarding our most acute threats. This Venn Diagram will help to visualize the threats and with who they are connected. Having discussed the foreign threats not long ago, today I will focus along domestic lines.
Not long ago, I defined MAGA by its four most dangerous characteristics, in a long essay called, The Four Horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse, Autocracy, Oligarchy, White Christian Nationalism and Political Violence. Each of the section below, will fall into one of the four.
First up, Autocracy
autocracy 1: the authority or rule of an autocrat 2: government in which one person possesses unlimited power 3: a community or state governed by autocracy - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autocracy
Okay, we all already understand that Trump lied about being in the dark, regarding Project 2025. The overall point of P25 is simply, to make Trump an all-powerful autocrat. P25 contains a 180-day transition plan for every nook and cranny of our government structure. This transition plan focuses heavily on remaking the Executive Branch of Government so that a president has nearly unlimited power. This is why, Trump nominated the chief architect of it, Russell Vought to run the OMB, The Office of Management and Budget. With control over OMB, Trump, via Vought, has expansive ability to dictate hiring, firing, pay etc. He served briefly as the director of the OMB in Trump’s first administration and knows the system well enough to use it a hammer to keep federal employees subservient to the president, not the constitution.
This week, as Senate Republicans mull over his nomination, it is interesting that only the most extreme GOP Senators have made public statements in support. Still, he will be confirmed quietly by the Senate as that with almost no exceptions, they vote a straight party line. With a GOP Senate majority, no one will have the courage to stand against him, or his dismantling of our Civil Service, with over two million federal employees.
This week was eventful also, from the perspective of Trump nominating enforcers for his agenda, and retribution against perceived enemies. He renewed his support for White Supremacist and sexual predator, Pete Hegseth, to run the Department of Defense, albeit fully unqualified. Like the rest of the nominees, he is a sycophant that patterns his life on Trump’s.
He nominated a conspiracy theorist, election denier and former Georgia senator, David Purdue as the ambassador to China. He and fellow nominee, Former Senator Kelly Loeffler, Trump’s nominee to run the Small Business Administration, are perfect fits for a Wall Street scam president like Trump. Both were involved in naked, insider trading activities, among racist and other immoral public activities.
The autocracy category could go on for pages, but for the sake of time, let’s move forward to Oligarchy.
The Trump administration’s oligarchs
It is no secret that to Trump, everything is transactional. It would be insane to believe that anything has changed, this time around. Billionaires, some successful, some not, populate the ranks of high positions and advisors. Although Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are the highest profile and need no introduction. Both spew conspiracy theories and threats towards American citizens with impunity and now have been given free rein, to reshape much of the Federal Government, in a scheme called the “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).” The only benefactors of DOGE will be those in power and for the enrichment of a small oligarchical class, closest to Trump.
Linda McMahon of professional wrestling fame is another billionaire along with her husband. She is tabbed to be the new Secretary of Education where her tasking is to close down the entire agency. Her and her husband, also appear on the list of sexual predator enablers, for activities within their organization that neither took action to stop. The alleged charges are that one of their employees sexually abused young boys for years and that this was common knowledge to them and several others in the organization.
Along with the commitment by Trump, to continue to reduce taxes on those with elite wealth, enabling spineless billionaires to run his administration, is a DeFacto commitment to oligarchy.
One of the most popular essays I have written, details Oligarchy in US history. Constitutional scholars, consider our constitution to be the “anti-oligarchy constitution.” Although those who wrote it and ratified our constitution, were more often than not, the oligarchs of their day, they resisted every opportunity to lift such men above other citizens. Every man is equal, and we are all equal before the law, speak directly to this concept. Until the John Roberts SCOTUS, most Supreme Court Justices adhered to these beliefs. Yes, there have been exceptions and course corrections but not until the now infamous Citizens United decision, did the high court fully endorse oligarchy. Now, billionaires can afford voices that drown out the rest of us. How utterly un-American and dishonest of the Supreme Court.
The bottom line is, we are no longer a constitutional republic, if oligarchs have the preponderance of the say
White Christian Nationalism
As discussed earlier, Project 2025’s Transition Plan or 180-day plan has CN or Christian Nationalism as a core focus. Nearly all US-based Christian churches and organizations have been warning of this threat, for years. With the imposition of the P25 agenda onto all Americans, it is safe to say that our First Amendment, the Establishment Clause, will be null and void.
What is Christian Nationalism? Christian nationalism is characterized by the following religious affirmations: - that the United States was founded as a Christian nation - that America is exceptional. - That is, God has given the United States particular blessings and privileges not available to people in other countries, and the nation must remain Christian in order for those blessings to continue - that only Christians are the proper custodians of this nation’s heritage; that Christianity (or a particular form of Christianity) should have privileged status in the United States, particularly in matters of law and political policy - that, even when their presence is tolerated, people who practice other religions or none cannot be fully American — they are not welcomed, their voices are discounted, and they are not to be trusted with political and cultural leadership - that Christians in general and some Christians in particular should enjoy a level of legal protection not granted to those who practice other religions - that Christians have been made to suffer unjustly, leaving them no alternative but to respond with revolutionary zeal to preserve the United States as a great Christian nation. - THE DANGERS OF CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM IN THE UNITED STATES: A POLICY STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES - NCC/ National Council of Churches - 2021
Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, is a full-blown Christian Nationalist. That he has so much power in Congress, with his CN agenda, is a direct threat to the constitution, specifically the Establishment Clause. His social agenda has nothing to do with running our government, which is his job. GOP culture wars are all about limiting the rights of all Americans. No one gets to decide what happens in your private life, so long as you do no harm to others. Okay, it is a bit more complicated than this, but we all get the point.
What’s worse, is that the GOP CN agenda is authoritarian, un-democratic and oppression, by government sanction. The GOP doesn’t care about our rights so long as they can hold onto power for themselves. Historically, extremist ideology has been the driver for most of history’s worst villains. Religion practiced ethically is a plus for the morality of a person or nation. Our constitution guarantees no state religion and that no religion has favor over others. True Christians know and understand this. It is their voices that condemn today’s GOP CN cheerleaders and P25, is their roadmap to imposing the aberrant ideology on all of us.
For the purpose of brevity and not to belabor this category, I have assembled below, links to some of our most prominent religious entities and other credible sources, all of which condemn CN absolutely.
What is Christian Nationalism and why it is a threat to democracy?
Project 2025: The Blueprint for Christian Nationalist Regime Change - Kettering Foundation
How Project 2025 Threatens Religious Freedom & Democracy - Interfaith Alliance
Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation – Baptist News Global
I could easily take up a few more pages of credible religious and other sources, condemning the GOP’s CN ideology, but it would make no difference to the lemmings voting for Trump and the MAGA GOP. They are simply brainwashed. For the purpose of today’s essay, let’s just say that the Trump administration, will do all possible to impose this un-American and un-Christian ideology onto every American.
In an era, where far-right political violence, often incited by Trump and his party is at an all-time high and is greater than all other political violence combined, CN is just the so-called moral justification, for violence and intimidation of all Americans, by a GOP subservient to Trump and MAGA. This is the perfect segue to the last category and fourth horseman of the MAGA Apocalypse, Political Violence.
Trump loves to threaten Americans that disagree with his selfish agenda.
As you can see by what follows, this is the category that concerns me the most.
Trump, a lifelong mafioso wannabe, loves to threaten and intimidate. Many of his nominees are the so-called “enforcers” for these threats. Threats by Trump, his perpetual inciting of violence against Americans and the copycat threats from other MAGA/ GOP sycophants are infamous and have been on regular public display, throughout his life. Like Schoolyard bullies, they threaten to get their way but are typically, afraid. Trump’s lifelong fear is being found out that he is not who he says that he is. Ostracized from polite Upper East Side elite status he is the proverbial, “new money.” He has failed far more than he has succeeded. He essentially lives on his “brand” not his success. His true identity is in a constant state of fear that he’ll be found out. The only way to avoid this is to be in charge and eliminate scrutiny.
The point of his threats are to intimidate anyone that stands in his way. What he does not understand about non-brainwashed Americans, is that we do not respond favorably to threats. Now, those he puts into positions of power, regardless of the fact that they are not elected, are those who will make good on his threats, to attempt cowing more into submission. This will backfire and the signs are already evident.
For example, Kash Patel, the soulless sycophant, has spent much of his time these past few days, overtly threatening anyone who is outspoken in support of truth. Truth regarding his illicit, immoral and intended actions, trigger a deep strain of American identity to resist oppression, in most Americans, regardless of party. No one is running away to foreign nations. No one is hiding in their closet and “prepping.” Most are outraged at the bold, in-your-face threats reminiscent of Hitler’s against non-conformist Germans in the 1930s. Antisemitism continues to rise, as well as political violence and hate crimes against all manner of immigrant communities. The perpetrators of this violence, by the numbers is overwhelmingly from the far-right.
In the next few graphs, you can clearly see what Trumpism has spawned in our nation of immigrants. The great irony is that Trump’s family are also immigrants, which include his grandfather, a brothel owner and army deserter banished from Germany by royal decree. His father detained alongside six Klansmen in Queens, for a street brawl and both he and his father charged for discriminating against black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers in their rental properties. The notorious Roy Cohn was Trump’s lawyer in the case.
The perception of hyper-partisanship is a national plague. Understanding this threat that includes the propensity of political violence is as a complicated a threat as can be imagined. Research shows clearly though, that at a personal level, the left and right, get along better and see things less divergently than believed in public forums. One primary reason is that parties drive partisanship for the purpose of power. On the right, this drive for power has taken on a decidedly violent overtone and as the graphs below show, points towards violence.
Let’s see why we should take Trump and company’s threats, seriously:
Empirical evidence from research supports the data in the graphics above.
Left-Wing versus Right-Wing Extremism Of these three ideologies, most prior research has contrasted those committed to right-wing and left-wing causes. Much of this research suggests that compared to left-wing extremists, right-wing extremists may be more likely to engage in politically motivated violence. In comparison to left-wing supporters, right-wing individuals are more often characterized by closed-mindedness and dogmatism (9) and a heightened need for order, structure, and cognitive closure (5). Because such characteristics have been found to increase in-group bias and lead to greater out-group hostility (10), violence for a cause may be more likely among proponents of right-wing ideologies. In contrast, in comparison to their right-wing counterparts, left-wing individuals score higher on openness to new experiences, cognitive complexity, and tolerance of uncertainty (5). They are also less likely to support social dominance (11), which could lead to their overall lower likelihood to use violence against adversaries. In line with this reasoning, some studies have demonstrated an empathy gap between liberal and conservative individuals (12). Finally, according to various conceptualizations and operationalizations of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA; 13–15), aggressive tendencies constitute an inherent component of this construct, with people high in RWA being more hostile toward others who violate norms than those low in RWA. A recent meta-analysis supported this conclusion, revealing a positive relationship between right-wing ideology and aggressive attitudes and behaviors (16). However, the study did not focus solely on politicized contexts and included only milder forms of aggression. - A comparison of political violence by left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist extremists in the United States and the world - Katarzyna Jasko a,1, Gary LaFree b, James Piazza c, Michael H Becker d - July 2022 - PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Political violence incited and carried out by any government, against its own people, is a strong indicator of failed ideas, trust confidence that they can deliver on what has been promised. For those raised as I was, during the Cold War, this echos Soviet Union claims that they were succeeding as a nation and for their people. Those Soviet citizens perpetually waiting in long lines for bread, utilizing black market sources to sustain their lives disagreed. The Politburo members lived well and wanted for nothing. Sure, the official ideology was communism but in reality, it was simply a different type of authoritarian governance. The people were oppressed, regularly threatened and abused by government intelligence services and deprived of truthful information… about everything. This is what Trump, Kash Patel and the rest of the nominees are trying to convince Americans of.
Americans are not cut from the same cloth, as today’s Russian people. We as a nation, have never known subjugation. We rallied at every attack from outside threats to unite and defeat the fascism of WW II, the Cold War, 9-11 and more. Today’s America may be torn and as divided as prewar America in 1941 and in fact, along similar lines but, we never failed to unite in the face of oppression. The influence operations by a collaboration of GOP influencers and Russian influence operations in the 2016, were the first time in American history that we did not unite in support of our founding values.
Trump and his henchmen’s threats will not work for long, but it will take unity from all of us not brainwashed by MAGA/ Russian propaganda to unite against them to restore our republic. Today’s threats of political violence against Americans is a sure sign of his failure. The only question remaining is when, will all of us outside of the GOP coalesce into a resistance movement that restores our constitutional republic. It will happen and we will all be better off if it comes sooner than later. Trump voters will have to see his false promises hurt their family before they listen and all of us will suffer in the meantime. Still, a nation that endured a great depression, two world wars and our own civil war, will not fail us. If we wait too long, no one can avoid the coming reckoning. Like Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Prize winning Holocaust survivor said:
Today’s essay, now longer than anticipated at the outset, catches up on the four categories of the Trump/ GOP’s dangerous activities of the past couple of weeks. A longtime optimist, I am finally coming to the conclusion that the next four years will be ugly, chaotic and dangerous. The threats concern me deeply. As one who lives in Texas where our Governor and ultra-MAGA AG, Ken Paxton, are in a perpetual state of threatening those who don’t conform to their un-American MAGA agenda, I am late coming to the realization that the Trump regime will not be unlike those I faced on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. When ideas fail, violence is the only option. When good people remain silent, oppression endures. Our grandchildren deserve better than our silence.
I will leave you with this; no immoral ideology endures. Without a charismatic leader, bullying subordinates and a massive propaganda machine to support it, the human spirit and unquenchable thirst for freedom will be an immovable object in the path of tyranny. The only way that this level oppression ends, is to either collectively respond to authoritarians and get them to back down or suffer the violent consequences. The last time the US faced such a decision, it cost well over 600,000 American lives and decades to recover. I’ve never been given to hyperbole. This last paragraph is a sober and sad assessment. The American spirit will endure, but at what cost?
Today’s TAT is sobering. Please enjoy your weekend, recharge and then, let’s make America, the shining city on a hill again.
Paul