Part III in the Coup series: The clock is ticking on Trump’s coup

TAT readers,

I’m still in the midst of a very chaotic couple of weeks. Travel to see family, dear old friends, one of my grandson’s birthdays and work meetings here in California. Every minute has been consumed with joy and successes. I spent 25 years here in a first career before returning to the Army, and despite the incessant and dishonest whining by today’s MAGA GOP about the excessive liberalism, it is still a remarkable state. I raise this issue only to reinforce that the GOP lives on conspiracy theories and nothing else. Now that we are in the midst of a coup, those conspiracy theories have gone from laughable, to part of the unbreakable spell that GOP propaganda has over their voters.

For example, in all of the years I lived here, I had more years with a Republican governor than Democratic. Of course, they were not the lunatic, treasonous GOP that we have today, and mostly governed in a bipartisan fashion. Now retired in Texas, which I love as well, I am subjected to the oppression of a far-right extremist movement, masquerading as a political party. Here in California, the Silicon Valley crowd that most Republicans falsely consider, “those crazy liberals,” actually funded roughly half of Trump’s campaign. Outside of large cities and often in the most expensive portions of LA, San Diego and a bit in San Francisco etc., the GOP is as rabidly MAGA as at home in Texas. Whether we call these conspiracy theories, false narratives or“urban myths”, they are still just plain old lies.

Sure, the American left also has some of their own false narratives but, they are significantly fewer, and whether you believe them or not, none threaten our constitutional republic. They don’t claim to have sent in the Army in to turn on a mythological water valve to supply firefighters in Southern California. What kind of responsible voter, believes these bizarre lies? A perfect example of MAGA lies is my Texas MAGA governor, Greg Abbott, who tells lies about nearly everything so often, that most Texas Republicans believe in an alternative reality. In fact, anyone listening to FOX News and their countless RWE/ Right Wing Extremist other media outlets in any state, will never know the truth.

Of course, these are just a couple of examples, but they also represent the massive and unrepentant dishonesty of an entire major political party. Not one Republican in the US Congress has had the spine to stand up to Trump, Musk and Putin. To make matters even worse, they also won’t stand to defend our constitution while that we undergo this coup. To be blunt, voting for any Republican this time around, was a tacit vote for overthrowing our republic in favor of fascists and oligarchs.

Think about it, if you had a serious illness and went for medical care and your doctor and the rest of the medical staff lied about everything regarding your treatment, you would fall more dangerously ill or maybe, risk fatality. Who exactly signs up to be lied to? The answer is all Republicans voting for Trump and other Republicans are willing victims of their dishonesty. What if your car needed serious new brakes to keep you and your family safe on the road and instead, they sold you new tires rather than fixing your car? How about last summer, you were awarded the employee of the year honors at your place of employment, but you and a few thousand of your other co-workers were laid off, while the company made record profits.

How about living in a seriously underserved community that depends on responsible government programs to keep elders housed, fed and with medical care, but Musk showed up and stopped all of the funding, with Trump’s blessings. Even if those elders were your family or friends, moral Americans would be angry, frustrated and shocked that support ceased. My only sibling was severely disabled and passed away while that I was still in high school. Without the State of Ohio’s support, he would have died a much sooner and far more painful death. This is Trump’s and the Republican Party’s America. No morality, no patriotism, no compassion and absolutely no spine.

One of our nation’s most cherished presidents, Abraham Lincoln, set the tone of American government regarding such issues, while he concurrently willed the Union to remain united. Trump, working as Putin’s pawn and supported by Musk and a few other oligarchs like him, are now destroying what millions upon millions of American have fought and died to preserve. Every president since, some more than others, have preserved the values of what it means to be an American leader, until the Trump era. Now, a spineless Republican Party wholly endorses the cruelty, that will cause our nation to cease functioning as the republic we were designed to be.

The legitimate object of government is ‘to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves’.”

- Abraham Lincoln
- 1854

Being an American, used to mean something at home and abroad. Fourth of July celebrations will now cease to represent American values. MAGA’s patriotism is purely fake. God, guns and Trump are neither American values nor even moral values, the way that Trump’s MAGA horde has been led to believe. Guns are an absurd representation of patriotism. Christian Nationalism is as un-American as it gets and Trump, with the blessing of the Chief Justice John Roberts Supreme Court, is now executing his second coup attempt, with cheerleading from every single Republican in Congress.

Republican voters, under the spell of cooperative Russian and GOP influence operations, supported and funded by American and Russian oligarchs no longer are capable of free will or critical thinking. My most prominent specialty within the national security community, is influence in support of national security. I can tell you will all certainty, that Trump/ MAGA voters will not change their beliefs. In lay terms, they are fully brainwashed and can be controlled easily and predictably by prominent narrators like Trump, GOP politicians spewing the exact same talking points ad nauseam, and an army of far-right influencers like Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, Charlie Kirk, Dinesh Souza, Sean Hannity, etc. etc. etc. Where I come from, there is only one word for people like this… “liars.”

To exacerbate the threat emanating from these 24/7 broadcasts of liars, the Democratic Party is absent from the battlefield of influence. This is nothing new as that they have been incompetent for decades, at making their case to the American electorate. There are no foreseeable improvements within the party either. The bottom line is that American voters are stuck between two parties; one that is abjectly immoral and represents fake patriotism, while the other represents true patriotism, but is grotesquely incompetent at defending our Constitutional Republic. At some point, we must rehabilitate our system to reflect the principles that our founders expressed so powerfully in all of our founding documents.

Trump, the GOP and their hideous coup strategy called Project 2025 have stated their intentions clearly. It’s time to listen to the wisdom of Maya Angelou, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

This cowardly, anti-American GOP, is coming for your social security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, retirement and disability benefits. They have said so, please believe them and engage your local officials and congressman. The GOP led Senate, has now confirmed all, poorly qualified, unethical and unAmerican nominees to date. They will continue to do so. Americans and our allies will suffer greatly. Trump’s intended wars, will kill American service members and adversaries. NATO, a first line of defense against Putin and others, will be abandoned and it is now rather easy to see US troops defending Putin’s agenda in Ukraine and other areas of the world, critical to US national security.

What I describe above is well grounded in facts and long national security experience. It is also grounded in Trump and the GOP’s own words. Believe them. They are already engaged in the precursors of their intentions to set aside our constitutionally guaranteed rights as well as our checks and balances. Yes, Project 2025’s 180-day playbook, calls for moving all significant power into the Executive Branch, therefore negating any sense of checks and balances.

Cutting USAID funding across the board, will quite literally kill people of color, especially across Africa. Anyone that understands the Middle East, knows full well that removing the residents of Gaza, will result in a major conflict in the Middle East. Hamas is just the latest of thousands of years of conflicts in the region and deporting an entire population, is a war crime in international law. When fascists rule, there is no rule-of-law. Remember, Hitler made his evil ideology, legal. The Third Reich, simply made laws that made their fascism and racism legal. Legal is not always moral. In Hitler’s, Stalin’s and Mao’s cases, it was legal to commit mass murder. Legality is not the issue when it comes to fascists.

There is only one way to stop the destruction of our constitution and hence, our republic… oppose everything in massive numbers. Fortunately, the ABA/ American Bar Association has had the courage to come out forcefully with their intentions to protect the law and the constitution that is its foundation. All major Christian Churches have come out courageously defending Christianity from Christian Nationalism. Trump will attempt to run our nation, like Putin runs his. Just today, Russia announced that they will now subject members of the political opposition, to mandatory psychiatric treatment. Anyone who has seen, One flew over the Cuckoos Nest, should heed this warning. If you haven’t, put it on your watch list.

If you think that your taxes are high now and disproportionately higher than our oligarchs, just wait, worse is yet to come. If you are a minority or an outspoken political opponent, you should be very concerned, but not so much so that you don’t collectively become part of the opposition. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment in US history. Without overwhelming collective resistance, it may be the last as a constitutional republic. There are far more Americans with a steel, moral spine than there are MAGA GOP members. The streets are where numbers matter, not the electoral college. Reach out, act out and put out, this fascist regime.

I’ll wrap this up now. I have more work tomorrow and it is quite late. I’m sure this essay is sobering enough by now, anyway. I can assure you that nothing I’ve written, is fear-mongering. Every bit of it has been expressed by Trump, his party and Project 2025. It is now up to us, to do what must be done. Stronger together has never been truer or more important.

All my best to you,

Paul