Something that concerned me even before the election, was the thought that — if elected — Trump would at some point make up a reason to institute martial law. After all, once he’s leader of the free world why would he ever want to give up that job? And, as Commander In Chief, what could be done to prevent this?
The events of the weeks since the election and the inauguration haven’t changed my mind. While at first I thought I was just being paranoid, and was one of a very small group of like-minded people, now I’m finding that more and more people are talking and writing about it, and that the idea is not being dismissed.
One of the best new articles I’ve seen is "Trial Balloon For A Coup?" by Yonatan Zunger for Medium.com. It contains news updates as the furor over the travel ban was going on, as well as his thoughts on where Trump’s White House is trying to take the country. Here is the wrap-up, but there is a ton of meat in the article, including a suspicious sale of shares in the Russian energy firm Rosneft, that is very much like what Putin promised Trump if he won the campaign (as alleged in the leaked Trump Dossier from Buzzfeed ):
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.
This is very scary stuff. The more people who become aware of the background reasons for some of the decisions coming out of this administration, the better. I would encourage you to share Zunger’s article via Twitter and anywhere else you can.
