Monday, January 30, 2017

Slow-Motion Coup d'Etat

 

This  post from Yonatan Zunger echos my impressions of the last week or so. He asks if the events of the last few weeks are a "trial balloon for a coup". I would argue that they are not a trial balloon, they are the real thing. 

This is not your typical Banana Republic coup - instead of a few strong men, we have a diverse collection of power centers. Instead of one quick attack, taking control of our system requires the submission or replacement of many people. What is frightening is that large groups are already co-opted. The recumbent Republican party has been a total enabler of this - as long as they get tax cuts for rich people, they don't care much about a bunch of peons. The institutional Democratic party is back on its heels and is lagging behind its supporters in many cases. So much for congress.

The Executive branch take-over is, of course, well underway. The few sparks of resistance - renegade tweeters at the Interior Department, the Acting Attorney-General who will not support the unconstitutional Immigration ban - are rapidly being identified and liquidated. The head of DNI and the Joint Chief of Staff have been removed from the Principals committee of the National Security Council, replaced by Trump's Rasputin, Steven Bannon. 

In fact it appears that Bannon is now effectively our un-elected president. From Foreign Policy:

"Even before he was given a formal seat on the National Security Council’s “principals committee” this weekend by President Donald Trump, Bannon was calling the shots and doing so with little to no input from the National Security Council staff, according to an intelligence official who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

“He is running a cabal, almost like a shadow NSC,” the official said. He described a work environment where there is little appetite for dissenting opinions, shockingly no paper trail of what’s being discussed and agreed upon at meetings, and no guidance or encouragement so far from above about how the National Security Council staff should be organized.

The intelligence official, who said he was willing to give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt when it took office, is now deeply troubled by how things are being run.

“They ran all of these executive orders outside of the normal construct,” he said, referring to last week’s flurry of draft executive orders on everything from immigration to the return of CIA “black sites.”

Bannon has set up a shadow government and is cutting out everyone except the most trusted inner circle, at the same time he is circumventing the normal review and documentation of the decision process:

""If those papers are now being generated by political staff, she added, it corrupts the whole process.
It could also contribute to Bannon’s centralization of power.

“He who has the pen has the authority to shape outcomes,” the intelligence official said.

Now Bannon’s role in the shadows is being formalized thanks to an executive order signed Saturday by Trump that formally gives Bannon a seat on the National Security Council’s principals committee. The same executive order removed from that group the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of national intelligence, and the secretary of energy."
 So much for the Executive.

Three Federal District Courts issued stays against the Immigration action this weekend and it appears that DHS is ignoring some or all of the court's orders. Further, the Dear Leader is scheduled to release his Supreme Court pick tomorrow night (is anyone giving odds that it will be anything other than a straight, white, conservative christian man?). The Democrats may have some success filibustering any nominee, but what if another slot opens up? I pray-to-god knock-on-wood hope I am totally wrong on this, but part of me wonders if Bannon is even now planning the assassination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It would totally fit with his hate-fueled drive for power. So much for the Courts?

We have to stay on top of these developments and fight like our lives depend on it, because they very well may - at least life anything like the America we have known. Congratulations to all who have marched, protested, got activated, called their representatives and senators, discussed this with friends and acquaintances. These are all excellent beginnings but are just that - beginnings. This will be a long struggle, friends, and we need the love and support of each other to sustain us. Never forget - we are the true heirs of America and there are more of us than of them - the future will be ours!

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