When we lived near Boston and visited the city frequently we almost always paid our respects at the New England Holocaust Memorial.
At the New England Holocaust Museum you walk down a pathway over grates with steam representing smoke rising up and glowing fake coals, and you pass through tall glass towers etched with 6 million numbers representing those killed in the Nazi death camps. Each tower symbolizes a different major extermination camp (Majdanek, Chełmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Bełżec, and Auschwitz-Birkenau), as well as menorah candles, the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust (one million per tower), and the six years that the mass extermination took place, 1939-1945.
You see the short version of the peom by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller, First They Came (Wikipedia) shown on the top of this page on a monument. The poem is about the silence of German intellectuals and clergy—including, by his own admission, Niemöller himself—following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent incremental purging of their chosen targets, group after group. (Wikipedia)
Nazi Germany was predicted by the great American novelist Sinclair Lewis in 1935. More about than later. While there are many books written with a similar theme (see a list here) this one stands out to me.
Before I get into the book, let's look at the man just more than half of those who cared enough about the country to vote decided to elect and what, by every indication, he intends to turn this country into and how he is showing this with his nominess for the Cabinet and other top positions.
Trump, unlike Hitler, is not singling out people of a particular religion as his primary focus to demonize and destroy (Muslims aren't a high priority for him.) Like Hitler did, he is designating as enemies anybody who is against him. Aside from this difference, there are many parallels between what Hitler did as he rose to and assumed power and what Trump has done and is clearly telegraphing his intentions of doing once he becomes president.
On the Matt Distraction:
Considering the groundswell developing against Matt Gaetz being confirmed as Attorney General I view his nomination as just a distraction. I am assuming he doesn't make it. Trump won't go to the mat for Matt. I see it as having been a trial balloon for Trump to see just how far he could go. I view it as having been a way to distract from other nominees who would be easier to get confirmed.
Trump has already shown us what he plans to do as president with his other selections. He does want to be dictator. He wants to turn the country into a fascist autocracy. The more reasonable seeming nominees will be just as willing to do his bidding but they will be easier to get confirmed. He doesn't care how they follow out his orders. He just wants them to do what he tells them do do without objection.
For every off-the-wall person he picks who is rejected by the Senate you can bet he has someone waiting in the wings who will be as bad or worse.
Whether Trump achieves the implementation of Project 2025 lock, stock, and possibly smoking barrel in its entirety is irrelevant. He doesn't need a playbook passed to him by a bunch of think tank intellectuals who he probably has distain for anyway because of their highfalutin ways. I suspect he'd rather get his ideas from himself and his core of sociopaths like Steven Miller, Boris Epshteyn and whoever else reinforces his malevolent revenge crusade and his belief that only he has what it takes to be a dictator.
He still may not have learned that he is easily manipulated by people who flatter him. Or he may not care. There seems to be list of those who are doing this for their own gain whether they like or admire him or not. This may include people like Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabard, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and no doubt many others who are vying for postions in his administration. Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon may have hopes of getting some kind of position or he may communicated with them and we know Trump has gotten ideas from them in the past.
Trump is not that many steps away from being able to achieve his ultimate goals of turning the country into what would be the most prosperous and powerful authoritarian fascist dictatorship the world has ever seen.
It wouldn't take him long to get things underway. The mechanisms exist. There may be things the Democrats and a few Republicans can do to slow him down but there is little if anything that can be done to stop him.
First, I see Trump getting his Cabinet in place and their begin to eliminate the departments Trump has promised to get rid of. Whoever ends up as Attorney General will start the revenge campaign.
Protests against all the draconian things Trump does will come from both the Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress, from the media, and from members of the public some of whom will be demonstrating in the streets. Trump, the manic Machiavellian megalomaniac I wrote about yesterday wants to prove he is the all powerful furious fighter of a Führer. His image is vitally important to him. I don't know who he sees when he looks in the mirror or sees recent photos of himself (like the one below) but I suspect it is along the line of the images of himself that he has on his trading cards.
Considering that the Supreme Court has given him immunity Trump feels emboldened. For now the Supreme Court thinks they have relevance because they are so niave that they don't think Trump wouldn't hesitate to disband them if it suited him... he may do this anyway because, basically, he won't need them if he gets the goverment he wants.
Consider the following list of the things I think Trump can do, or attempt to do, it he's thwarted in achieving his goals by getting people to roll over for him:
- Invoke the Insurrection Act
- Declare marital law
- Suspend habeous corpus under Article I, Section 9, Clause 2: (The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.) Reference
- Take control of the media so the only media is Trump run media
- Make it a crime to question Trump policy
- Declare all registered Democrats to be enemies of the people including members of Congress and members of the judiciary.
- Use Schedule F or some other means (see article) to fire federal employees that don't meet a loyalty test and prove they believe in the values of MAGA.
- Declare the Constitution null and void
- Declare MAGA as the new and only political party and require sworn membership for people to have the rights of citizenship.
- Either suspend Congress or make it a rubber stamp for appearances sake.
- Once the infrastructure and the personnel are in place to carry out deportations of those he deems to be illegally in the country it will begin in earnest. It will only be a trial run because once it is accomplished those personnel and the housing built to accommodate them in transit if deemed necessary, it will be used to round up and hosue those found guilty of crimes against MAGA tribunals for those acused of crimes againt the state.
In 1935 Sinlcair Lewis wrote "It Can't Happen Here." The first editon is shown on the top of the page.
It Can't Happen Here is a 1935 dystopian political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis. Set in a fictionalized version of the 1930s United States, it follows an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who quickly rises to power to become the country's first outright dictator (in allusion to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany).
The novel was published during the heyday of fascism in Europe, which was reported on by Dorothy Thompson, Lewis's wife. The novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government via self-coup and imposes totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of European fascists such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
Having previously foreshadowed some authoritarian measures to reorganize the government, Windrip outlaws dissent, incarcerates political enemies in concentration camps, and trains and arms a paramilitary force called the "Minute Men" (named after the Revolutionary War militias of the same name), who terrorize citizens and enforce the policies of a corporatistregime. One of Windrip's first acts as president is to eliminate the influence of Congress, which draws the ire of many citizens as well as the legislators themselves. The Minute Men respond to protests harshly, attacking demonstrators with bayonets. In addition to these actions, Windrip's administration, known as the Corpo government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by Corpo authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers. Those accused of crimes against the government appear before kangaroo courts presided over by military judges. A majority of Americans approve of these dictatorial measures, seeing them as painful but necessary steps to restore American power.
I hope that across America that enough of the voters who bought into Trump's promises and lie and saw him as their savior and perhaps accepted that the country needed a more authoritarian leader than other presidents, but didn't think he'd ever turn into a despot will see that they were betrayed and deceived.
Other than a military coup they only thing I can see happening to stop the Trump dictatorship juggernaut and the country becoming authoritariam and fascist is for Congress to be controlled by Democrats in two years. Even then the president holds incredible power. The Supreme Court would have to put the brakes on his attempts to ignore the Constitution. If Trump ignores their rulings against him or disbands them they become irrelevant.
If if comes to pass, Trump's MAGA America won't go the way of Nazi Germany unless it allies itself with Russia and goes to war with NATO and other Democratic countries we now have treaties with even if Trump breaks them. This would be a true World War III. If nuclear weapons were employed it could be the end of civilization.
A more likely outcome would be a United States which would be torn apart because the population is so equalty divided, at least now, to be 50/50 pro-Trumpism - pro-MAGA vis pro-democracy. There would be demonstrations and these would likely turn violent.
Trump would try to use the military against civilians but there would be those who would refuse to follow orders which went against the Constitution they swore an oath to, and this could lead to actual civil war. Rather than this being a war between the northern and southern states it would be a war between the red states and the blue states.
Not only would the National Guards of states take up arms against each other but I see entire divisions of active military taking one side or another. We could have bombing raids and missile attacks conducted against both sides.
The Civil War was the deadliest of all American wars. No one disagrees with that. But how many died has long been a matter of debate. For more than a century, the most-accepted estimate was about 620,000 dead. A specific figure of 618,222 is often cited, with 360,222 Union deaths and 258,000 Confederate deaths. (Reference)
With modern weaponry there is no doubt the number of deaths and casualties would be in the millions and much of our infrastructure would be destroyed.
Does Trump, his minions, and the gullible and misguided people who vote for him not realize that changing a country from a democracy to a fascist autocracy will come with death and destruction.
George Santayana in 1905 first said it in several ways but the message is always the same:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Winston Churchill had a slightly different version, as did a number of other well known people.
The basic message boils down this:
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!”
Primary Hal Brown's Blog website.
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