7 DEC 2023 Infamy Day
Blut und Boden
(Blood and Soil)
The Blut und Boden moment has come. Trump has declared himself a dictator.
His message is simple: He will save America. He knows the location of all the parasite infestations destroying America. He will root out all the vermin, putting millions of them in concentration camps to be dealt with. Those that resist will have “their entire existence crushed.”1
The dog whistles, heavy handed hints, confused word salads - to say it without saying it, or saying it and denying it in the same paragraph - all of these are now substantially unnecessary. The only thing that is missing is a late night balcony appearance during a torchlight parade. These have occurred individually but not yet combined. It is only a matter of time.
In the years since his violent attempted overthrow of democracy, all of Trumps “‘election’ promises” can be categorized under one heading: Retribution.2 The following list has already been broadcast to the public with intent, pride, and specificity. If this is what maga will tell you before the “election”, just imagine what they are holding back so they don’t scare the horses!
He will
abandon the constitution;
pardon himself if any convictions have been recorded;
order his Attorney General to drop all pending cases against him (he can do this from a cell);
suborn the other branches of government - he already has a lackey House and Supreme Court, the Senate will just be a matter of time;
suborn the media - by acting on the promise to weaponize the FCC (more effective and cleaner than seizing tv stations with troops but having the same effect); He already has a lackey right wing echosystem and when Fox has occasionally strayed it always falls back into line for financial if not political reasons. In fact, he has already criticized Fox who lost nearly $1bn lying for him. If he will crack down on them, imagine who will be allowed to speak during his dictatorship?
suborn all state election systems putting them under the control of maga apparatchiks; many apolitical volunteers have already fled in fear and under attack;
suborn all state constitutions, institutions, and laws not in compliance with Trump edicts or maga strictures;
gerrymander federal and state districts until only token, compliant, and fearful opponents are permitted in state legislatures; stacking federal and state judiciaries has been an on-going long term project that is bearing fruit;
pardon all those who violently attack democracy on his behalf (past or future);
have a Cabinet of extremists like Steven Miller, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, MTG, Hannity, Tucker, who will impose unrestricted sadism on the American people;
send the DOJ and the IRS to “go after” anyone he deems disloyal (Df: to him personally - he already did this previously);
imprison and/or execute serious past opponents as traitors to “America” (Judges and military leaders - where America = Trump);
impose loyalty tests across the entire government in all branches and all executive agencies. Loyalty will be declared to Trump in place of the constitution. The military, law enforcement, civil service, and judiciary, will all be forced to swear loyalty to Trump or lose their jobs (or worse);
execute his pre-existing plan to fire 40,000+ “disloyal” civil servants and replace them with loyalists;
impose the insurrection act at will, including plans to use it “on day one” to impose martial law and violently put down any resistance;
weaponize the FTC to “go after” any businesses that are not aligned with maga;3
terminate social security;
terminate health care; Maga have already instituted “death panels” in women’s health and imposed draconian “legal” punishments for circumventing the edicts of the death panels';
terminate social benefits or offer limited options as a reward to selected loyalists;
impose religious tests (only evangelicals will pass);
impose racial tests (only whites will pass);
impose “straight” laws;
build concentration camps capable of accommodating millions of people;
conduct mass deportations of all non-birthright citizens, including green card holders, and naturalized citizens;
return children to cages and ensure they will never see their parents again as a deterrent to immigration (already happened);
abandon NATO and security treaty obligations to our allies (esp tough for Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia who all have China breathing down their necks);
impose a 10% tax on all imports;
give law enforcement total immunity for any actions they take on or off duty;
deputize red-hat “crime and justice militias” with the same legal immunities from prosecutions - criminal and civil;
“pass laws” to shoot ‘protestors’, ‘shop lifters’ and ‘drug dealers’ on sight. Who gets shot and why will be decided on the spot by immunized law enforcement and/or red hat militias;
and the lists go on. And on….. And on. And It will keep growing as they have new ideas for control.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Empowered by consequence-free boundary pushing experimentation, free of checks and balances, the only limit to maga extremism will be the cruelty of their imagination. Not even Kafka could construct the world that maga will deliver. For a foreshadowing of what is to come read what was done in the name of the American people to Mohamedou Slahi in Guantánamo Diary.4
Any sensible person would understand this catalogue of existing and promised crimes represent an existential threat to the constitution of the United States. Accordingly, the chief propagandist for the regime put a tremendous effort into framing a question to enable a big comforting lie to be told
During a town hall in Iowa last night [5 Dec], Fox News’s Sean Hannity tossed Trump what ought to have been softball question. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked.
Blut und Boden came the reply:
“Except for day one,” Trump replied.
The fact that a candidate for President of the United States of America needed to be asked to deny his frequently sub-announced intentions to be a dictator barely caused a ripple. Instead of following the heavy handed lead of his chief propagandist to lie and deny his fascist plans, the Maga Leader doubled down.
If you are surprised, you have not been following CWII.
Back in March, CWII assessed that
Trump knows he is cornered, vulnerable and has become increasingly desperate. The more overtly fascist his rhetoric becomes the greater pressure he is under behind the scenes. Prior to Jan 6, his militias knew “stand back and stand by” was a warning order. They admitted so the very next day in social media and since in court.
Declaring the Biden Administration the greatest threat to civilization and calling for termination of the constitution and regime change in America is a call to civil war. His supporters will never know or believe it is all a lie. It will not be long now before Trump directly calls his militia and supporters to the streets to kill other Americans. CWII even wonders if this call has been pre-recorded ready for release in case he is detailed by law enforcement. [Emphasis added].
Trump has reached a tipping point. He has judged that it is now advantageous to him to reveal the truth about who he is, how he intends to take and keep power, and his plans to seek retribution against anyone who resists.
The Tipping Point
History proves time and again that a small radicalized vanguard can overwhelm and capture an unwitting or unwilling majority. Trump made the judgement that now is the time to remove the mask of democracy. Now is the time to reveal to the general public the truth his followers have known all along.
Trump is a wannabe fascist dictator and his return to power will not be denied.5 No constitution, no court, no political party, no opposition, no media, no advisors, no lawyers, no ‘guardrails’;6 nothing will stand in his way. Trump has become too powerful to stop. He knows it. Now is the time to announce it.
It is not just a proud proclamation. It is a threat and a promise.
It is a threat to put the fear of fascism into any last courageous fool who deigns to resist. It’s a promise to destroy all opposition.
The time has come to close the deal.
The public want dictatorship
Years of chaos and destabilization have gradually prepared the public for this Blut und Boden moment. Today, only 10 percent of Americans think “democracy is working very well”.7 More than 40% of the general public fervently believe “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy”. Among them, an estimated ~4.5M Americans are
“very or completely willing” to intimidate, injure, or kill for a political goal. They stand ready to “commit violence against government, election and health officials, & police and military”.
This didn’t just magically happen. This is the outcome of a dedicated program that has been exposed and described in these pages over the past few years.
Under these conditions, and with the walls closing in, Trump has made a judgement that the time has come: that it is politically advantageous for him to reveal the truth about who he is, how he intends to take (and keep) power, and his plans to impose retribution against anyone who he considers an opponent.
His supporters will go crazy with glee, his detractors will go quiet in fear, and the 60% of the public not ready for dictatorship willfully pretend it is all just ‘a joke’ and “Trump being Trump” as they sleepwalk into a catastrophe they will be incapable of undoing.
No More Hiding
Previously, he had to hide the realty of his political project from the general public. Just like he pretended not to know what Q was all about. Despite his followers filling his rallies with Q signs, quotes, and merch. He used his surrogates like Flynn, Powell, Wood, Lindell, and the entire right wing extremist media echosystem™ to flash Q warnings to his “stormtroopers” to rush to Washington for ‘the final battle’ where they were promised ‘the storm’ “will be wild”. The public had no clue what was happening. His followers perfectly understood the (barely) coded messages. They came to DC in their tens of thousands “standing back and standing by” for the order. Standing before the White House, he screamed at them to unleash the storm on Capitol. Later in court, they explained they were just following orders.
Unheeded Warnings
CWII assessments have been ignored because they are inconceivable to normal people.8 The unradicalized general public have no inclination to spend what little discretionary time and bandwidth they have on fretting about political threats that they trust American exceptionalism will prevent from materializing.
By comparison, fascists spend all their time and energy on willing the same threats to reality.9 This explains why a small radicalized vanguard can overwhelm and capture an unwilling majority.
Only hindsight will convince the majority that what seemed like wild threat assessments of the past were matters of fact. By then of course, it will be too late.
Key Briefings
Five days before the second attempted American coup d’tat on January 6, 2021, the seed for this project was born. CWII new years predictions on his pre-substack platform LinkedIn highlighted:
"Supporters of President so riled up by stolen election talk that risk of violence is medium and growing. On one side they will be seen as patriots, on the other, terrorists... China and Russia, taking advantage of turmoil in the US, will use every means and opportunity to assert their increasingly virulent interests through cloaked-warfare. The big question for 2021 is will they cross the observable war threshold?" 10
Maga attacked the Capitol 5 days later. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and China held off invading Taiwan, first due to the Olympics, and thereafter because of Russia’s failures in Ukraine. Had the Ukraine war gone to plan, the “friendship without limits” would have presented America with global war on two fronts that it could not have hoped to win. The only way Russia claws back total defeat in Ukraine is through the GOP in Congress. American fascism has global repercussions.
In late 2020, almost no one saw maga as a fascist movement. How could America, defender of democracy against fascism, embrace the ideas of its foe? It was unthinkable. An entire generation revealed its greatness fighting Nazis. The incredible wealth of the richest nation on earth was spent building a mass industrialized war machine to end the tyranny imposed on millions by the Nazi’s from Brittany to Berlin.
Americans hate Nazis. Period.
Right?
Fast forward to the Trump period and Nazi’s were rapidly rising. KKK leader David Duke was asked "You think Trump voters are your voters?". Duke replied "Well, of course they are!". In another interview, Duke claimed Trump was a KKK man like his father “Trump really knows what his movement is based on,” Duke said.
Before Trump was even inaugurated, the “alt.right” was jubilant holding a rally in the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Washington DC to show their support for the President-elect. They cried “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” as they made the fascist salute. All in a federal government building that houses the Customs and Border Protection, USAid, and Dept of Commerce.
In the ashes of Charlottsville, Trump told the world there were the good people on the fascist side of the effort to “unite the right”. The event was designed to bind the following groups to maga: KKK, white supremacists, nazis, boogaloo bois, 3%ers, Atomwaffen Division (AWD), Identity Evropa, League of the South, National Socialist Order (NSO), and various race war accelerationists. Rebranded in chinos and polos and presented to the public as strong, masculine, role models, defenders of traditional values, protectors of christianity, saviors of bloodlines, and (post 2020) avengers of elections stolen by vermin; the rebranding of fascists as the Ralph Lauren right was a calculated decision to make them more acceptable. The swastika arm bands would only be used in street fights.
The next two years were a roll call of strategic, political, and operational assessments on these pages offered to get everyone up to speed on the threat. CWII explained how Trump and maga fit the definition of fascism.11 In early 2022, CWII wrote “the window to stop the inevitability involved in [the fascist] trajectory is rapidly closing. [The Libs] are sleepwalking toward the end of democracy on their watch.”
A few weeks later, CWII explained that the attempted coup d’tat on J6, was not the first time fascists had attempted to overthrow democracy in America. Hitler took power in 1933. FDR was elected the same year. Even before he could be inaugurated, an assassin came within inches of ending his life. Right wing extremist hatred of FDR led to an attempt to raise a fascist army to mount a coup against FDR. Like its modern echo, it came perilously close to success.
Finally, when Trump declared his anger at his Vice President for not overturning the election, CWII took what felt at the time to be a big analytical leap and described maga a terrorist network.
Is Trump a Nazi?
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
Mike Godwin is a lawyer who is interested in the transmission of cultural knowledge on the internet. In 1990, tongue in cheek, he observed that anonymity encouraged the escalation of divergent views on any subject into furious argument, quickly ending in ad hominem accusations of nazi sympathies.
In other words, calling someone a nazi has become a throw away line used by everybody all the time. Overuse has made it devoid of meaning and its deployment in political arguments a sign of an inability to articulate the true causes of the phenomena described.
But what if the phenomena is fascism?
“Godwin’s law” trivializes and discredits any serious discussions about fascism. It has been used as a tool by fascists to dismiss or discredit criticisms of their ideas and plans.12 In the world of “Godwin’s law”, no one can be a fascist because the accusation is ludicrous on its face. This is why CWII has curbed references to Hitler and the nazi’s in these pages except when the evidence demanded direct comparison.
Now that Trump has fully embraced his dictatorial intentions, it is equally time to highlight his fascist record and stunning similarities to Hitler.13
The fact is the evidence is overwhelming. It comes in large and small examples. See for example, the long list of fascist policies at the top of this piece. Likewise, Trump’s treatment of Bill Ford in 2020 (noted in the picture above) is a simple dog whistle example. Comment on it, and it’s dismissed as “he was only joking”. No one stops to note that an American president reminding an audience at a major American corporation that the company founder was a fervent nazi is not funny. It’s shameful and disgraceful - for both sides. In pure Blut und Boden terms, Trump praised Fords “bloodlines” knowing only nazi’s would pick up on the reference. Who says things like this, except a nazi?
First some categorical deconfliction:
Not all republicans are maga, but all maga are republicans.
Not all maga are nazi’s but all nazis are maga.
Not all republicans or maga are white supremacists but all white supremacists are maga.
Not all republicans or maga are christo supremacists but all christo supremacists are maga.
Maga is a common denominator.14
Literalism, a favorite of right wing extremists and islamic and christian fundamentalists, allows them to duck and weave on what is the correct labelling of their movement. They will shade and slant definitions and play endless games of denial, projection, “whataboutism”, and all the other low grade rhetorical tricks in their banal toolbox.
Pushing all that babble to one side, the reality is maga shares many beliefs, programs and policies with those of the Nazi party of the Third Reich. It is no secret that Donald Trump has modeled himself on Adolf Hitler. The only book Trump is known to have actually read (including those he “authored”) and indeed read multiple times is My New Order, “a compilation of Hitler’s speeches with commentary and background”. It is a kind of dummies guide to nazism given how impenetrable, contradictory, disjointed and poorly structured Mein Kampf was, even in the original German.
Of all the things that might come up involving the character and conduct of a typical NY businessman in 1990, few might expect repeated references to Adolph Hitler. While doing a profile of the mogul, keen eyed-Vanity Fair author Marie Brenner noted Trump’s interest in My New Order. He vehemently denied any interest in the Nazi leader, knowing it would be bad for publicity. She writes that she called Trump out for attempting to conceal his German ancestry. The Art of the Deal, claims his family came “from Sweden and many places”. Yet the record is quite clear. Having German ancestry is not controversial. Which begs the question, why lie and later make such a big deal about it? Following publication of the article, Trump was so angry at Brenner’s revelations he publicly assaulted her at a party.
Is Trump a card carrying member of the nazi party. Does he need to be? He has destroyed one of the two mainstream political parties in American history and replaced it with a party in his own image. That's a remarkable feat. It is a triumph of the will.
The OSS Profile of Adolf Hitler
The following is a summary of a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler completed in 1943 by US intelligence. It successful predicted Hitlers future actions.15 Few would disagree that this short excerpt of an extensive psychological analysis perfectly captures Donald Trump.
The similarities between Hitler and Trump are unnerving. Reading the full report is like going down a checklist of Trump’s personality - the grievance and hatreds, narcissism, paranoia, coarseness, vulgarity, racism, resentment toward women (except his favored daughter for whom he publicly admits he harbors sexual desire16 - the OSS report outlines Hitler’s coprophilia-based relationship with his teenage niece that ended in her ‘suicide’), a complete inability to empathize with anyone, even those suffering extreme trauma like natural disasters or victims of mass shootings.
His response to the suffering of others by turning it into self aggrandizement is legendary. Staff, advisers, political allies and family members exist solely to further his ego which he propagates primarily through fear via intimidatory inducement and coercion.
The picture that is painted by the wartime OSS will be familiar to anyone who has observed Trump in the media.
Earlier in his career the world had watched him with amusement. Many people refused to take him seriously. As one action after another met with amazing success and the measure of the man became more obvious, this amusement was transformed into incredulousness.
[The psychologists note] his insatiable greed for power, his ruthlessness, cruelty and utter lack-of feeling, his contempt for established institutions and his lack of moral restraints. His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
[His method involved a] great deal of name-calling, shouting, abusing and threatening. [He used projection constantly. Projection] is a technique by which the ego of an individual defends itself against unpleasant impulses, tendencies or characteristics by denying their existence in himself while he attributes them to others.
[A close associate observed ] “his faith in his own genius, in his instinct, or as one might say, in his star, is boundless. Those who surround him are the first to admit that he now thinks himself infallible and invincible. That explains why he can no longer bear either criticism or contradiction. To contradict him is in his eyes a crime of 'lese majeste'; opposition to his plans, from whatever side it may come, is a definite sacrilege, to which the only reply is an immediate and striking display of his omnipotence."
[He is not a good public speaker and yet] even in the early days he was a showman with a great sense of the dramatic. He understood that "there is only so much room in a brain, so much wall space, as it were, and if you furnish it with your slogans, the opposition has no place to put up any pictures later on”.
He flattered [his listeners] and cajoled them. He hurled accusations at them one moment and amused them the next by building up straw men which he promptly knocked down. His tongue was like a lash which whipped up the emotions of his audience. And somehow he always managed to say what the majority of the audience were already secretly thinking but could not verbalize. He completely numbed the critical faculties of his listeners to the point where they were willing to believe almost anything he said.
[He is presented as] courageous, [the only one] who dared to speak the truth and defy the national authorities as well as the international oppressors. [His accomplishments were always exaggerated]. The face of [the nation] was being lifted at an incredible speed. He was keeping his promises; he was accomplishing the impossible. As time goes on, it becomes more and more certain that he believes that he is really the "Chosen One" and that in his thinking [and those of his followers] he conceives of himself as a second Christ who has been sent to institute in the world a new system of values.
[On the issue of the character and conduct of those close to him, he said] "The only criterion for membership in [my movement] was that the applicant be 'Unconditionally obedient and faithfully devoted to me'. When someone asked if that applied to thieves and criminals, he said, 'Their private lives don't concern me.’"
[On a personal level his associated observed] “he seems to lack any real sense of humor. He can never take a joke on himself”.
[Psychologically,] a reciprocal relationship exists between him and the people. The madness of the one stimulates and flows into the other and vice versa. [The profile predicts that] the great danger is that if he feels that he cannot achieve immortality as the Great Redeemer he may seek it as the Great Destroyer who will live on in the minds of the people for years to come.
“We may be destroyed, but if we are, we shall drag a world with us--a world in flames,” he cautioned his inner circle.
We now know that My World Order had a lasting impact on Trump. He was famous for his obsession with “my generals”. The very use of that term implies an expectation of heel-clicking obedience to orders. As with every other aspect of the professional civil service, he quickly grew annoyed when his ‘orders’ as Commander in Chief were not reflectively obeyed. Trump could not accept that military leaders are civil servants who swear allegiance to the constitution. Because of this they see a bigger picture other than what the leader alone wants. It was recently revealed that during one of his daily outbursts directed at then Chief of Staff, retired Marine 4 star General John Kelly, Trump complained
“You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
“Which generals?” Kelly asked.
“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded.
“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off ?” Kelly said. But, of course, Trump did not know that. “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the President replied. In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich had been completely subservient to Hitler; this was the model he wanted for his military.
When on a trip to Europe Kelly felt obliged to explain the causes of WWII “and all of Hitler’s atrocities” Trump dismissed this assessment and countered that Hitler ‘did a lot of good things’.
The reason why Trump ordered the execution of Army 4 star General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, was because Milley understood Jan 6 as Trump’s “Reichstag moment” - a pretext for seizing power and turning America into a dictatorship. He called Trump’s supporters “Brownshirts” and said “These are the same people we fought in [the second world war].”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff accused President of the United States of America of being a fascist and a threat to national security. General Milley ultimately decided to stay and fight Trump from the inside, but his unsent draft resignation letter is the most extraordinary indictment of an American leader in post-war history.
Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation.. fought against fascism, Nazism, [and] extremism. It’s now obvious to me that .. you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order… causing significant damage to our country overseas, [and] doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. You are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people.
Mainstream Warnings Have Started
When a historian wrote an essay the other day warning that the election of former President Donald J. Trump next year could lead to dictatorship, one of Mr. Trump’s allies [US Senator JD Vance] quickly responded by calling for the historian to be sent to prison.
The Blut und Boden moment has coincided with a major push in mainstream outlets to finally confront American fascism. The first and most crucial step is to label the threat accurately. It is becoming common now, but years ago it was unacceptable to use the F word. This is in part because it has been so overused in ridiculous contexts that when it does fit the threat it can be dismissed by the fascists as ridiculous. Passing the Blut und Boden threshold makes the charge impossible to dismiss at least among people with a basic knowledge of world history.
A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending. Kagan
If Trump Wins - The Atlantic
The Lincoln project has also recently made the connection to Nazis direct. As they have stressed, the job of journalism in the fascist era is to report the stakes not the race.
The Kagan piece does an excellent job of describing how the slide to fascism takes on a degree of inevitably due to the perverse incentive structures in politics and the media. They reward dysfunction and dystopia.
All along, the only surefire way of stopping Trump lies at the feet of the GOP. Liz Cheney confirmed recently what others have said for years about elected members. Less than 10 really believe and genuinely follow Trump. A bigger group go along for the profile and money raising. The rest hate him but live in fear. That's why so many are leaving before the next election. In addition to getting nothing done, they know if they speak out they and their families will suffer.
If they came together as a group and vehemently denounced him as a fascist threat, that is the only thing that might have any impact at this point.
They Will Only Accept the Next Election If They Win
Don't count on the election to save the country. They came very close with the last coup. They have been preparing carefully since. Including stacking election apparatuses around the country with apparatchiks who will claim vote rigging, lost ballot boxes, etc etc.
The entire narrative is “election interference”. That Biden is doing what Trump wanted to do in the past but was prevented from doing by people like Gen Kelly. Even with VP Harris in the chair on J6 they can do a rerun of swing state irregularities. If Harris ignores it, that will be PROOF of election interference. Maga will declare Biden has gone full police state and call on red hats for a last stand against communism.
Knowing maga there will be some new twists and turns. No point running every scenario. It doesn't matter if they are all a lie. We have seen how far they get with lies. When Fox takes nearly a billion dollar hit so maga can steal an election, the Nazis are 3/4rs of the way to home plate.
Conclusion
The threat is real. It's more dangerous than any we have faced before, bar nuclear mutually assured destruction. The threat is the most dangerous because it is organic to our society, spread everywhere and not along clear north south lines. It's already deeply entrenched in our politics. It's has had a dry run and has learned from its mistakes. It is not some fringe freaks, it's an entire political party and all their followers who have already shown a willingness to willfully destroy the constitution. What more evidence do you need?
This is like Israel having the complete Hamas attack plan a year out and ignoring it. That actually happened.
Every serious person who worked for Trump has denounced him as a threat to our way of life. Trump himself has told us his plans in granular detail. He has warned us of his intent to be a dictator. What is missing here to make people recognize the threat?
When Hitler wanted to reoccupy the Ruhr his high command were completely against it. The French army was many times larger and more powerful. When he got away with it he escalated. He kept getting away with it until finally Britain drew a line in the sand. Hitler didn't take it seriously and drove on.
Trump has been escalating for years. The courts are currently spending all their efforts protecting his rights to call for violence, executions, & dictatorship. This is evidence of how stupid we are as a society. The courts fear shutting down a fascist by treating him like any other defendant will fuel anger and violence in his followers.
Guess what judges! They are going to react that way no matter what you do.
In Germany when they discovered their most recent fascist plot it was shut down in a day. Once you've suffered under real tyranny, you don't play grabass when it comes for you again.
If you could go back and stop Hitler, would you?
So what are you waiting for?
Steven Cheung, who has a remarkably similar appearance to Bond villain Odd Job, is a Trump campaign spokesman. He later clarified that “he meant to say their ‘sad, miserable existence’ instead of their “entire existence.” The concentration camps were explained away as targeted at immigrants. So thats all ok then. The media constantly normalizes fascism because they do not want to appear alarmed, they are wedded to both sides-ism, and explaining the causes of the fascism would make them appear politically biased. In America media culture there will always be good people on both sides of Kristallnacht.
Normally I would apply exhaustive links for all of these claims but if anyone wants to challenge them they can offer links to refutations - which they never do of course. Many of these issues have been covered on CWII before with the references.
Eventually this will morph into any business not paying kick backs to Trump’s holding company “Patriot Inc” or whatever laughably propagandistic cover name they come up with.
CWII is no tree hugger. He has been involved in fighting terrorists for America since 2005, including as a strategic planner with USSOCOM. Mohamedou Slahi was not a terrorist. He was caught up in a hurricane of retribution in the wake of 9/11. The kind that detained first and asked questions (or more accurately listened to the answers) a decade later. His story is astonishing. He had to endure torture by uneducated, poorly trained, and easily manipulated misfits - the kind who ran the Abu Ghraib prison. In the end, his captors and tortures realized that had made a mistake. Some did the right thing. Some became Mohamedou Slahi friend and worked to free him.
The pictures of Abu Ghraib got out and destroyed America’s narrative that we are a shining light on a hill liberating an oppressed people. We simply moved into Saddam’s worst prison and carried on the same vile conduct. Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s, Imperial Life in The Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, is a stunning catalogue of the same mentality at the political and strategic level and its application on the ground, resulting in tragicomic snafus.
One of the most shocking things about the entire Trump experience has been his empowerment of millions of American citizens who superficially appeared normal, but turned out to be drenched in hate or at a minimum easily taught to express hate. They were told their lives were miserable, the economy was terrible, their cities were on fire, and schools were teaching their kids to be trans.
They simply accepted all that was true. They didn’t know it was just entertainment not to be taken seriously. It was on the “news” channel so it must be true. Every single time when I would ask friends who reacted this way if their kid was a furry shitting in a litterbox in kindergarten (or similar trope) they always said indignantly “of course not”. But they did not take the next logical step to ask why “the news” was telling them this bullshit. Seriously, who could look at stories like that and just take them at face value? They seem self-evidently absurd. But not to millions of people, I discovered to my considerable shock. A contributing factor was I did not have a tv and never watched cable news. By the way, the litterbox thing is real. It is so kids can relieve themselves in their classrooms during mass shooting lockdowns. The “news” came up with the furry story.
Suddenly they seemed to be everywhere. Like the rose up out of the ground. These included long term friends of CWII. These friends emoted on command when ordered by Murdoch’s puppets. Out of no where they became quick to anger, incapable of critical thinking, intolerant of ideas or people (not on the ecohsystems approval list). It became apparent they had thought in extreme ways all along but kept these views to themselves because American society had evolved to the point where free and open expression of bigotry and hatred had become abnormal. Here was an American President who thought and said all the things they were thinking but had learned were not acceptable to normal society. He connected them. They were told being a hateful bigot was the norm, not the exception, and societies ‘evolution’ (‘woke’) had oppressed and denied their freedom to be their true selves. Once this worked, they were told extremism and violence were ok to “protect their way of life” which meant to be a loud mouth ignorant bigot ready and willing to angrily force their views on everyone else unasked.
Then it clicked. Red hats had a high correlation with the conduct and views of those who detained and tortured Mohamedou Slahi. Red hats were running Abu Ghraib. This was an entire category of people who shared similar traits, backgrounds and experiences. Low education, low opportunity, often southern, whites who were left behind by the system. The military was the only way out and up.
He started as a joke. He never thought he would actually become President. Once he did, he took himself seriously while the rest of America and the world kept laughing. Initially he and his henchmen were too stupid, incompetent and weak to force the machinery of government to do what he wanted. All the initial fascist policies, like the Muslim ban were denied, derailed, diluted, disputed or distracted. There was a revolving door at the White House as he changed out anyone who did their duty to the constitution over serving their master.
Becoming an effective fascist was a gradual process of trial and error. As normies departed and extremists replaced them, they learned how to pushed boundaries. They became more adept at circumventing or overcoming resistance to their illegal plans from the courts, the bureaucracy, congress, the media and the public. They became more brazen as they discovered the media would normalize their policies as “controversial” or “unprecedented” not what they were: each was a brick paving the way to autocracy.
They were slow to learn but by the end of his American carnage presidency, he attempted the American carnage coup. That too was an episode rich in lessons. Now they are racing against the clock to complete the coup - primarily by force of propaganda. As he did before all prior elections (even when he was a reality tv star) he is salting the ground of the legitimacy of the 2024 election. Claiming it’s all rigged - this time because the system is interfering in the next election to prosecute him for all the crimes of the last. He has petitioned the courts to certify that he has absolute immunity for all his crimes and any attempt to hold him accountable is an assault on democracy. In reality, it is an assault on autocracy and so far it is failing.
When Germany detected a fascist coup plot in late 2022, they did not hesitate to arrests everyone involved - from the leaders to the foot soldiers - in surprise synchronized raids mounted across the country. All of the defendants when into pre-trial detention because of the threat they represented to the security of Germany. When you have had your country destroyed by fascists, you do not play games. Despite all the warnings, the overwhelming lessons of history, and the announcement of all the fascist plans the coming dictatorship plans to impose, America will have to learn that lesson through harsh experience. The difference is there is no America to come and save America.
I hate this term - a normal duly elected leader should not be so vile or incompetent that they require “guardrails”.
According to a poll in June by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The “normies”. Lack of a marketing machine does not help either. The idea that insight and accuracy would be sufficient to get attention on the subject matter was a known terminal pitfall. There was always hope for a viral moment, but like winning the lottery, thats not a pathway one can count on. Accordingly, this project has really always been premised on making a record of predictive analytical intelligence outcomes - successes and failures - the biggest of these by far was the CWII post midterm assessment. More on that debacle in the end of year 2023 Predictions Report Card. Here is the 2022 card for reference.
The official designation of American fascists falls under two categories as defined by the DHS and FBI. Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists and/or Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists. For more on these designations see their Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism, October 2022, report to Congress.
This analytical judgement was not born of special intelligence, following terrorist chat rooms and all the rich but ignored intelligence resources available to domestic national security forces. It was clearly discernible in the actions and words of Trump, maga and the stormtroopers, reported in the general media.
Honestly, this was done so briefly on these pages (see the links) because it was so obvious to this author. This is a mix of two analytical biases - mirroring and confirmation bias. CWII assumed because it was so clear to him that everyone else would see it. At least other national security professionals. As later entries in these pages prove, this was most definitely not the case. The assumption that most American national security professionals were pro-constitutional democracy was a major failure. A considerable amount of pink CWII pages were devoted to detailing the case of “the obvious” thereafter.
It took the rise of Trump to highlight this problem. That in itself should say something. See this Oped by Goodwin on Trump.
This is also true of Mussolini.
Maga is not an official part name but it is what the GOP has become. Official name changes are not necessary. Just ask traditional conservatives - both of them: Liz Cheney and Adam Kissinger are exemplars of how the GOP was assassinated in its sleep by maga.
Walter C Longer, et al, A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend, Office of Strategic Services, Washington DC. This is a brilliant accomplishment that successfully predicted Hitler’s behavior for the rest of the war. Psychological profiles of political leaders are now a commonplace inside the world of intelligence. In the west, they can trace their origins to this OSS study. Readers are urged to explore the compete original and compare its insights on Hitler to Trump. This will help to understand the threat that the United States currently faces and what can be done to avert an otherwise inevitable slide into violence. This report is an excellent counterpoint to the Goldwater rule. It shows what can be done without interviewing the subject.
Trump’s sexual problems have been on public display. Their disclosure are the product of his boasting. He and his second wife were interviewed not long after Tiffany was born. He was asked who the infant most resembled. People often refer to a likeness a child’s face might have to a parent. Trump assessed the infant as he might a contestant at one of his pageants. “She’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know whether or not”—he put his hands to his chest to indicate breasts—”she’s got this part yet, but time will tell.” Incapable of a normal answer, he evaluated an infant’s legs and breasts in relationship to his favorite physical attributes of a sexual partner.
Washington Post reporter Richard Cohen reported Trump had asked the following question when Ivanka was 13 "is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?" When Ivanka was 16 he said “Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?”. When she was 20 Trump told Howard Stern it was OK to describe her as “a piece of ass”, and that, “I've said if Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her." In a joint interview when they were asked what they most had in common with one another Ivanka replied “real estate and golf”. Trump blurted out a one word confession - “sex”.