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Insurrection

Can Trump Succeed Where Hitler, the Soviet Union, and Bin Laden Failed?

October 18, 2022
by Peter Feinman
LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! THAT's RIGHT. LOCK HIM UP!

Adolph Hitler could not destroy America.

The Soviet Union could not destroy America.

Osama Bin-Laden could not destroy America.

Donald Trump can but he needs help.

On January 3, 2021, I posted a political action thriller blog. It was about the books and movies from the 1960s, where people were trying to take over the country and/or destroy the world. The blog was written prior to January 6. It also was written prior to all that we know today about the events surrounding the failed insurrection attempt by a defeated President. Just when you think you know all that there is to know about the event, you realize that you do not.

Sometimes actions are funny like throw a plate a ketchup on the wall and see what sticks.

Sometimes they are revealing like the lunge for control of the car to turn it around and take the Loser to the Capitol so he could appear as the valiant hero leading his forces to victory in the House chamber.

Sometimes they are scary when you realize the forces sworn to defend the Constitution took the advice to stand down. After all the insurrectionists were “my [armed] people” who had been marshalled to storm the Capitol and not Black Lives Matter or Antifa.

The question We the People now have to ask is could it happen again? Could the insurrection be successful in 2024 whereas it failed in 2020?

The second question is do the American people realize that the insurrection of 2024 is on the ballot in 2022?

THE 2024 INSURRECTION

2024 will not be a repeat of 2020.

The Insurrectionist in Chief will not be in the White House and Commander in Chief.

The Vice President would not do what the 2020 Loser wanted the 2020 Vice President to do and the laws will have changed.

If armed forces were gathering at the Capitol, the government forces would shut them down even before the event occurred.

Many of the people who led/participated in the insurrection have been arrested, found guilty, or even pleaded guilty to sedition.

There will be no Gettysburg (January 6, 2025: Suppose Biden Loses?).

The battleground will have shifted elsewhere.

THE WOUNDED EMBATTLED INSURRECTION LEADER

The situation for the leader of the insurrection also will have drastically changed. The immature child with the emotional maturity of a three-year old will be in a vastly altered terrain than he inhabited in 2020. No matter how much he still wants to play President, no matter how much Team Wackadoodle tells him he is the President, and no matter hard he clings to his souvenirs about when he was President, the landscape will be very different.

Just think of upcoming events this months:

1. His upcoming deposition about a rape case
2. The sentencing of Stephen Bannon and his tentative efforts now to avoid prison contrary to his early bluster
3. The start of the trial against the Trump Organization with his very own CFO testifying against him.

Even his own lawyer knows that Mar-a-Lago indictments will follow shortly after the election.

And there is more to come. In other words, there will be a constant stream of legal activities surrounding the Loser and his associates. For months if not years to come, he will be busy defending himself and throwing other people under the bus.

One should keep in mind that he is not an authoritarian leader as in China and Russia. People still make the mistake of analyzing his actions as if they were those of an adult. He lacks the cognitive skills to plan and organize anything remotely resembling a fascist authoritarian state. He is an immature child of the moment responding in CAPS to any attempts to hold him accountable in the adult world and force him to stop playing. That does not mean that there are not people working for him or on his behalf who are not seeking an authoritarian order as long as it is the right person in charge.

One may anticipate, as is already happening, that as the legal world closes in on him, so his performances in the political wrestling arena will ramp up. He will be more openly bigoted and more fervently embracing of QAnon. He constantly will be stoking his people to rise up the likes of which has never been seen before in this country the more the law moves to catch up with him and hold him accountable.

STACEY ABRAMS MOMENT

Remember Stacey Abrams? It was not that long ago – one governor cycle – when she was the “It” girl. She was the one getting widespread media attention about the changes she was about to spring on the State of Georgia and American politics write large. Now she is running again but with hardly any notice. And even the Democratic Senate wins in Georgia in 2020 are largely attributable to the actions of the meddling President as well as to her.

The same can happen to Ron DeSantis. Right now he is receiving a great deal of attention. Can he maintain that level of public interest and standing until 2028? The same applies to any of the wannabees. It is very difficult to sustain a level of enthusiastic support for years upon years if you are not named Kardashian. Just as Abrams had her moment in 2018, the wannabees will have their moment in 2024. If they do not act then, except perhaps for the one who is selected to be the Vice President candidate, the others will be relegated to the sidelines.

This means that Trump is going to be double-squeezed. On the one hand, the legal entanglements will continue to mount. They will become more and more serious. The attempt to reorganize out of New York State demonstrates the recognition that he has a lot to lose financially. Other cases suggest he could be facing not only civil penalties but criminal ones. I am struck by the comment by the judge in the rape slander case that the defendant and plaintiff are in their late seventies so the constant delay tactic will no longer suffice. Legally, Trump will become a wounded crybaby constantly lashing out in CAPS and reminding people how unfit he is for the job of President.

Sometime in 2023, a DeSantis or another wannabee will have to strike. Sometime in 2023, a DeSantis will have to proclaim there is an alternative to the wounded crybaby and he, Ron DeSantis is the one. We can see glimmers of the canaries in the coal mine already. We can see Trump-endorsed candidates pulling back from the Trump platform. In one case, we can even watch a candidate do a 180 degree turn. So there are signs that if one wants to win a state or national basis as opposed to a gerrymandered-House district, relitigating 2020 might not be a proven winner.

If a wannabee does push the wounded crybaby offstage, how much of the MAGA enthusiasm is transferable? Right now he is their Lord and Savior, the Chose One, Blessed Be his Name. The wannabees do not possess his charisma, energy, and skill in exploiting the MAGAs. QAnon cannot so easily switch to a new savior. The racist anti-Semitic militias cannot so easily switch their allegiance to anyone else now in the national arena. So if the wounded crybaby drops out for legal reasons, all bets are off in the chaos that follows to attempt to fill his shoes.

STATE ELECTION INFRASTRUCTURE

In the meantime, the effort to seize control of the election infrastructure continues. Think of 2020 as a beta test to determine the election weaknesses which can be exploited in 2024. It isn’t as if 2020 started out that way but now with hindsight it exposed the people, positions, and laws which needed to be changed to ensure a Democratic defeat in 2024.

The upcoming elections represent a test drive of the Steal the Election 22.01 for 2024.

Laws have been changed to enhance voter suppression and rig the counting.

People have been installed in the trenches to intimidate voters.

Trumpicans have cleared the decks of Republicans in elections throughout the land.

The last part of the testing for 2024 will occur in three weeks.

Given the low ratings of Joe Biden and the immediate concern over inflation, food, and rent, people are more likely to vote locally than based on the national need to save democracy in 2024. At this point, no one anticipates a blowout like 2010 or 2018, still in the civil war currently underway, it is reasonable to expect gains that will translate into success in 2024. So while the political action thriller movie is not yet over, we are getting closer and closer to the moment of truth. The war is being fought on so many battlefronts and on so many political levels that it is hard to follow all the action and unlikely that either side will achieve a decisive blow in this election.

The countdown to January 6, 2025, continues.

Suppose He Had Led His People to the Capitol on January 6…

January 12, 2022
by Peter Feinman
The Trumpican Image of their Leader (Dave Weigel, Washington Post)

The story of the attempt to steal the election and overthrow the Constitution continues to surprise. While the focus has been on the intention of state legislators to send alternate Elector slates overriding the will of the people, it turns out that alternate slates were surreptitiously sent in 2020 perhaps at the initiative of a rogue insurrectionist at the Department of Justice. More to come.

One seemingly obvious question that has not received much attention is why the Hitman did not lead his people to the Capitol. He exhorted them all to walk there himself included and fight like hell for their country. But instead of doing so, he then retired home to watch with the great glee the events to unfold without him. Only when the failure to reverse the vote became obvious did he rouse himself to tell the people he loved to go home in peace. We do not know the various iterations of his speech but perhaps sooner rather than later we will.

So why didn’t he march with his people?

LEADERSHIP

One reason which comes to mind is that he physically was unable. We should at least give credence to the idea that Tubby Wubby could not have walked to the Capitol. Going in a golf cart would have seemed unmanly.

William Wallace watching the battle on TV

Speaking of being manly, what would Mel Gibson aka William Wallace have done. This figure is much beloved by Trumpicans for his manly display of leadership. In the movie Braveheart, Wallace is shown charging full speed ahead with his people to confront the English. He does not simply walk to the Capitol, he races to his destiny. One might have expected the would-be Wallace to have done the same. If the movie-figure had said, “No, you go ahead. I am going to stay back and watch from here. It’s more fun this way,” would he be regarded as heroic?

Maximus riding away from the Capitol as fast as his horse will carry him

One can make a similar case for the fictional Maximus in Gladiator, another popular manly figure. In the opening battle, Maximus forcefully leads his forces into battle. He stridently charges forth on his horse into the fray. The fictional figure later literally goes into the proverbial arena and displays the right stuff that is so much a part of American manly vigorous lore.

The Alpha-Male wannabe’s greatest victory (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo)

Bone Spur Boy is no Wallace. Macho Macho Boy is no Maximus. The alpha-male wannabee is no match for these manly heroic figures. His great victory occurred when he dominated Lafayette Square … after the Square had been cleared of all people who might protest his heroic display of masculinity.

The Big Lie

Trumpbo would rather watch on TV than fight.

In case we have forgotten, we just now have had an example of how the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck operates. His natural venue is the professional political arena where he can be mean, nasty, and insulting to his heart’s content. The perfect weapon for the immature child is Twitter. Sure enough, when a Senator from South Dakota dared to speak the truth about the 2020 election, the Loser went ballistic. Notice how childish his responses were. Notice how he vented like a crybaby teenager. Notice how unmanly he was. After closing in one year without the cacophony of baby talk from someone with the emotional maturity of a three year-old, we were reminded of just how childish he is. It makes one dread when he becomes a candidate and we are forced to endure such behavior on an ongoing basis.

WHAT IF HE HAD LED?

Now suppose, hypothetically he had been physically capable of walking to the Capitol.

Now suppose, hypothetically he had been capable of being a leader.

Then what?

What do you do if you are the Capitol Police and you see the President of the United States, his Secret Service detail, and a crowd walking towards you?

Would you have even have tried to stop the President of the United States?

My guess is at that moment a negotiation would have occurred.

What are you doing here?

We are here to stop the steal. Let us in.

You can come in Mr. President along with X number of followers. Go through the security screeners and you and your group will be escorted to the Visitor Gallery. The rest will have to remain outside. We can’t allow people to just wander around the building.

What would the Commander in Chief had done at that point? What would his followers do? Both the ones allowed to entire after being checked for weapons and those who had to remain outside?

What would have happened if he and his group had been escorted to the Visitor Gallery? Would they have been content to impotently watch as Joe Biden was certified as the winner? Would rowdy individuals have been asked to leave? What would the would-be Hitman have done?

We will never know the answers to these questions. Nonetheless, they serve a purpose. They demonstrate how poorly thought out the slapdash insurrection was. It should be no surprise that January 6 was not well-planned. We know from his serial business failures that organization, planning, management, and thinking things through are not his strong point. We know from his failure with COVID, that he was just as inept and incompetent as President as he had been in business. Therefore, it is quite reasonable to expect that the planning for January 6 was equally inept.

THE HYDRA INSURRECTION

The Hydra Insurrection
(https://steemit.com)

As we are learning the Hydra Insurrection was proceeding on many fronts. At first everyone was focused on the inanities of Pillowhead, Séance Sydney, and Ridiculous Rudy with the absurd legal challenges they raised. They had a perfect batting average. And the effort have backfired. Voting machine companies and election workers named have responded with lawsuits.

Then we became aware of the infamous attempt to find 11,780 votes in Georgia. Criminal charges are likely in a few months against the Hitman and his confederates. And it may have helped the two Democratic Senate candidates win thereby giving the Democrats the majority.

Then we became aware of the pressure on the Vice President in a six-point plan to disqualify Electors for Biden and/or accept alternate Electors. Criminal charges are likely this year against the originator of this illegal ploy.

Yesterday we become aware of at least five examples of illegal submission of alternate Electors.

Today we became aware of the discussion with the Hitman over resignation, the 25th Amendment, and impeachment due to the ongoing attack on the Capitol.

More to come.

Presumably the Hitman was aware of all these machinations. Presumably he expected/hoped the Vice President would act accordingly to certify the Loser as a winner. The unruly crowd disrupting the proceedings to intimidate the voters and the Vice President would have been icing on the cake.

There was a lot going on. The failure of January 6, 2020, has been studied closely to make sure there is no need for in 2025 or if there is, the attempt will be better organized and planned including control of both Congress and the election infrastructure. It’s amazing how many Democrats will be cheering on Governor Brutus to save the country by slaying the Hitman (who, to be fair, is no Caesar!).

Which one is Governor Brutus? (Vincenzo Camuccini The Death of Julius Caesar detail)

Seven Days in January: Impeached Again

January 12, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Freedom of Speech for Real Americans and Patriots

It was only 10 days ago when I wrote a blog on Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie. Little did I know what would happen just four days later on January 6 or what would happen afterwards. Now seven days later history will be made with the second impeachment of single President. Time moves very quickly now. What you write can be obsolete before you are done [Mitch McConnell believes impeaching Trump will help! Mitch McConnell: Howard Baker (Time to Go) vs Stay the Course (Go Down with the Ship) June 8, 2020]. Has hell frozen over? Has he seen the light?

There are issues to be considered which I didn’t address in my blog about political thrillers from the early 1960s and the world today.

PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION

There has been a lot of discussion about the 25th Amendment but very little about Presidential succession. The Vice President is necessary to activate the removal process. The Vice President also was a target of the insurrection. The phrase “Hang Mike Pence” was heard and a functioning gallows had been constructed as if its builders were prepared to use it. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE 25TH AMENDMENT IF THERE IS NO VICE PRESIDENT?

Next in line for Presidential succession is the Speaker of the House. However the Speaker is not next in line to fill a Vice President opening. There is a process of selection and confirmation involving the President and the Congress to fill that slot. Suppose the President doesn’t name anyone to fill the position in case the Trump insurrectionists had hanged Mike Pence? What then?

Assuming the Vice President had survived the attempted coup, which he did, then what? Let’s say what is left of the Cabinet had approved the initiative. That action then is to be transmitted to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives according to the Amendment. Suppose they are dead? What does the Vice President do?

Political thrillers are out of vogue now. Perhaps the recent events will cause a revival. It is easy to see now in an emergency situation how inadequate the 25th Amendment is. With all its checks and balances built into the text the process could drag on for weeks. That doesn’t cut it in during an insurrection.

True, it never occurred to the authors and ratifiers of the 25th Amendment that one day a President of the United States would foster an insurrection to remain in power. Now we know better. The Amendment needs to be amended.

LOSS OF CONTROL

In all the political thrillers, the instigator or brains behind the action is in charge. That person knows what is going on and is in command of the actors. On December 7 and 9/11, the chain of command was established and maintained. The people did what they were supposed to do according to the plan. That is what was expected.

In the Trump Insurrection, the instigator brought all his shortcomings and inadequacies to the event. That doomed it to failure. The person with no management, organization, or planning skills in his business career and in the coronavirus pandemic, demonstrated the same shortcomings on January 6….for which we should be grateful. The simple-minded immature child President lacks the mental necessities or cognitive skills to effectively organize an insurrection. All the weenie in-chief could do was light a match, pour oil on the fire, and then vanish to go watch it on TV. Next to taking away his Twitter account, imagine taking away his TV!

He had no idea what the insurrectionists would actually do. It was not a 12/7, 9/11, or political thriller situation. He had no control over the people acting in his name. If his defense lawyers are smart they should plead he has the brains of a child and should be tried in juvenile court.

MY PEOPLE

Who are the “people” the twice-impeached President always refers to? Remember in the Georgia telephone call how he talked about “people” who would be angry. Then there really were the “people” who supported the telephone call – it proved he was fighting for them and hadn’t given up. Now again we hear about the “people” who would be very angry if he was penalized for his actions on January 6. After all, didn’t he give a “perfect” speech, an appropriate speech, just like his “perfect” call on his failed extortion attempt that led to his first impeachment?

I first became aware of these “people” after the 2016 election. One of the stock phrases Hannity used to attack those who criticized the legitimacy of the election was along the lines of he had been “duly elected by 63 million people.” He never mentioned the 66 million who had voted for the Democratic candidate. Why not? It would seem because those “people” aren’t “real people” and part of We the People. The 63 million who voted for the correct candidate are the Real Americans, not those other people.

Remember, Real Americans don’t get the coronavirus and die from it; “those” people do.

The exact same sequence is being played out today. All you hear about on Foxhub is the 75 million (or more accurately 74 million) who voted for the Sore Loser. Look at the increase over the 2016 vote total of 63 million! Somehow the 81 million who voted for the Democratic candidate are ignored. The 3 million fraudulent votes in 2016 became 5 million fraudulent votes when he needed more to overcome his growing gap by at least one vote. In 2020, it became over 7 million rigged votes. Over 7 million, because he really won by a landslide. Just as the 66 million in 2016 and the 81 million in 2020 don’t exist on Foxhub, so they don’t exist in the mind of the twice-impeached President. When he refers to “people,” he means only his people, the Real Americans. Confederates are Real Americans and patriots in Trump’s universe.

Such thinking also applies to Trumpicans. They feel that they have been disenfranchised by people who are not Real Americans. What are they to do they asked at the insurrection?

ENDGAME

The Capitol is our goal. Everything else is a distraction. Every corrupt member of Congress locked in one room and surrounded by real Americans is an opportunity that will never present itself again.

Did that include Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and all the other Trumpican traitors who voted to reverse the election? If the insurrectionists had confronted the Representatives and Senators would they simply have open fired on all of them?

At the end of the day, you mark my word, we will plant our flag on the desk of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And Donald J. Trump if it boils down to it.

What flag is that? The American flag or the Trump flag? Once the forces of rebellion were unleashed, they were beyond the control of the twice-impeached President gleefully watching the mayhem on TV. He was more upset about losing the PGA Championship than he was about risking the lives of 536 elected officials and their staff.

And suppose they had disrupted the vote, what would have changed? Nothing. No matter what happened on January 6, Joe Biden would still become President on January 20. Did they know that?

So now there are 50 additional targets besides the Capitol. The story is not yet over. It will not end with the departure of the twice-impeached President. At this point, the ending to this political thriller in the real world remains unknown. On seven-day period stretched from insurrection to impeachment. The week will take us to inauguration. Who knows what will happen then? How many people can the FBI round up before they are pardoned?

There is one thought expressed at the insurrection which deserves attention. It was a call by one of the participants for exactly that:

We are here. See us! Notice us! Pay attention!”

If Joe Biden wants to be a unity President that is exactly what he has to do. Painful as that might be, he can’t unify the country unless he does pay attention to the people who oppose him. After all, Trumpicans still are Americans.