Projection

 

I subscribe to a daily digest of politically and economically newsworthy articles compiled by Thomas Knapp and billed as the 'Rational Review News Digest' which readers here may or may not find enlightening.  A recent entry pointed at an article by Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic predicting what a Trump second term might portend.  I have my own views on the topic, but I wanted to see what a decidedly rabid anti-Trump outlet might have to say.

Specifically, Rauch is worried that

...a second Trump term could bring about the extinction of American democracy.  Essential features of the system, including the rule of law, honest vote tallies, and orderly succession, would be at risk.

How could this happen (according to Rauch)? 

• First, install toadies in key positions.

  Isn't that what every new administration does?  Traditionally, every department head offers their resignation to the new President.  A smart President accepts those offers and replaces every one of them.

• Second, intimidate the career bureaucracy.

  Given that 'the career bureaucracy' is what we typically refer to as 'The Deep State', it seems as though intimidating it would be exactly what the doctor ordered.  Presently, it is nearly impossible to fire most of these 'career bureaucrats'.  They don't care what orders their boss, the Chief Executive, gives them.  They can do as they please, fuck you very much.

• Third, co-opt the armed forces.

  ...as by purging from the ranks all who are insufficiently obedient to dangerous and probably unconstitutional orders to vax-or-else or who reject the tenets of CRT?  Welcome into the ranks a diverse mix of ethnicities, sexual orientations, and political persuasions regardless of their ability to function as a fighting force?  That sort of co-option?

• Fourth, bring law enforcement to heel.

  He's talking about the FBI that has already been thoroughly politicized and weaponized against the very person he fears might have a second term.  This shouldn't be fourth; it should be first.

• Fifth, weaponize the pardon.

  (Translation: free all existing political prisoners who have been waiting almost 600 days, many in solitary confinement, for daring to enter the U.S.Capitol building on January 6th, 2021, 'speedy trial' be damned, and clear the records of all who have been coerced into guilty pleas.  That kind of weaponization of the pardon.)

• Sixth, the final blow: defy court orders.

  Rauch here invests the Judiciary with the God-like power to overrule 'separation of powers'.  What the judiciary says goes, no ifs, ands, or buts as far as he's concerned.  Sorry, Jonathan, that's not how this works. 

The title of this post is 'Projection' because almost everything Rauch worries about in his article is already being done by the current administration.  He's worried about the status quo.

Rauch apparently thinks that 'the rule of law' is presently at work in these united states.  That's funny.  That could be the basis of a great stand-up comedy routine.  What is he smoking?  As to 'honest vote tallies', we Americans are all in the position of having to consider that either (a) the last election was stolen, or (b) 81 million Americans thought it was a good idea to send an Alzheimer's patient and a giggling bimbo to the White House.  Here in Florida, the Democratic contender for the Governorship says "Thank God for Joe Biden!"  I have to believe he adds under his breath "He makes the rest of us look like geniuses."

In fact, should Trump actually squeak through the gauntlet provided by The Deep State and get himself a second (lame duck) term, he should Schedule F the top four management layers at FBI, DOJ, CIA, NSA, and several dozen other federal departments and agencies, and then downsize them all.  It was Reagan's machete-like deregulation and tax reforms that goosed the economy into overdrive, a rocket-propelled boost that Bush and Clinton rode to the end of the century.  It was Trump doing much the same that pushed us into the enviable position of being a net exporter of petroleum (here deliberately overlooking his idiotic tariffs, the absence of which would have made his economy so much better).

The baseline problem, of course, is that both Republicans and Democrats hold the laughably inane notion that governments can manage economies.  They can't.  They never could.  The only way to 'manage' an economy is to get out of its way.  The career bureaucrats won't allow that, and that's why they have to be purged, something only Democrats and RINOs think would be a bad thing.