Unlike the mainstream Media, this Blog has not attempted to
down-play or hide the truth or the reality of the ‘deconstruction plan’ of the
Trump administration, as conceived by Donald Trump and Steve Bannon (and other “special
advisors”). “De-construction” is little more than a euphemism for their
anti-democratic value system. Their
ideology is closer to that of fascism than to conservative Republicanism, and
their tactics are often those of Nazism.
Their alleged collusion with the Russians is bad enough, but their concept
of deconstruction may be worse. I have
dealt with this several times along the way (see my Blog postings of 8/6, 8/14
and 4/15 in 2017, 4/1/2016 and 11/16/2015).
Until very recently, the mainstream Media has been shy about
this, even denying that there is such a “plan.”
Those who down-play the de-construction plan fail to understand, that
Trump and many of his cabinet members and staff are wedded to ideas and tactics
that are found among those of the Farthest Right. It is
past time to at least recognize the Trump acceptance and practice of concepts
and tactics that resemble those present in almost every Fascist government and
regime. Or, put another way: we must focus on the fact that democratic
values are not as important to this administration as authoritarian ideology
and leadership.
I know it is difficult to fathom that an overthrow of our democratic
government could happen, but please consider what has already happened in
relation to the 14 common characteristic actions of fascist regimes, as studied
and enumerated by Professor Larry Briggs and detailed in my last Blog
posting. I encourage you to review them
in that previous post.
Trump may not have a well-thought-out Plan to make us over
into a fascist country, but he is already acting upon internalized values,
beliefs and experiences that drive his actions, as they have always done. Denying the existence and danger of that
poisonous strain in this potential despot is dangerous. Just ask those hundreds of victims who have
taken him to Court, or the many other countries that have been corrupted,
overtaken and devastated in the wake of authoritarians who acted upon their
fascist beliefs, myths and biases, while the bulk of the citizenry (and too
many in their media) lived – and died -- in denial of that
possibility.
Before I identify another sign-post of authoritarian Far
Right actions involved in de-construction, let me briefly point out what I
consider to be major elements of ‘the Plan’ that are already either
accomplished, well on their way to being accomplished, or are just being inaugurated.
1) Capture the
judicial authority. With the approval
of the most recent SCOTUS Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and with the
appointment of numerous justices to lower courts, this important piece of the
Plan is well underway. After all, what
better strategy can you employ than to have the Supreme judicial authority that
invalidates and calls for re-writes of Constitutional provisions and mandates--
be on your side in terms of both leadership philosophy and political ideology?
Watch what happens.
If the SCOTUS begins making decisions in issue areas that loosen
requirements for justice, negatively affect the rights of minority citizens, or
impose religious beliefs of one group upon others; back immigration restrictions, uphold
elimination of subsidies or coverage in terms of healthcare; allow corporations
and other business entities to deny certain employee benefits if they conflict
with religious beliefs of the employer; or lessens the right to vote in any way,
you will be witnessing our constitutional democratic value system
“de-constructed’ before your eyes. And that result can only improve the chances
that the capture of the Judiciary will mean that it is no longer independent of
partisan politics and philosophy; no longer on the side of justice for all citizens
and those seeking that status, but is a willing participant in the building of
an authoritarian government.
2) Capture the Legislative Branch
The release of the Devin Nunes memo has focused a laser beam
on the Congress; mainly on the Republicans in that bi-cameral body. Without getting side-tracked into the
controversy surrounding this summary ‘report’ written by Senate Intelligence (?)
Committee staffers, this “fake news” indicates exactly what is happening…Mr.
Trump seized on the memo to assert that it renders the Russia investigation
moot. “This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe,” he wrote on Twitter. “After one year of looking endlessly
and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead. This is an American disgrace!”
This is not the first time that Nunes has carried
“intelligence” given him by the White House.
He is a lackey – a Trump servant – who is now working to protect this
President so that Trump can reign for another 4 years. Instead of acting as a member of an
independent branch of government and refusing to have his Committee used (and
tarnished) by this President, Nunes has given up the unique check on
presidential power. In working as a
political operative with this President, he has signaled his capture. Others around him, like Speaker Ryan and Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell are no less responsible for the capture of the
legislative branch as they lead the defense of this “collusion” between Trump
and Nunes and lack of the same between Trump and Russia.
Apparently, an oath of office to “protect and defend the
Constitution” has little meaning to Nunes, some other Republican members of his
Committee, and those Senators and Representatives who speak out only to protect
and defend their President, but do not speak out when obstruction of justice is
in the making.
3) Prelude to a Coup
In my estimation, another
sign-post of Far-Right regimes is the de-construction of independent policing
and intelligence-gathering authorities, and the construction of a federal
policing authority responsible to, contained within, and dependent upon, the
Office of the Fuhrer (oops, I meant ‘President’).
Without going into all the details of the back-and-forth
between Trump and Congress and the compelling investigation by Special Counsel
Robert Mueller, there are important questions to be asked that go beyond
separate events and behaviors and cannot, and must not, be ignored.
For instance, why is Trump so vehemently attacking the
integrity of independent law enforcement and investigative agencies like the
FBI and the CIA, the SNA, and his own Department of Justice? Is it simply to denigrate the investigators
to such an extent that they will not be trusted when indictments or criminal or
impeachment charges are brought?
Is this merely an effort to diminish the Mueller team, or is it a far deeper
and more sinister effort to denigrate federal policing agencies to extreme
lengths so that the populace (or Trump’s base plus some of the general public)
will acquiesce in favor of a national police authority responsible to, and
under the orders of, this authoritarian Executive?
Trump’s legal team appeared to come down on the affirmative
side of this question by asserting that the President has the ability to fire
the head of the FBI, and the Special Counsel.
Indeed, according to the latest breaking news, the President did order
the firing of Robert Mueller last June, and ironically, what stopped him was
his own White House Counsel threatening to resign if he persisted.
There is more to this than meets the eye, in my opinion. There has been a pattern developing in the
past year that adds weight to the suggestion that there is in this President’s
authoritarian tool box the possibility of a national police authority responsible
to him and under his oversight. Let us
review some of what has happened (and been declared) in an admittedly
incomplete and partial time line.
1/23/2017 – Trump
signs Executive Order to put freeze on federal hiring. The order directs that no vacant positions
can be filled, or new positions created, unless an agency head deems the
position "necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities."
The freeze would allegedly end once the Office of Management and Budget created
a "long-term plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government's workforce
through attrition." (The Hill).
It did end in 90 days, but the long-term effects on government are yet
to be determined.
March 2017 -- Jeff
Sessions recused himself from Russian collusion investigation—"three
weeks after his swearing-in and fifteen weeks after his nomination. In Trump’s
view: ‘Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to
recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have
picked somebody else.’
He twice describes Sessions’ decision as ‘unfair to the
president,’ seemingly unaware that his recusal was almost surely compelled by
Justice Department recusal rules. That is, the President is openly expressing
bitterness toward his attorney general for following the rules—because the
rules don’t favor Trump’s interests. He wants an attorney general who will actively
supervise the Justice Department, and the Russia investigation, in a fashion
congenial to his interests, and he has no compunction about saying so
explicitly. He made perfectly clear that he regrets appointing Sessions.
He made equally clear that Sessions’ job is, in his mind, a
personal service contract to him and that if Sessions couldn’t deliver on
service to Trump, he shouldn’t have taken the position.” ( Benjamin Wittes, July
20, 2017)
June 2017 – Trump
on Twitter: “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who
told me to fire the FBI Director!” While Trump has previously admitted that Rosenstein’s memo criticizing
Comey was pretextual and that the president would have dismissed the FBI
director regardless… saying, “Now, perhaps I would have fired Comey anyway, and
it certainly didn’t hurt to have the letter, O.K.”
In a separate interview with the New York Times, Trump “issued
a stunning vote of no-confidence in basically everyone currently in a
leadership position in the Justice Department, the FBI, or the special
counsel’s office—in other words, not just some federal law enforcement, but all
of it. The President’s rebuke reaches everyone from the attorney general to
staff attorneys hired by Robert Mueller—whose investigation he pointedly did
not promise not to terminate. His complaint? They’re all, in different ways,
not serving him. And serving him, he makes clear, is “their real job.”
If, on reading this, it sounds like the President believes
that law enforcement should be at his personal beck and call, that’s because
that is, in fact, exactly what he believes. We know this because he made this
belief perfectly clear in the interview as well. At one point, he offered an
extraordinary account of the history of the FBI and its relationship to the
Justice Department. He indicated that around the time of the Nixon
administration, “out of courtesy, the F.B.I. started reporting to the
Department of Justice.” He continued: “But there was nothing official, there
was nothing from Congress. There was nothing — anything. But the FBI person really
reports directly to the president of the United States, which is interesting.
You know, which is interesting.”
Trump’s logic isn’t easy to follow here, but his core claim
is unmistakable—and “interesting” is a generous word for it: the FBI director
serves the president. As a matter of constitutional hierarchy, this is of
course true. But in investigative matters, the FBI director does not, or should
not, serve the president by reporting to him. He serves the president by
leading law enforcement in an independent and apolitical fashion. And it is
fundamentally corrupt for any president to be asking him to do otherwise."
The astonishing implication of Trump’s view is that he
believes the president may shut down an FBI investigation that displeases him. Indeed,
Trump went so far as to say that too: when explaining why it would not be a
problem even if he had told Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, he stated,
“other people go a step further. I could have ended that whole thing just by
saying—they say it can’t be obstruction because you can say: ‘It’s ended. It’s
over. Period'."
In a single interview in which the President of the United
States expresses no-confidence in the attorney general, the deputy attorney
general, the special counsel, the acting FBI director, and the special
counsel’s staff, and in which he makes clear that the FBI should be his
personal force and that all of law enforcement should be about serving him, the
result is an environment in which the President can say these things without
obvious consequence, at least for now.
We are in a dangerous moment—one in which the President,
with his infinite sense of grievance, feels entitled publicly, without obvious
consequences, to attack the entire federal law enforcement apparatus, and that
apparatus, in turn, lacks a single person with the stature, the institutional
position, and the fortitude to stand up to him. Since deputy F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe,
was pushed out recently, possibly Chris Wray, Trump’s appointee heading the FBI
is the only one left to make such a stand.
WE the PEOPLE must become warier and resist the efforts of
this President to create a damaged FBI that is responsible to him and him alone. WE the PEOPLE must recognize and resist the
possibility of any kind of nationalized police or intelligence authority under
the office of the President and responsible only to him in a secretive pact of
some kind.
If Trump is indeed the
fascist authoritarian leader that many suspect he is, there will soon enough be
an attempt to inaugurate such a “President’s Guard” or “Secret Militia” or
“Presidential Youth Corps” that will protect, defend and carry out missions
for, the Presidente. It is the SS, the
Storm Troopers, the Palace Guard, the Hitler Youth all over again. If anything of the kind appears in the near
future (as I expect it might if Trump is not impeached), given this President’s
rhetoric and actions, you will know for sure that this democracy is dead, and
that resistance in the form of political demonstrations will also be totally
ineffective.
BREAKING NEWS:
WASHINGTON — “The attacks are having
an impact. A new SurveyMonkey poll for Axios, a news website, showed that only 38 percent of
Republicans have a favorable view of the F.B.I., compared to 64 percent of
Democrats. In interviews, more than a dozen officials who work at or recently
left the Justice Department and the F.B.I. said they feared that the president
was mortgaging the credibility of those agencies for his own short-term
political gain as he seeks to undercut the Russia inquiry. (NY Times, 2/3/2018)
