The MAGA Authoritarian Regime Is Growing

Posted: August 11, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“The Almighty tells me He can get me out of this mess, but He’s pretty sure you’re f***ed.”

— “Stephen” the Irishman to William Wallace in the movie “Braveheart”

Sometimes it is the little things that tell you that events are unfolding in a negative way. Sometimes it is the big things. Sometimes it is both. However I look at, it seems that all of the evidence points in the direction of Trump and his MAGA acolytes converting our government into an authoritarian regime. I fear that we are further down that road than most of us realize.

Have you seen pictures of the Oval Office or the rest of the White House recently? It is as though Trump has some form of kenophobia. Every imaginable space is filled with gold gilt. Cherubs, medallions, swirls, and countless other embellishments fill the walls, ceiling, doors, and every other imaginable flat space. Meanwhile he has cornered the market on gold tchotchkes and proudly displays them everywhere. I think he was going for the Saudi prince model of decorating. He bulldozed the Rose Garden and paved it over with a patio that rivals any patio at a La Quinta Inn anywhere. He plans to build a 90,000 square foot ballroom by demolishing the East Wing of the White House and replacing it with his idea of glamour. Or most likely, as a monument to himself. For comparison, the ballroom will be almost twice as big as the existing main structure of the White House. It will totally distort the grace of the current White House and grounds with a tasteless monument to one man’s ego. So much for calling it the “Peoples House.” Besides being heartbroken by the destruction he is spreading — institutionalizing his disregard for the law, tradition and morals — I worry that he is remodeling the White House to suit his tastes because he does not plan to move out. Add to that the nearly one billion dollars that the Department of Defense (DOD) must redirect from modernizing our nuclear arsenal to rebuilding the “new” Air Force One with which the Qataris bribed him — talk about “pimp my ride”– and we have some serious indicators that the man does not think that the laws pertain to him. He is a guy planning to remain in power one way or another for the rest of his natural life.

Ahh, but what about elections you ask? You mean the ones that Trump and his MAGA henchmen are trying to rig? Here is all you need to know about where this is all heading. Look at Texas, already a state that has gerrymandered (drawn voting district lines to favor one party over another) its map for the U.S. House of Representatives. The Republican majority there is attempting to draw the districts yet again to give more seats (five) to the MAGA party at the expense of Democrats in the House. Last week this is what Trump had to say about the ongoing effort.

“We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.”

“Entitled.”

That is Trump’s approach to everything and the approach that his administration takes — laws, tradition and morality be damned. If Trump wants it, he will get it. Oh, but there is more. Not content to get five seats from Texas, he is pushing Florida, Ohio, Indiana and other states to do the same thing. If that does not get the job done, he wants to hold a census, this year, and dictate who can and cannot be counted, specifically excluding people living in the country without legal status. The goal is to gain forty more seats for the MAGA party and make it a permanent majority. In other words, keep one party in power while denying power to half the country. But wait! There’s more! The 14th Amendment requires that the census include “the whole number of persons in each state.” It does not distinguish who those “persons” are. Just that they live there. The census determines how the representation in the House is distributed among the states as well as the number of presidential electors to the Electoral College. Additionally, Trump has tasked the Commerce Department which oversees the census, to “immediately” begin work on a new census applying modern technology to “the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.” I am not sure anyone knows exactly what that means, but I am betting that since he won that election the analysis will show that he is “entitled” to more representatives than he currently has.

One more little wrinkle. Not only the 14th Amendment addresses the census, but Article I of the Constitution gives the Congress control of the census. Currently Title 13 of the U.S. Code dictates a once a decade count. The last census was in 2020.

But why let a silly little thing like the Constitution stop the great man from rigging the election?

By the way, keep an eye on developments in Texas. Lots of threats have gone back and forth between the Republican majority and the Democrat minority. Currently most of the Democrat state representatives are out of state to prevent a quorum in the legislature (the minimum number of elected representatives needed under state law to conduct business) and thus to prevent a vote on the new districts. State officials are trying to get the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) involved to arrest the Democrats and haul them back to Texas. There is no law, state or federal, that would allow that. The missing Democrats have broken no laws. They are not criminals. If the president or any other administration official orders the FBI to get involved, then we know we are all in great danger. It will mean that the FBI has become another branch of the private army of the MAGA politicians. (Some may argue that the disguised undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] officials taking people off the street in unmarked vehicles are the other branch.)

The abuses are becoming bigger and they do not try to hide them or justify them anymore. Today in what I see as a test run for the rest of the country, Trump and his cronies took over the Washington D.C. police department, put FBI officers on the streets and began deploying National Guard troops in the city. Ostensibly, their actions are to fight crime, which comes as a surprise since the D.C. crime rate is at a thirty year low. In reality, I believe this is the first of many such moves to gradually take over the country’s “blue” cities with federal forces. They declared an “emergency” which allows such action. (Just like everything else that they are doing, be it the economy, immigration, deportations, tariffs, etc. etc. All of their actions utilize loopholes in the law that allow actions in “emergencies” that are not normally legal.)

Trump and his MAGA buddies always tout that “blue” cities are the most dangerous, crime ridden, awful places to live. By many accounts, that award should go to a “red” city — Memphis Tennessee. Which isn’t to say that crime is not a problem. One murder or rape is too many. But other cities in the top 15 according to the news outlet U.S. News and World Report, include St. Louis Missouri, Alexandria Louisiana, New Orleans Louisiana, Anniston Alabama, Little Rock Arkansas and Birmingham Alabama. New York City, Washington D.C. and other supposedly crime ridden cities are not on that list. According to data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2022 (the latest year available) the five states with the highest murder rates per capita were Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, New Mexico and Missouri. Interesting. Why isn’t the National Guard being called out to patrol their streets?

It’s all about power and suppressing political opposition. Crime is just an excuse.

Well, at least it isn’t all bad. At least Trump is bringing a war criminal who is a pariah who would be arrested in most countries in the world to Alaska so that he can give Russia Ukraine without the good people in Ukraine giving their consent. Well maybe it will fulfill his fantasy of winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

I hope that the Almighty can get us all out of this mess.

There Is A Major Storm On The Horizon

Posted: June 5, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As we all ponder the significance to our country of the many protests and responses to the horrific murder of Mr. George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, some local issues with national importance may be overlooked.  In the end, all politics is local as former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once opined.  In each locality and municipality we can work to improve our local community relationships and to ferret out the institutional racism that most citizens must now recognize.

Most striking to me in the video chronicling Mr. Floyd’s murder is the unabashed, even nonchalant way in which the officer pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck and held it there for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.  It took my breath away to realize that the officers were equally unabashed at knowing numerous people were recording their actions even as those civilians pleaded with the officers to let him breathe.  The officers just did not care.  Clearly, they thought that there would be no retribution for their actions.  There was no shame.  While I firmly believe that by far the vast majority of law enforcement personnel are good people that do the right thing, in this case there must have been a climate in the Minneapolis police force that gave these officers a sense that there were no personal consequences to their actions.

In that vein, the climate in Washington D.C. is like a powder keg waiting for a spark to set it off.  As in most cities, demonstrations have been quite peaceful, interrupted by periodic looting and destruction to buildings perpetrated by petty criminals and a small group of wing nut anarchists from both ends of the ideological spectrum.  Yet, this is also a city problem that may have national repercussions.

You would not know that nearly all of the protests in the district, and indeed around the country, were peaceful if you only listened to the impeached Worst President Ever and all around vile human being Donald J. Trump or his side kick Attorney General William Barr.  To me, the unprovoked attack on peaceful demonstrators assembled in Lafayette Square last Monday in the District, using rubber bullets, flash bang explosives and chemical weapons was a dangerous turning point.  The only objective was to provide a photo-op for the president to strut around and hold up a Bible in front of historic St. John’s Church in a manner that seemed to convey that it was some symbolic object with which he was unfamiliar.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”  — of unknown origin.

Many of you have been to Washington D.C., either as tourists or because you live or work there.  Still, it is worth reviewing the local political relationships to totally understand the danger inherent in the current situation.  Washington is used to demonstrations.  They happen all of the time.  Many of them occur in Lafayette Square directly across (a closed) Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.  The Washington Police Department (officially the Metropolitan Police Department) is well trained and used to dealing with demonstrators.  Here is the problem.  The MPD does not have jurisdiction over the federal portions of the district.  A plethora of federal law enforcement agencies have that jurisdiction depending on the situation.  Additionally, Washington D.C. has a mayor and city council, but under the Home Rule Act passed by Congress in December 1973, any laws, regulations, actions by the city government and just about anything else that the Congress or federal government does not like can be over-ruled or thrown out.  Indeed the federal government moved to federalize the MPD this week before vigorous political push back put that on temporary hold.

So here is the set up as I write. It is a very fluid situation that could change for the better or worse on short notice.  The mayor and MPD in the district essentially have been shut out of dealing with their own citizens and controlling their own streets.  The federal government, under the direct personal control of Mr. Trump’s very own Luca Brasi, Attorney General Barr, has taken over the city.  As documented by the Washington Post, Washington is now an occupied city.  There are at least sixteen federal law enforcement and military agencies with thousands of people on the ground.  These agencies range from the obvious such as the FBI to the less obvious where agencies have been deputized and given unique authorities outside their charters to patrol the streets and make arrests including the Bureau of Prisons, the DEA, the ATF, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, to name a few.  None of these organizations normally operate in the district to police the streets and many do not have training to manage peaceful demonstrations.  More ominously, many have been recorded as being in riot gear without name badges, insignia or organizational badges.  Never a good sign.

Additionally, 3300 National Guard troops from ten states are operating in the district.  This is in addition to the 1200 National Guard troops from the district that are under federal control, rather than local.  In the fifty states governors control the National Guard unless they are federalized in extreme conditions.  The mayor of Washington has no control over the Guard coming from her own city.

Wait!  There’s more!

1,600 regular Army troops from Ft. Bragg North Carolina and Ft. Drum New York are deployed in military bases within a 15 minute drive of downtown Washington.  Secretary of Defense Mark Esper declared that he would not allow U.S. military forces to be used against Americans on the streets of the nation’s capital and ordered them back to their home bases.  Within hours the president overrode that order and they remain in the D.C. area.

For what purpose, you may ask, does the city of Washington need 4500 Guard troops, 1600 regular Army troops and several thousand federal law enforcement agents?  Good question, as the demonstrations in Washington have been generally peaceful and while large, not as big as in many other cities across the land.

There is one purpose and one purpose only.  They are being used as political campaign talking points by Mr. Donald J. Trump so that he can say that he is “tough” and that the only way to deal with “domestic terrorists” (as of yesterday the FBI stated that they have no evidence of any terrorists among the protesters) is to “dominate” them.  This while he sits in his basement and fortifies the White House — the People’s House — with extra defenses well beyond the grounds, and speaks of “vicious dogs” waiting to get at the demonstrators like some third world despot.

It is political theater.

But political theater with a cost.  Not only does it trample the First Amendment rights of citizens to assemble peacefully to protest against policies — and yes, politicians — of which they disapprove, it significantly increases the mistrust on all sides and with so many elements at play it could easily blow up into a major tragedy where numerous civilians are injured or killed in the ensuing melee.  It also puts law enforcement and troops in difficult situations that may cause retaliation and injury.

I put the heaviest blame on Congressional Republicans.  Most cannot be found anywhere that will speak up against Mr. Trump’s boast to use American troops against American citizens.  There is video available of reporters trying to get a comment from a large array of “name” Congressional Republicans.  They should be embarrassed and hope that the tape gets lost.  Most shuffled off while mumbling that they did not know anything about it.  Some proclaimed they could not comment because they were late for lunch.  Others just tried to pretend they did not hear the question.  Yesterday, only Republican Senators Murkowski (Alaska) and Romney (Utah) finally spoke publicly against the use of troops in our cities.  Shameful.

God help us if American Guardsmen or Army troops open fire on American citizens.  I fear that we are not out of danger of that happening.  In recent days former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, several former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and numerous Admirals and Generals have raised serious objections to the president’s boasts that he will send “thousands and thousands of heavily armed military personnel” to stop the “rioting.”  All military personnel that I knew throughout my 28 year career in the naval service would join me in saying that we signed up to to defend the Constitution and to protect the American people, not to fight our neighbors in our cities’ streets.

There is no organized demonstration scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday 6 June.  That is to say no one organization is planning for people to take to the streets like with the Women’s March.  However, local media and social media are buzzing with news that people are going to come to Washington tomorrow in what could be one of the largest demonstrations so far.  The MPD Chief is on record with his concern that it could be one of the largest the city has ever seen.  More important than whether it is big, bigger or biggest is how the demonstrators and federal law enforcement forces face off against each other.  Pray that it is peaceful but it has all the ingredients of a disaster.

As many of you know, I have worried for three years as to what lengths Mr. Trump will go to consolidate his power.  His autocratic tendencies are well documented.  He feels invincible after no one has stopped his relentless assault on our national norms and values.  As an expert opportunist, it will not take much for him to make good on his promise to send troops into our streets to show that he is “very strong.”  It helps him to successfully deflect from his total screw up in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.  Once the Army is deployed in Washington, what happens next?  Where does he stop?  How does it end?  What if he loses the election and claims it was due to fraud?  These are dangerous times.

I have faith in my fellow citizens.  I have faith in our collective values.  We will survive the struggle.  In the short run, let’s hope that cooler heads prevail.