Sarah Kendzior on the real danger:
1) Yes, Trump knows what Project 20205 is. No, he likely doesn’t care, because policy is a thing other people do while he steals money and ensures impunity for himself and his backers.
2) Trump is not an ideologue. He is a bulldozer used by two GOP-linked networks that often collaborate.
3) The first network is made of hard right-wing ideologues that have been gradually implementing a neo-fascist US since the Reagan era, chipping away at courts, regulations, rights, etc. This is the Project 2025 network.
4) The second network is transnational organized crime, the network in which Trump is most at home. Their goal is to collapse the US and strip it and sell it for parts, much like the oligarch wars that followed the collapse of the USSR. This network has been active for decades as well. Its dynamics and Trump’s role are laid out in my book HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT.
5) Both networks contain fanatics of varying faiths who deploy rhetoric with apocalyptic overtones. Some are true messianic believers. Others exploit religion for financial and political gain.
7) Blackmail, threats, and bribery play a role in solidifying their power, but many officials are simply complicit, including in the Democratic Party.
8) The two networks may clash at some point, depending on whether their goal is American autocracy or collapse. Either way, Americans will get some form of mafia state kleptocracy, which is what we have already.
So. We’ve got that to look forward to.
Comments
4 responses to “Not an ideologue but a bulldozer”
One of the great fallacies about Trump is “he won’t really implement that conservative policy, he doesn’t actually care about that stuff.”
The thing is, he literally doesn’t care about that stuff. Meaning that sure, he doesn’t personally give a shit about, say, a nationwide abortion ban, but:
1) He’ll do it to reward his supporters;
2) It’ll happen because he appoints people to executive branch positions and judgeships who DO care about this stuff, and he ain’t paying attention and isn’t going to overrule them.
Trump only cares about avoiding the worst extremes of the conservative movement to the extent that he thinks it affects his electoral chances. And soon, he won’t care about that at all.
Re the Trump assassination attempt:
Violence has no place in democratic politics; vide the fact that dictatorships throughout history have used it, or the mere threat of it, to control people. But when Trump as the loser in an electoral contest, and without a shred of evidence, claimed that it was rigged and stolen from him, and encouraged a crowd of marching protestor-sympathisers to create mayhem in the Capitol, he put himself in no position to complain if what he approved of then has come round to bite him on the arse.
What goes around, comes around.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-vp-vance-rubio-7c7ba6b99b5f38d2d840ed95b2fdc3e5
Well that and his official policy has been “anyone who wants a gun no matter what must be allowed to have one”. I’m betting the shooter’s weapon is a legal one since it probably wasn’t gang related.
Regarding the Trump assassination attempt – the only thing we can be sure about is that it was by the CIA.
We know it was by the CIA because the bastard’s still alive.