Chicago will find out
Trump declares war on Chicago. Not metaphorically.
President Donald Trump posted a meme on social media Saturday saying that Chicago “will find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” as the city’s officials brace for an immigration crackdown.
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the post reads. Trump signed an executive order Friday to rebrand the Pentagon as the “Department of War.”
As people have been saying for months, this isn’t the approach to fascism, this is the thing itself.
Rep. Mike Quigley, who represents part of Chicago, said Saturday afternoon on CNN that the post is an example of Trump “edging more and more toward authoritarianism.”
Edging??? This is jumping in with both feet.
Please, everyone, look at the meme and tell me the m*therf*cker isn’t out of his mind:
https://crooksandliars.com/files/imagecache/full_800/primary_image/25/09/chipocalypse.jpg.png
If he’s off his rocker, he should be the Marlon Brando character.
He’s off his rocker, certainly, but he is also exceedingly dangerous. He is hoping that the infliction of masses of ICE agents on Chicago will provoke a response that will allow him to call in the National Guard (from Red states) as well as the military. And not only Chicago – other Democrat-held cities as well. A pre-run for the mid-term elections, people like the excellent Marc Elias, as well as at least one member of very conservative Cato Institute, are saying, where on the pretext of ‘election fraud’ he will use troops so that he can steal elections, and also for the presidential election in 2028. It really is not funny. As Mark Elias says on the Brian Tyler Cohen Youtube channel, everybody needs to take this very seriously indeed:
https://youtu.be/c5VfVnyTUW4?si=P5tOVYh1pkcZVP0a
Shades here of Oscar Wilde, from The Importance of Being Earnest:
Except that any electoral loss by Trump cannot be explained by Trump being careless, or less popular, or less worthy than any rival. He has to have been the most carefully popular worthy president ever in the history of any country, on any planet, in any universe.
So that leaves only fraud: rattling around mindlessly in his mind; I mean head.
I don’t know why the hell I thought that photo aka meme was funny yesterday.
Oh, I’m sorry, Ophelia — that wasn’t aimed at you. I came across people laughing about it elsewhere on the internet, and saying things “Oh, it’s just silly old Donald trolling again”.
No no, don’t be sorry Tim – I didn’t think you meant me. I really am baffled at myself. I suppose it was the absurd Hollywood aspect along with the absurd playacting tough guy from the draft dodger, but I no longer find it the least bit funny.
Ophelia, I thought it was funny when I first glimpsed it —because I thought it was a satire created by someone else. But no, Trump did it. The fruitcake himself.
Hitler in clown shoes.
Hitler in clown shoes, or Trump self-portrayed (?) as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, with his classic line from Apocalypse Now: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Der Fuhrer Drumpf with his new Department of War is apparently totally ignorant of the irony: the Vietnam War was a total defeat for the US, divided American society like nothing since the Civil War roughly 100 years before, and caused former Defence Secretary Robert S. McNamara a bitter but belated realisation that all along it had been a colonial war, just as the US Civil War was before it. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War )
Trump thinks he’s following some script that makes him the hero. I don’t think for a minute that he’s writing the script himself, even though he’s under this delusion. But he’s a puppet. He is so easily led and fooled, though at the same time erratic and unpredictable. And he’s a puppet with a huge, mindless, devoted following, something that any successor is unlikely to inherit or win. He might be a fucking moron, but he’s MAGA’s fucking moron. AS long as they’re careful, the people in the background can still do lots of things to dismantle the country and remake it the way they want.
His handlers are probably suggesting things they want him to do, and/or running with those ideas of his that are consistent with their own goals. Trump is a perfect cover, because he’s always said crazy shit, and never taken responsibility or blame for anything. As long as they keep him occupied with crayons and Sharpies, they can get him to sign off on just about anything, as long as someone can convince him it was his idea in the first place.
Trump is the train on which dictatorhip is riding into America, but he can’t live forever. Those behind the scenes are likely already working on plans for his ending and its sequel. The only thing that will ruin his plans are if he dies a natural death too soon. Trump has to live long enough (or be allowed to live long enough) for Vance to get to have two full terms of his own (assuming that this part of the Constitution is still in effect, and they still want to go to the bother of keeping up the appearance of legality). If Trump’s death (natural or orchestrated) can be arranged so that it can be blamed on “leftists” or anyone who can be remotely branded “leftist”, then this can be used as a Reichstag Fire Moment, assuming that the powers behind the scenes haven’t already used some other event for the same purpose. An assassination by “internal enemies” would give them an excuse (and undoubtedly MAGA support) for martial law, suspending of elections, you name it. Trumps final role would be Martyr for the Cause. This scenario is much cleaner for the forces of dictatorship than if Trump becomes too much of a nuisance, embarassment, or loose canon wrecking their plans.
I’m sure there’s something in place for the possibility of Trump the puppet becoming too much of a liability before it’s convenient to bump him off, though given how much MAGA is willing to accept, I can’t see any line that Trump could cross that would cost him the support of his base. The question beomes what happens when the interests of MAGA and those pulling Trump’s strings part company?
Am I cynically paranoid enough yet?
Omar – a mashup of Hitler in clown shoes AND Trump playacting as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore. Nauseating enough to slay a T-Rex.
YNnB:
I would watch out for grassy knolls on the Dallas-Kennedy model being set up wherever he is likely to go.