Trial Balloon for a Coup?

[Elixir]

This rings true - it sure looks like a large-scale power-grab is in process.

Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours



"Trump was, indeed, perfectly honest during the campaign; he intends to do everything he said, and more. This should not be reassuring to you.
The regime’s main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.
The inner circle is actively probing the means by which they can seize unchallenged power; yesterday’s moves should be read as the first part of that.
The aims of crushing various groups — Muslims, Latinos, the black and trans communities, academics, the press — are very much primary aims of the regime, and are likely to be acted on with much greater speed than was earlier suspected. The secondary aim of personal enrichment is also very much in play, and clever people will find ways to play these two goals off each other."

 

[Trausti]

 

[southernhybrid]

I'm sorry to disagree but I think that group is far to stupid to stage a coup. I also have more faith in Americans than you do. I don't think we will roll over or back down that easily. We have the smart people on our side. Stupid can't prevail for too long. It will be a rough road but I think it's more likely that Trump will have a meltdown and be removed from office. Either that, or we will have four awful years of incompetent government, lots of damage will be done but it won't last forever. At least that's how I see it.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Even the Koch brothers are unhappy with Trump. And their billions of $ are real. They could probably buy an army.

 

[Elixir]

I'm sorry to disagree but I think that group is far to stupid to stage a coup.

There will be no "staging" of course. It will be an insidious takeover, comprised of "small" moves like installing Bannon in the Security Council. Trump is an idiot - that doesn't mean Bannon is an idiot. Nor are Spicer, Cuntway or Mitch McConnell.

I also have more faith in Americans than you do.I don't think we will roll over or back down that easily.

I'm pretty sure there won't be any easy backing down - I expect it to get ugly.

We have the smart people on our side. Stupid can't prevail for too long. It will be a rough road but I think it's more likely that Trump will have a meltdown and be removed from office. Either that, or we will have four awful years of incompetent government, lots of damage will be done but it won't last forever. At least that's how I see it.

I largely agree with that. It a matter of how long and how much damage is done, and how much of that damage is reversible. But the worst thing we can do is what Trausti's post suggests: ignore the obvious warning signs. Take a lesson from the 1930s! Only a fraction (widely estimated at about a sixth of the population) was opposed to what was taking place in Germany at the time; it won't be so easy to quell the voices of the majority of Americans who oppose the Trump regime. So I don't expect America to end up as a bombed-out shell of its former self like Germany did. But the same processes are at work here, and the damage will be extensive. It can only be mitigated by vigilance, and vigilance in the face of the frenetic pace of the Trump regime's transgressions will be increasingly difficult.

 

[RavenSky]

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says State Department officials have been instructed not to discuss President Trump’s temporary travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations with Congress.

“I don’t know the reason,” he told reporters Monday. "Maybe perhaps they’re still kind of working through how this is going to apply.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/317006-rubio-state-asked-not-to-talk-travel-ban-with-congress

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Where's the long form birth certificate???!

 

[Crazy Eddie]

That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.
Yesterday was the trial balloon for a coup d’état against the United States. It gave them useful information.

It kind of jumped out at the page at me that this is exactly the kind of shit one usually sees in third world countries (say, Iran in the 1970s or Iraq prior to Saddam, or even South Vietnam before and during the war) that are usually associated with the presence of a puppet government. Said puppets often have an air of arrogance or incompetence and an at best fleeting respect for proper procedures or the rule of law. They simply do what they're ordered to do by their handlers abroad and "fuck anyone who complains."

Not saying that Trump is a Putin sockpuppet, but he does kind of ACT like one.

 

[bilby]

Power doesn't rest with the constitution, nor with the law, nor even with the President.

Power ultimately rests with the enforcers of the rules - if the courts say one thing, and the president says another, the decision about what actually happens is made by the people tasked with choosing which of these two parties they should obey.

When different enforcement agencies (or agents) choose differently, you have civil war, or at the very least, an attempted coup d'etat.

In principle, law enforcement agencies should defer to the rulings of the judiciary. In practice, some agencies - such as Homeland Security - have been established in such a way as to make deference to the President more likely. This was a vaguely dangerous, but non-urgent, issue. Until the oval office was taken over by a narcissistic egomaniac. At which point it is likely too late to do much.

Welcome to 1933 1984 2017

Of course, there's always the option for the people to ignore the law enforcers. But the law enforcers generally don't need to worry about the people - they are poorly organized, and unlikely to act en masse until it is far too late.

 

[Mumbles]

Seen it, ELixer. Looks scary, right?

Now, take a bit of a breath.

Here's a response that also fits, and works a bit more for what wse know about Toupee Fiasco.

Weak and Incompetent Leaders act like Strong Leaders

 

[braces_for_impact]

We have an egomaniac with low intelligence and an even lower emotional IQ being pulled into several directions at once by his inner circle, as all of them try to manipulate Trump into the direction they desire. This of course includes Bannon, who somehow thinks that only populism can defeat Islamism, and is deeply bigoted and misogynistic to boot. Priebus (representing establishment Republicans) that see Trump as their chance to finally implement all their wet dreams in governance. Pence, who will gladly use Trump to get that shiny new theocracy he's always wanted, Kelly Anne Conway who still to this day can't believe her god damned luck stumbling into her job, and a whole metric fuck ton of millionaires and billionaires that somehow still don't have enough money, and want LOTS more of it, hopefully at the expense of everyone else that are really just wasting what they see as their resources.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

From the holocaust museum:

http://boingboing.net/2017/01/30/handy-checklist-for-people-int.html