Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 101st edition. The Vanadal in the museum.

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 101st edition. The V...: 

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 101st edition. The Vanadal in the museum.

Of all the countries in the world, we and we only have any need to create artificially the patriotism which is the birthright of other nations.

Agnes Repplier, Americanism, in The Atlantic, 1916.

 

A letter from the illegitimate Trump occupational regime in the Oval Office to the Smithsonian:

The Honorable Lonnie G. Bunch III

Secretary, Smithsonian Institution

1000 Jefferson Dr SW

Washington, DC 20560

Subject: Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials

Dear Secretary Bunch,

We wish to begin by expressing our appreciation for the brief tour you gave us recently of the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and by acknowledging your work on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the Institution’s role in shaping public understanding of American history and culture. We are completely aligned with your statement that the Smithsonian is “a welcoming place of knowledge and discovery for all Americans.” We are grateful that you and the Board of Regents have expressed your commitment to the non-partisan, educational mission of this great institution.

As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Nation’s founding, it is more important than ever that our national museums reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story. In this spirit, and in accordance with Executive Order 14253, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, we will be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions. This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.

This review is a constructive and collaborative effort — one rooted in respect for the Smithsonian’s vital mission and its extraordinary contributions. Our goal is not to interfere with the day-to-day operations of curators or staff, but rather to support a broader vision of excellence that highlights historically accurate, uplifting, and inclusive portrayals of America’s heritage.

The review will focus on several key areas:

1. Public-facing Content: A review of exhibition text, wall didactics, websites, educational materials, and digital and social media content to assess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals.
2. Curatorial Process: A series of interviews with curators and senior staff to better understand the selection process, exhibition approval workflows, and any frameworks currently guiding exhibition content.
3. Exhibition Planning: A review of current and future exhibitions, with particular attention to those planned for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
4. Collection Use: Evaluation of how existing materials and collections are being used or could be used to highlight American achievement and progress, including whether the Smithsonian can make better use of certain materials by digitizing or conveying to other institutions.
5. Narrative Standards: The development of consistent curatorial guidelines that reflect the Smithsonian’s original mission.

Initially, our review will focus on the following museums. Additional museums will be reviewed in Phase II.

• National Museum of American History
• National Museum of Natural History
• National Museum of African American History and Culture
• National Museum of the American Indian
• National Air and Space Museum
• Smithsonian American Art Museum
• National Portrait Gallery
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Materials Request

To initiate this process, we respectfully request that each of the museums listed above designate a primary point of contact and provide the following materials to our team (including for online content):

1. 250th Anniversary Programming
   1. Exhibition plans, draft concepts, and event outlines related to America 250.
   1. Supporting materials such as proposed artwork, descriptive placards, exhibition catalogs, event themes, and lists of invited speakers and events.
2. Current Exhibition Content
   1. Catalog and programs for all current and ongoing exhibitions, including budgets.
   1. Digital files of all wall didactics, placards, and gallery labels currently on display.
3. Traveling and Upcoming Exhibitions
   1. Full index of scheduled traveling exhibitions (2026-2029).
   1. Proposals, projected schedules, and preliminary budgets for upcoming exhibitions over the next three years.
4. Internal Guidelines and Governance
   1. Curatorial and staff manuals, job descriptions, and organizational charts.
   1. Documentation outlining the chain of command for exhibition approvals, scheduling, and content review.
   1. Internal communications or memos pertaining to exhibition or artwork selection and approval processes.
5. Index of the Permanent Collection
   1. Access to an inventory of all permanent holdings.
6. Educational Materials
   1. Teacher guides, student resources, and supplementary educational content linked to current exhibitions.
7. Digital Presence
   1. URLs and descriptions of official museum websites and exhibition-related microsites.
8. External Partnerships
   1. A list of active partnerships with outside contributors including artists, historians, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations.
9. Grant-Related Documentation
   1. Copies of grant applications and funding agreements tied to past or current exhibitions, particularly those that influence content or presentation.
   1. Current artists featured in museum’s galleries that received a Smithsonian grant.
10. Surveys and other evaluations of visitor experience
    1. Responses to surveys and other forms of evaluating the experience of visitors to the Smithsonian’s museums and users of digital content.

Timeline

To ensure clarity and coordination across all parties involved, we have developed the following implementation timeline:

Within 30 days of receipt of this letter, we anticipate:

• Each museum to submit all requested materials outlined in the first four bullet points above, including current exhibition descriptions, draft plans for upcoming shows, America 250 programming materials, and internal guidelines used in exhibition development.
• Review of America 250 exhibition and program planning and connect with curators and staff about their specific proposals.
• A staff liaison from each museum will be designated to serve as the primary point of contact throughout the review process.
• Our team will begin on-site observational visits, conducting walkthroughs of current exhibitions to document themes, visitor experience, and visual messaging.

Within 75 days:

• Museums are asked to submit the remaining requested documentation (items 5 through 10), including promotional literature, grant data, educational materials, and guided tour content.

• Our team will begin scheduling and conducting voluntary interviews with curators and senior staff. These conversations will help us better understand each museum’s goals and the broader curatorial vision guiding the institution.
• Each museum should finalize and submit its updated plan to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary and ensure coordination with the White House Salute to America 250 Task Force to align messaging and public engagement.

Within 120 days:

• Museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials.

If all benchmarks are met on schedule, we anticipate completing our review and preparing a final report for your review in early 2026. This report will include museum-specific assessments, institutional trends, and constructive recommendations for future exhibition strategy.

We view this process as a collaborative and forward-looking opportunity—one that empowers museum staff to embrace a revitalized curatorial vision rooted in the strength, breadth, and achievements of the American story. By focusing on Americanism—the people, principles, and progress that define our nation—we can work together to renew the Smithsonian’s role as the world’s leading museum institution.

We look forward to working alongside you and your team to ensure these iconic institutions remain vibrant, trusted, and inspiring for generations to come.

Lindsey Halligan

Special Assistant to the President and Senior Associate Staff Secretary

Vince Haley

Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council

Russell Vought

Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Management and Budget

The term "Americanism" goes way back.  I know that it was used by Theodore Roosevelt, for example, who as an advocate of it.  Indeed, he delivered more than one speech on the topic.  I'm a fan of Theodore Roosevelt, although less than I once was, and I don't admire his jingoistic advocation of Americanism, although it has to be realized that it came at a different point in our history, and tended to combat a growing sense of internationalism as well as "hyphenation" in various American identities.  

Starting particularly in the 1920s, Americanism began to change from a focus on celebrating an American identity, to being pro White Anglo Saxon Protestant.  Roosevelt delivered a speech to The Knights of Columbus at  Carnegie Hall on October 12, 1915, for example, which meant that the solidly American former President of Dutch ancestry, who was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, felt comfortable addressing a body of Catholics.  Indeed, that was somewhat the point as Catholics were by that time a  major voting block, but WASP American culture detested them and saw them as alien.  Roosevelt didn't want them to be alien, but American, meaning he was not only taking a stand against people identifying as "Irish American" or "German American" (two major Catholic groups), but also as White Anglo Saxon Protestants.  

Roosevelt was not a racist.

By Woodrow Wilson's administration, a lot of Americans were reviving the thought that if you were an American, you needed to be a WASP.  The Red Scare contributed to that in a major way.  The country illegally deported people simply for being on the radical left, including some who were American citizens.

Imagine. . . deporting an American for not being the right kind of American. . . sound familiar?

This sort of Americanism became strong in the 1920s, although roots of it were clearly there before, and it continued on into the 1930s as sort of a plant of some of the opponents of Franklin Roosevelt, although Americanism took a real hit during that time period.  It revived, however, in an ugly fashion after World War Two were it was once again associated with the far right.

It's been a feature of the revived post Reagan far right for some time, and has really been picked up by the populists supporting Trump. They cloak themselves with the flag and tattoo what they think are patriotic things on their forearms, not appreciating that our forbearers' might not necessarily be all that keen on their views.

Part of what is happening here is that Americans have frankly always had a difficult relationship with history, and they still do.  Americans as a group do not know their history well, and tend to reduce it to highlights, and often associate those highlights with patriotic bromides.  The Mayflower passengers were, for instance, a bunch of people seeking religious freedom in the American mind, not a minoritarian Protestant sect that neither the English or the Dutch were keen on tolerating, and they were not tolerant themselves (and, to add to it, most of the Mayflower passengers were not "pilgrims".  The American Revolution was all about and only about liberty, people believe, and didn't start off as a protest over tea tariffs (oh my) and have as a goal unrestrained settling of Native lands and forced conversion of the Quebecois to the Church of England.  Half the country seemingly believes that the Civil WAr wasn't about slavery, when that's all it was about.  The Winning of the West doesn't feature any uncomfortable colonial aspects of it. And the dropping of the Atomic Bomb was certainly moral.

Like many things in our current culture, the counter revolution going on here has its roots in a post Vietnam War revolution which really did go too far.  Early radicals, like those before the end of World War Two, often were in fact really radical, but they often really loved their country two.  One Marine Corps officer who won the Silver Star during the Second World War, for instance, was an avowed Communist who had fought in the Spanish Civil War.  Today people like Donald Trump and Chuck Gray would go into screeds about him, just as Trump has about Zohran Mamdani.  A person doesn't have to be, however, conservative or Christian to genuinely love the United States.

Going back, however, to the post Vietnam War Era, it seemingly was the case that during the war some on the American left came to actively detest their country, and as part of the general culture of the times, the band aid was ripped off of some of our problematic past.  For people with a serious interest in, and knowledge of, history, much of that was irritating, but there were those who were generally shocked by it as their knowledge of history apparently stopped at 4th Grade.  Even now, for example, I'll have people come up to me who are reading A People's History of the United States and cite something as if its a blisteringly knowledgeable new revelation.  I'm not interested in anarcho-socialist Zinn's interpretation of US history much, and I'm always skeptical of anyone who titles anything as "A People's" anything, as that claims too much for your work and yourself, but still, the "revelations" people come up with are topics that anyone who graduated from high school should have a pretty good command of.

But then, many Americans have no real command of history.  Entire events in American history, and world history, are unknown, I think, to the vast majority of Americans, which makes them easy targets for revisionist of the right and the left.

We're seeking a lot of far right revisionism going on right now.  This sort of stuff is part of it.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 100th edition. Downfall, Despair, and hoping for DeGaulle.

Labels: Charles de Gaulle, Christian Nationalism, Commentary, Culture, Culture Wars, Greed, National Conservatism, Patrick Dineen, Politics, Populism, R. R. Reno, Stupidity, The Second Trump Administration, United States, Zeitgeist

Lex Anteinternet: A 2025 Independence Day reflection.

Lex Anteinternet: A 2025 Independence Day reflection.: 

A 2025 Independence Day reflection.

I wasn't going to post a July 4th item this year, as I frankly feel pretty pessimistic about the state of the country.  But after reading some, I thought I ought to.

Independence Day marks, of course, the day 249 years ago when the Continental Congress declared the United States to be independent of the United Kingdom, which had founded the colonies.  It took over a year of pitched combat for Congress to reach that point.  What's really important about it, however, is not so much that the United Colonies declared independence from the mother country, but that it did it democratically and formed a democratic republic immediately.  Indeed, the country was acting as a democratic republic before it actually formed one officially.

From the very onset, the United States was a democracy.  I'll occasionally hear somebody who doesn't grasp that or understand it say "we're not a democracy, we're a republic".  That statements, which indeed was made by our serving Congress woman, shows a lack of understanding on what a democracy and a republic are.  We most definitely are a democracy, and always have been.

The initial structure of the country that was arrived upon by the founders of the country featured a very strong congress and a phenomenally weak president.  The US Constitution, it should be noted, is the country's second, not first, constitution.  The first one that featured that structure was the Articles of Confederation  It was John Hanson, not George Washington, who fulfilled the role of President at first.

The Articles didn't work well, but notable in them is that right from the onset the country was that, a country.  Some people will also occasionally claim that at first we were thirteen countries. That's nonsense.  We were, in fact, a putative country even before the Declaration of Independence, with the initial hope being that the country would be a union of fourteen, not thirteen, colonies.  The reluctance of the Quebecois to throw in with the virulently protestant colonies to their sound quashed that dream, with it setting the continuing tone that Canada wants nothing to do with being in the United States of America.  Nothing.

The Constitution of the US set us on an ongoing path which gives real concern to conservatives such as myself.  Right from the debate on the document there was a struggle between those who wanted to retain a weak national government and strong state governments.  States were, in fact, amazingly unrestrained in their powers early on.  In contrast, there were those who wanted a strong federal government and weak state governments.  The Federalist position, which was the more practical and realistic, ultimately won out, and it would have no matter what.  Even those who opposed Federalism found that they used its powers by necessity when they were in power.

That created, however, a structure in which the country converted the President of the Congress into the President of the United States.  Lacking a king, but remembering the model, the President occupied a position that vaguely recalled the monarch, in contrast to the British example in which the chief executive of the nation was and is a member of Parliament.  This worked well for a very long time, but it did put the US in a situation in which there existed a real possibility of a slow transfer of power to an executive divorced of the legislature.  

Indeed, expansion of executive power occurred nearly immediately.  It took a big jump during the Civil War, again by necessity, and it jumped again in the 20th Century.  Theodore Roosevelt expanded it as it suited his vigorous mindset.  Woodrow Wilson expanded it due to the Great War.  Franklin Roosevelt expanded it due to the emergency of the Great Depression and then World War Two.  Following World War Two the powers already expanded were thought normal, and again the Cold War seemed to make their retention necessary.  A President commited the country to a largescale war for the first time in the nation's history without a declaration of war when Truman sent forces into Korea.  This repeated itself when Johnson did the same with Vietnam.

Indeed, the disaster of the Vietnam War and the legacy of the Korean War caused Congress to attempt to claw back power with the War Powers Act.  The corruption of Richard Nixon resulted in Congress asserting its power as well.  But by the late 1960s the Democratic Party has also accommodated itself to revision of the national organic document, the Constitution, by a Supreme Court that simply made stuff up.  That accomodation started the development of the Democratic Party simply sitting on its hands and letting the courts rule to a large degree.  The Court became sort of an odd co chief executive, with the most egregious example being the absurd decision of Roe v. Wade, at least up until its progeny, Obergefell v. Hodges.

Abuses in the law, with Obergefell being the final example, and a Congress that simply accommodated itself to not really doing anything gave rise to the angered muddled populist far right, and the angry intellectual National Conservatives, the latter of which realised that the former was a plow mule that it could do its work with.  National Conservatives basically abandoned the concept of an expansive democracy in favor of a much more limited culturally correct one and took advantage of, and are taking advantage of, a chief executive whose mind is mush but whose ego is titanic.  They see him, effectively, as a "Red Caesar".

In the meantime, Mitch McConnell's Supreme Court began to hurl back to Congress the powers that it had dumped on the courts like city people dumping kittens on farms.  A Congress used to yapping but not doing anything was not prepared to exercise power once again, and very obviously still is not.  Much of what the Roberts Supreme Court has done in recent years really isn't radical at all, but its suddenly getting there, making decisions which are difficult not to view as seeking to empower the chief executive.

We can't tell where this will end up, and hence the pessimism. We may very well be in an era in which, when we look back a decade more hence, we will see a revived Congress that resumed its proper role, and a diminished Presidency, that's returned to its, even if that looks like something from, perhaps, the 1960s or 1970s.  Or we may seen an ineffective Congress and a nation ruled by a successor Red Ceasar who has more in common with Victor Orban than George Washington.

Perhaps we should be encouraged by the fact that the country has weathered previous existential threads to its democratic nature.  The War of 1812 presented one when a large portion of the country wanted nothing to do with the declared war and thought about leaving the infant nation.  The Mexican War saw something similar, and the Civil War, in which half the territory of the country attempted to leave in order to keep a large percentage of its population in chains.  World War One sparked further crises when it became unclear what the President's powers were in regard to a foreign war, and following the war the country acted wholly illegally towards those on the radical left.  During the Depression a right wing threat to the nation caused a putative coup to develop, the news of which was then suppressed.  Deep Communist penetration of the government in the 1930s and 1940s, was covered up in the 1950s and the reputation of the Congressman exposing it forever trashed, something his lack of restraint aided in.  The disaster of the Vietnam War and the following horror of Watergate caused many to feel that democracy in the US was dying.

Of course, we've never had a figure like Trump  before make it into the Oval Office.  The closest we've ever had to that was Jefferson Davis, in the Confederate White House, who at least was more genteel.  Huey Long was much like Trump, but of course he did not replace Franklin Roosevelt.

Still, there is reason for optimism.  Trump is not a popular figure.  He's wrecking conservatism which conservatives will have a hard time overcoming in the remainder of my lifetime, but there are signs that his bolt is now shot, in spite of his budget bill.  So much political capital was spent on that that it will bring the Democrats into power in Congress in 2026. They'll have to act like a Congress at that time.  Repairing the damage will take time, but perhaps not as much time as might be feared.  The populists may have done the country a favor by peeling back the lazy ineffectiveness of the pre 2016 Congress, and the National Conservatives may be doing the country a favor by restoring some of the basic elements of conservatism. They're both damaging the country enormously by being inhumane.

When the reign of the Red Ceasar ends, and I think that will be by this time next year, maybe  Congress will go back to its proper role and the gutless cowards of the GOP who have allowed this to occur will be retired in disgrace.  The country got over the Civil War.  There's hope it can get over this.

Lex Anteinternet: NO KINGS

Lex Anteinternet: NO KINGS: 

NO KINGS

This is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

A big cause of the American Revolution, as everyone knows, was Parliament's (not the King's) imposition of taxes on the colonies, which was done to help pay for the French and Indian (Seven Years) War.  They were, in modern parlance, value added taxes, which the colonist had no say in, and they were specifically directed, on tea.

"No taxation without representation" was the cry.

When, the following year, the Continental Congress got around to declaring independence the following year, they listed twenty five grievances they accused King George III of, those being:

• Grievance 1 "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

I think this charge can be levied against King Donald, but it is complicated by the fact that Congress is pretty much completely dysfunctional and has been for some time.

• Grievance 2 "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them." 
• Grievance 3 "He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only." 
• Grievance 4 "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, and also uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures." 
• Grievance 5 "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people." 
• Grievance 6 "He has refused for a long time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and convulsions within."
• Grievance 7 "He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands." 

The Trump administration's outright hostility to the foreign born is at a level not seen since the 19th Century, and which exceeds any level in any prior administration in the country's history.  Included in this is an assault on birth right citizenship, which is featured in the Constitution.

• Grievance 8 "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers."
• Grievance 9 "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."

Trump's attacks on the judiciary are certainly evidence of this.  Right now, the Administration is ignoring an order to return a wrongfully deported prisoner.

• Grievance 10 "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

DOGE.

• Grievance 11 "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures." 

Just last week came the news that the Trump administration has basically martialized the public lands along the Mexican border.

• Grievance 12 "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." 

See above and the use of the military for what the Border Patrol should properly be doing.

• Grievance 13 "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:"
• Grievance 14 "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

Again, see above.

• Grievance 15 "For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"
• Grievance 16 "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world".

Tariffs are accomplishing this.

• Grievance 17 "For imposing taxes on us without our consent:"

Tariffs again.

• Grievance 18 "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial:
• Grievance 19 "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:"

El Salvador prisons and Laotian deportation?

• Grievance 20 "For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries to render it at once an example and fit instrument 

This was directed at Quebec, but it could now pretty ably describe what Trump is doing in general.

• Grievance 21 "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:"

Again, see it above.

King Donald is repeating many of those same offenses, albeit in new forms, those being the ones emboldened.  Explanations, for the doubters, are provided above, but like British conservatives in the 1770s, they will not be able to see their own violations.

Perhaps nearly as distressing is a new development that I'm seeing in some Conservative quarters.

New York Times conservative columnists David Brooks called just recently for a "National Civil Uprising".

That's essentially a call for a massive act of civil disobedience, and frankly I think it has a good chance of happening.

And some are hinting at even more than that.

For decades, the Wayne LaPierre National Rifle Association fueled  the belief in the firearms community that the Second Amendment exists in order to allow civilians to fight Federal tyranny, if it came to that. That's really completely incorrect, as the text of the amendment clearly demonstrates:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Posted on Twitter with the words "It won’t be long until the proletariat remembers why we have the second amendment".  This is suddenly a place where some on the left and some on the right are frighteningly meeting.

The founders of the Republic didn't want to keep a large standing Army, which they regarded, rightly, as a threat to democracy.  The early land defense of the country, therefore, relied on state militias, which had the added ability to take on local problems without the necessity of a Federal army having to intervene.  After all, keep in mind that one of the cited reasons for the Revolution is that the English had kept large bodies of armed troops in the colonies.  

Posted on Blue Sky with "The 2nd Amendment exists for a reason. It was put in place to protect us against tyranny, even from our own elected officials. We have the right to stand up."

Standing armies are always a problem and the current era might very well be starting to demonstrate that.  Throughout the nation's history it usually didn't have large armies save in times of war, or leading up to war.  But since the onset of the Cold War it has.  Even now, in the post Cold War era, the Army is enormous compared to what it had been before World War Two.

Anyhow, the Second Amendment doesn't exist so that average people can take on a tyrannical government.  It exists so that states can take on the British, basically.  That hasn't stopped at least three decades of firearms owners being schooled in the thought that they might have take up arms against the government, with those claims uniformly coming from the right, although in the 1960s, there were those on the left who argued with some justification that oppressed minorities should arm to protect themselves.

Malcom X, who was a big proponent of the Second Amendment, looking out a window while holding a M1 Carbine.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm seeing anti Trump Conservatives suggest that the Second Amendment's  clauses have what I've already noted as a mistaken view.  That shows, I think, how far down the road of chaos we've gotten. We haven't seen anything like that since the Civil War.

Moreover, there's some discussion going on in the military right now over what the duties are of military officers if they are ordered to take an illegal action.  To some extent I think you can argue they already have been, with the Trump administration declaring the public lands along the Mexican border to be military reservations, but that actually has a long history.  At any rate, Angry Staff Officer, whose blog we link in here, has put up two items recently on the military duties to disobey illegal orders.  The Space Force has had one commanding officer relieved for criticizing J. D. Vance's territorially aggressive statements, something I'm sure she knew would occur when she made them.  While we'd have to see what would actually happen, I suspect there's a lot of back barracks discussions going on amongst officers about the point at which they refuse to obey an illegal order from Trump.

Anticipating the worst, from Twitter.

Trump is a disaster, bringing the worse instincts in people to the top, and excusing them. This will get worse, and worse, if the 25th Amendment doesn't come into play. The man is an stupid, ancient, narcissist who may very well be bordering on insane. If Congress acted now, and truth be known a near majority likely grasp it and are too chicken to do anything, the situation could be salvaged.

Lex Anteinternet: Some Grim Predications

Lex Anteinternet: Some Grim Predications: 

Some Grim Predications

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I still think that Vance will be President within 18 months of the inauguration.  Trump's clearly a demented, unhinged, fool who always had a defective narcissistic personality made worse by his declining mental status.  It's really impossible to ignore at this point, although the damage he does will be lasting.  Vance can't act immediately, as Trump put in sycophants and lackeys in his cabinet, but it's increasingly clear to non Maga Republicans that Trump's unhinged.  

Indeed, Vance acting quicker than 18 months, maybe even with in the first six months, is becoming an increasing likelihood. The nation will breath a sigh of relief no matter what Vance is like, as he isn't Trump, and by that time all the dirty work of firing government employees will have been done.

But I also think I can, at this point, see some other things happening with a high degree of probability, all of which depend to some degree on what Vance ultimately does, that will result from his administration, or occur during it. Some will surprise his supporters.  Here's what I think we're going to see, which the assumption being we're within the 18 month window, or perhaps that I'm wrong on that.  Indeed, if I'm wrong, the likelihood of these predictions goes up.

Note that predicting these events isn't the same as cheering them on, or hoping for them, or even remotely wishing for them. What I hope and pray is that God deliver the United States and grant to it what is his will.  I don't wish harm or disaster on anyone.  I think, at the end of the day, that Donald Trump is a demented old fool who deserves pity,  the nation that has chosen him as the Chief Executive is suffering from a sort of foolish dementia itself, and that all the proof that ever needs to be given on why people shouldn't be allowed to get massively rich has been given.

70% Chance

How solitary sits the city, 

once filled with people.

She who was great among the nations

is now like a widow.

Once a princess among the provinces,

now a toiling slave.

 Lamentations.

I'd give the following about a 70% chance of occurring.

Get ready for massive gun control (and worse).

Symbol of the Freedom Caucus, um, Nazi Germany's Sturmabteilung.

Eh?  With the NRA in Donny's pocket.

Yep.

The reason for this is pretty obvious.  Trump has no natural affinity for firearms, although apparently his son Eric does.  Trump's love for the NRA was because they loved him more than they loved their country, or anything else.  The NRA was and is his tool.  The NRA can thank Wayne LaPierre's leadership for that.*

But we're about to see some massive violence in American society, which gets to a couple of other predictions

Mass shootings, and by that I mean real ones, not ones where five people are shot up in a gang fight, are probably likely to break out here soon on an increased scale.  Political violence is about to occur.  You can't release 1,000 Brownshirts into society and not have violence break out and you can't routinely insult up to half the nation before somebody gets mad.

And sooner or later, some of that is going to be directed at Trump himself.

Of course, it already has. There's been two attempted assassinations of Trump already.  That's not going to stop, it will occur again.  

I'm not wishing that on him, or anyone else, but only a fool could deny that it might occur, or indeed that it will occur.  The level of tension is too high in the country for this not to start playing out, and Trump is making it worse on a daily basis.

The last President this hated was Abraham Lincoln, who was perhaps ironically hated by the same people who are MAGA today.  That's the last time the country was this divided, and that division resulted in John Wilkes Booth killing Lincoln.  Trump isn't comparable to Lincoln in any fashion, his own demented imagination aside, except for the level of hatred they both engender, and interestingly from the same classes.  It was probably nearly inevitable that somebody would take a shot at Lincoln, and it likely is the same in regard to Trump.

And frankly, like Booth going after Lincoln, the general trends fit the pattern, as do the sorts of personalities involved.

Leon Czolgosz

Leon Czolgosz killed William McKinley, whom Trump suddenly discovered, as Czolgosz was an angry unemployed anarchist and a member of a despised minority.  

We're about to see a dip in the economy, which I'd guess will be a massive recession, and there are going to be a lot of angry unemployed around.  For that matter, there are about to be a bunch of angry unemployed former Federal (and State) employees and we seemingly have a problem with angry semi employed veterans around right now.

Charles Whitman. . . he doesn't look like an unhinged killer, does he?

An angry radicalized veteran is what Lee Harvey Oswald was.  Charles Whitman was also a veteran. Indeed, they'd both been Marines. The country has spent the last several decades absolutely idolizing veterans to the point where we've seen at least three mass killing performed by them and barely took notice of that fact.  With the war in Afghanistan causing thousands of head injuries and a devotion to servicemen that's so profound that we excused their refusal to get vaccinated and have ignored service member presence at the January 6 insurrection, we're really setting ourselves up, something that's been amplified by the AR15 Effect.

And we're also in the process of making entire foreign and ethnic populations angry.  Palestinians who naively hoped for a less pro Israel administration now have a kook who proposes to take over Gaza and make it into a sort of Club Med.  Canadians openly boo the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events now every time they're held.  A hockey game in Montreal this past week showed at least one American hockey player nearly in tears.  The United States is experiencing a level of contempt not leveled at it since the height of the Cold War, when Communists nations and their fellow travelers displayed it.  And Trump has made vague threats against Iran, which has never had a problem with murdering people.

Shirhan Sirhan.

Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was a Palestinian who had formerly adored Bobby Kennedy, we might wish to remember.  The current goofball Secretary of Health and Human Services' father was running for the Presidency at the time he was murdered for his support of Israel.  That was at a time when the Muslim population of the United States, and the immigrant Middle Eastern population, was quite small in comparison to what it is today.  And Kennedy hadn't betrayed the misbegotten trust of an Islamic population the way Trump has.  Nor did Kennedy accuse anyone of eating cats and dogs, or create an environment in which Native Americans now carry their IDs out of fear of being expelled from their own country for looking too brown.

Truman's would be killers were members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, and we don't even usually think of the Puerto Ricans being all that angry.

Funny, by the way, with all the talk of adding a state, Trump doesn't mention Puerto Rico. . . I wonder why that is?

And added to that, Trump's targeted Mexican drug cartels.  For years some have been convinced that John F. Kennedy was "Paddy Wacked" by the Mafia or by Irish American mobsters working for the Mafia.  It seems to lack any real credibility, but if the mob had reasons to go after Kennedy, whose father had connections with bootleggers, who was going after them, surely the Mexican mobs have just as great of incentive, and frankly are much more violent.

Finally, and one that is admittedly unlikely, there are growing rumblings about a military strike on Trump.

Just the other day I saw an officer post an item which, while veiled, clearly argued that his fellow officers needed to be prepared to disobey illegal orders, basically like the members of the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York just did.  Okay, that's one thing. But then this past week I saw outright cries, from civilians, that the military oath to protect the country from foreign and domestic enemies applies to Trump, as he's a domestic, and maybe, a foreign enemy.

He may in fact be a foreign enemy, I'd note.  We've raised it here before, but now Time's raising it.

It is perfectly possible that Trump is a knowing Russian agent, in which case there's some sort of duty for somebody to do something, if not actually what's being urged.  On this we might note that the Army kept the Venona Files for decades before anyone knew it, and didn't really trust Franklin Roosevelt to know the truth about what was in it.  The Venona Files revealed that the U.S. Army was aware that people like Alger Hiss were Soviet spies, they just didn't feel they could get any traction on it, and for that matter Whitaker  Chamber's efforts to enlighted FDR outright failed.  The point is that the service, if Trump is a paid or compromised Russian agent, may very well know it, but be afraid at this point to act on it.  I wouldn't blame them for being afraid.

But, if that's the case, and of course we don't know that it is, it's worth noting that officers will act independently if they feel they have no choice or are obligated to.  That's what nearly caused the US and the USSR to nearly go to war over Berlin.  The officer in charge lacked clear instructions and was headed to war with the Soviets on one occasion when JFK was President before the clear instructions came in.  If the Service is stilling around with information that Trump is simply a Russian tool, and to an outside observer there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that he may very well be, it's not impossible that the service, or the CIA, might actually act.

Of course, the fact that Trump is still living is pretty good evidence that neither the military or the CIA actually have anything of this type on him or he'd already be dead.  If they had something, they probably would have done something by now.

On this topic, however, we might recall France.

France's politics became enormously polarized before World War Two, much like are own are, right now.  World War Two made the French far right ascendant.  Petain would have recognized the Project 2025 crowd pretty easily.  The Second World War put the French far right sort of in the trash can, from which its never emerged, but French politics didn't return to normal for decades.  One of the thing that occured in that context is that France fought two bitter colonial wars, one in Indochina and another in Algeria, in the decade following the Second World War.

DeGaulle's decision to pull out of Algeria lead to an internal anti DeGaulle movement inside of the French Army itself, the Organisation armée secrète.  The OAS not only opposed DeGaulle's decision to leave Algeria, it tried to kill him numerous times.  One such fictional attempt is the plot of the excellent book Day of the Jackal, which has been made into a movie twice.

The OAS was bitter about leaving Algeria, and not really happy about what happened in Indochina.  Of course, Algeria was an overseas department of France, so giving it up is sort of loosely analogous to leaving American Samoa or perhaps Puerto Rico, so the analay is strained.

Having said that, it was Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, who surrendered to the Taliban, something that Trump's deluded followers were easily distracted from, including those followers who served in Afghanistan.  But the fact remains we shed blood and then left, and now have a large population of veterans who served there.

And Trump is imperiling our relationship with Taiwan.  "Losing" China in the 1940s, is what caused the Republican Party of that era to be shaken out of its foreign policy slumber and lead directly to the McCarthy Era, which saw the first expressions of something resembling what we're now seeing, point being, if we "lose" Taiwan, it's going to shake something up.

And Trump's course seems likely to lead us from withdrawing to an 85 year commitment to the security of Europe.

None of this means a military coup or an internal strike on the Presidency is going to  happen, but all of it does put the overall violent situation that Trump has fostered into a very strange position.  Men who have spent 30 years dedicated to defending the West might not really take it that well if they're told to cozy up to a side they know to be the enemy.

What would happen if the military actually acted in this fashion?  I think we'd see far right riots for about a week, and that's about it.  Most of the far right is a pack of paper tigers.  Faced with a military action, or an action by a limited number of servicemen, they'll just accept it as the right thing to do and claim they were for it all along.

Back to civilian actors.

If all this seems far fetched, I've already seen two barely veiled calls for assassination on Blue Sky or Twitter.  People outright hoping somebody will kill Trump.  During the Super Bowl I heard several people either outright note what an assassination opportunity it was, or in the words of one person "what a John Wilkes Booth moment."

So where does this lead, if it happens?

If Trump survives the next attempt, he'll slap down an executive order banning wide classes of long arms and handguns, as well as orders massively curtailing civil liberties.  My guess is that most semi automatic long arms will be outright banned.  If Trump asks Congress to do it, the Democrats are already all in, and the dog like GOP will do exactly what Trump wants.  He'll probably simply ban handguns as well.

And, as noted, he'll curtail civil liberties.  In that sense, such a thing would be a gift to him.

And there's a good chance he'll do that when the next big mass shooting occurs.  It's probably already being worked out.

And what's the risk to him?  It's not like the NRA is going to suddenly turn its back on somebody they fanatically worshipped.  Hitler, to a degree, turned on the SA, but they didn't turn on him.  The NRA will roll over like a dog and come out for whatever he asks for.

If Trump doesn't survive, mass violence will break out in the Populist Storm Trooper camp who will blame the murder on the fantastical "deep state". They already believe they're freedom's vanguard in this fashion.  J. D. Vance will use the event to declare an emergency and then he'll do the same thing.  That will last for about a week, as noted, until Vance declares all is well.

Indeed, William McKinley, whom Trump so adores, provides an example.  McKinley's Vice President was  Theodore Roosevelt, who many in the  GOP feared as a dangerous radical.  Roosevelt wasted no time making the government his own.  The  Trumpite lackeys and Elon Musk will be shown the door, and we'll have National Conservatism, like it or not, and whether or not anyone voted for it.

The upcoming marginalization of Evangelical Christianity.

It's overdue anyhow. 

The theological underpinnings of Evangelical Christianity are too thin to withstand any sort of examination by anyone who cares to do it and a Christian religion that basically holds that anything you can do is okay, as long as you do it with a member of the opposite sex, is not very Christian.  But the linking of the anti democratic populist far right with Evangelical Christianity will be something that it can't endure when things blow up in this Administration's face, and that is going to happen.

Mike Johnson with his smarmy smile, and Trump closed eyed as if he is in deep thought will be what people remember when they lose their jobs and have no place to go.  Health and Wealth Christianity, which is contrary to the Gospel, won't have a long shelf life when you are poor and sick and somebody on television is yelling at you.  People who voted for Trump as he was "Godly" won't remember that when they're lining up for assistance that isn't there, and Musk has gone on to have five more children with three more concubines.

When the bloom is off the rose of populism, Evangelical Christianity is going to tank.

The bad thing, I suppose, is that a lot of people leaving it will just leave religion altogether.

We'll have troops coming home in body bags within a year.

I don't know from where, or when, but we will. This administration is too reckless not to get troops killed, and when inflation creeps up over 7%, which is only months away, it'll need a distraction.  Nothing distracts like war.

Trump has found plenty of countries to pick on.  My overall guess, however, is that he'll pick on one that seems like it can't do much, or he'll pick a fight with Iran, which really can.  A war against Iran is one that we frankly can't win, as wars end when the people you attack decide they're over.  The Iranians are never going to agree that we beat them.

If I'm right, the irony will be that there will be dead Americans coming home for decades, and frankly they'll be blood right here on our shores.  Iran has no problem with waging a terror campaign right here, and that will itself spark a bunch of civil repression here in the US.

The United States will return to democracy, but we'll be irreparably harmed.

The populists had and continue to have a real point about rule by unelected officials. There's been complaints about that for decades. The complainers didn't understand what they were complaining about, which was the rise of a large Federal government from 1932 on, and ironically a lot of the complainers will be the fist to suffer as agencies shrink.  When people in the Trump camp can't get Medicaid, and a lot of them are receiving it, or drive on pothole filled highways, they'll be getting exactly what they deserve.

But only 50% of the country was in the Trump camp during the election and only a fraction of them are hardcore.  The country will come back.

But it won't be the same.  Much of the damage will be permanent and those who voted for it should be reminded of it every year for the rest of their lives.

People believed that Trump was going to take on government waste, and some still believe it.  Mostly he's just cutting.  Trump and Musk are very wealthy men born into wealth.  For them, people suffering economic deprivation is an abstraction.  

The US will be eclipsed as a major power

Flag of the European Union, which may be about to eclipse us as a the Western power people listen to.

The US really entered the world stage with  World War One.  Under Trump, we're stepping off.

That is in fact what a lot of people want, they just don't want comes next.  The world now will be a bipolar one, with the European Community standing for what the US did, and China being its main opponent (but read below).  We'll dance to their tune.  People who thought that Trump was going to make America great again will find that it has become just a second rate power with none, and I mean none, of the claimed things that were going to be achieved, achieved.

There's always been an element of this in American thought.  There were those who were opposed to even getting ready for the Second World War.  The US entered World War One when German ambitions began to hurt us to the extent we could ignore them.  After World War Two the GOP went isolationist again rapidly until it began to hurt us pretty quickly.

Going isolationist again will hurt us, and quickly.  I think, as noted, it'll get us in a major war with China, Russia and South Korea.  The difference this time is that we're hated worldwide. We'll fight a lot of that on our own, and badly.

If there's an upside to this, and I don't really think that there is, it appears to be that Europe is going to resume its traditional role as the dominant Western force.  Americans, for the first time in decades, are going to have to get used to being also rans.  In fact, in this context, it might be for the first time in US history where we basically have a seat at the children's table and nobody pays that much attention to us as we're not adults.  In a way, that's a lesson that we failed to learn somewhere and its time to learn it. Time to grow up.

If that's correct, and it seems likely that the National Conservatives are panicking it is, as they're sending Musk and Vance to try to lecture Europeans, it'll mean that much of the the external things National Conservatives are working on won't matter.  The US view on climate change, won't matter.  US tax policies, won't matter.  

We'll basically be like what Brazil current is, in regard to the rest of the world.

On a related item, within a few years of Trump's death, which will be soon anyway you look at it, he'll be such a despised figure in American history that his grave will be a frequent target of vandalism.  The government won't really bother, after a time, to guard it.  He'll be held in contempt, including by those who now fanatically worship him.  Americans will regard those who voted for him as contemptible fools, including the majority of people who voted for him, who won't admit that they did so.

50% Chance

Let all their evil come before you

and deal with them

As you have so ruthlessly dealt with me

for all my rebellions.

My groans are many,

my heart is sick.

Lamentations.

Some more remote possibilities, but not all that remote

We'll be in a type of world war.

Chinese poster from 1971. The Chinese have long memories.  Americans have the memories of gnats.

And I don't mean figuratively, I mean actually.

Somewhere around here is a post that predicted, at the time it was posted, that we would be at war with China within, I thought, about five years.  We aren't at that mark yet. 

China wants Taiwan and have been openly planning to invade it for years.  The Biden Administration was fairly openly planning on the defense of Taiwan.  Japan and the Philippines expect it to occur as well.

Trump is now punishing Taiwan economically, and China is going to move to get it.  The Chinese are not dumb, and my guess is that they don't figure that Trump will be around long either.  

North Korean Army poster.  North Korea is desperate, and it undoubtedly regards Trump as a complete doofus.

Trump's a demented doofus who is destroying the American government.  This would be the ideal time for China to act.  And if they do, and I think they will, North Korea will attack South Korea shortly thereafter.  Whatever has gone on or is occuring in Eastern Europe, Russia will launch a massive fully mobilized campaign against Ukraine, and maybe the Balkans and Poland.  You can easily see a scenario where China attacks Taiwan and North Korea attacks South Korea later that same week, and Russia has a major offensive occuring within a month.

Russian poster equating the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the Soviet victory in World War Two.

Indeed, if I led China, and the morals of the Chinese leadership, I'd do it. The balance of risks is on their sides, and will even be more on their sides after Elon Musk takes the meat cleaver to the military.

What will Trump do?  Probably babble and vacillate.  He'll yap for about a week on the basis that world leaders listen to him.  After a week, the situation will be grave for Taiwan and we'll be in an all out war in South Korea.  We'll act then, but we'll have lost a week which means when we do, we're going to take a naval pounding.

Trump, it might be noted, didn't answer his country's call when it came in Vietnam.  Musk managed not to be conscripted into the South African Army by migrating to Canada.

I think our chances of winning such a war are very slim.

A war like that isn't avoidable and we'll get in it.  Probably with Vance as head of state as Trump's escorted out the door babbling.

Trump's going to defy the courts

Napoleon, who claimed he was acting to save the country and went on to get a lot of people killed.  Don quoted him just the other day in what is likely a prelude to ignoring the courts.  Napoleon ended up in exile and was likely murdered by poisoning.

This is pretty obvious and will happen soon.

The thing is, this won't go well, and will prove to be one of those things he'll move away from quickly.  Courts have a lot more power than they did in times past and they really aren't afraid of Trump.  Once Federal Marshall start slapping people in prison or impounding assets, things will change.

40%  Chance

Trump's revealed to be an active Russian asset.

Whitaker Chambers warned for years the US government had been penetrated by Soviet agents and was widely derided. Turns out, he was right.  Chambers also did not expect democracy to be able to prevail against Communism.

There's no doubt that Trump is a Russian asset.  Indeed, there's no doubt that he's working out great for Russia, the question still remains why.

There has always been something really odd here that people just haven't been able to pin down.  He could just love Russia because he does, but he could be dancing to their tune as  they have something on him.

If the Russians do have something on him, things can only be kept secret so long. Trump has a lot of enemies including people he now thinks are his friends. What does Musk know that hte rest of us don't?  

What does the CIA and the military, or MI6?

And what does Putin?

When Putin dies, and he's an old man himself, things could suddenly change in Russia and the information open up.  Or somebody else could reveal  it.  If it breaks open, MAGA will deny it.  Indeed, there are still Democrats who pretend Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter  White, and the Rosenbergs weren't working for the Soviets.  But with enough evidence, famously fickle American public opinion can turn, and suddenly.

What Trump holds on politicos opens up.

There are somethings in the political world that are frankly just too weird right now not to have a backstory.

It can't possibly be the case that every Republican in Congress does what Trump wants as they love him.  Not hardly.  And it can't be that they all do it as they feel its for their long time gain with the voters.

Politics have always been dirty and people carry secrets around with them.  William G. Harding was screwing his assistant in the White House and had a prior mistress who was probably a World War One German spy.  Franklin Roosevelt carried on a very long lasting affair.  John F. Kennedy had the morals of an alley cat and bedded Mimi Alford in the White House when she was still a teen, or barely out of her teens.

Some of the people in Congress are compromised somehow.  Some probably have received money illegally, some from illegal sources, and Trump knows about it.  Some probably have turgid affairs with minors, non spouses, and members of the same sex that would kill their careers if it was revealed and Trump or his minions know about that.  My guess is that in the next couple of years we should brace ourselves for lots of these stories, with lots of recognizable names.

A new conservative party will emerge

Emblem of the Progressive Party which nearly replaced the GOP.

It is, quite frankly, a perfect time for one.

There's been attempts at this for years, but now the time is ripe, as there isn't one.  The Republican Party isn't a conservative party at all, it's a populist party. The National Conservative element of it isn't either, it's a Francoist contingent.  

This has happened in the US before. The GOP itself came about when the Whigs collapsed.  And the Progressives made a good run at the GOP for several years in a row.  Had Taft bailed out of the his race with Roosevelt, there's be no Republican Party today, and frankly the Democrats would be the conservative party.

The elements of it are already there. Quite a few Republicans who had been figures lately in the GOP and backed out remain there and are active.  Some Republican members of Congress, such as Lisa Murkowski, consistently talk out of both sides of their mouths about Trump.  Some more cowardly Republicans in high office will privately voice the opinion that he's bat shit crazy, and then go on to support him in public.

All it really takes is enough people with conservative views to actually unite, which is easier said than done.  Having said that, intelligent conservatives are disgusted by much of which is branded as conservatism today, and yet can take advantage of Elon Musk and his band of meat cleaver juveniles to do much of their dirty work for them.

None of these are pleasant

Winston Churchill noted that in the 1930s he felt like a "voice crying in the wilderness" about the dangers of Hitler.  He didn't want World War Two to come, he was trying to do what he could to get ready for it or prevent it.

I feel the same way here.  None of these are things I wish to happen.  I'm pretty certain that some of them shall.

Ironically, all of them are avoidable, but only with great difficulty at this point. The people surrounding Trump are, by and large, small minded and unhinged.  He doesn't like to hear from people who don't agree with him, which makes him a weak person.  Intelligent people, which I do not feel Trump is, can listen to different views and weigh them.  He can't.

Given that, really avoiding these outcomes would require somebody to act now.  If there's somebody close to Trump who can give him the dope slap, which appears unlikely, that might be a means.  More likely, however, it will require something external.

The most obvious external thing would be invoking the 25th Amendment.  That would require, as a practical matter, a vote of 2/3s of both houses, which is almost impossible to imagine right now.  If things go very badly over the next two years, however, it's a possibility.  A much bigger possibility, I'd note, is that Vance boots Trump out in a little under 18 months, but if I'm right about much of this, it'll be too late to avert disaster by then.

That's a possibility, however, which if I were the Chinese I'd weigh.  Which is why, if I led China, I'd attack Taiwan within the year.

There's a small chance that disaster can be averted if the Democrats, which move at the speed of the Baby Boomers, can get their act together and launch an all out assault on the GOP.  So far, they're not doing it.  Some of that will have to be at the state level.  California and New York basically have the ability to cripple the Federal government if they wish to, and both are really Democratic states.  

Remember, LORD, what has happened to us,

pay attention, and see our disgrace:

Our heritage is turned over to strangers,

our homes, to foreigners.a

We have become orphans, without fathers;

our mothers are like widows.

We pay money to drink our own water,

our own wood comes at a price.

With a yoke on our necks, we are driven;

we are worn out, but allowed no rest.

We extended a hand to Egypt and Assyria,

to satisfy our need of bread.

Our ancestors, who sinned, are no more;

but now we bear their guilt.

Servants rule over us,

with no one to tear us from their hands.

We risk our lives just to get bread,

exposed to the desert heat;

Our skin heats up like an oven,

from the searing blasts of famine.c

Women are raped in Zion,

young women in the cities of Judah;

Princes have been hanged by them,

elders shown no respect.

Young men carry millstones,

boys stagger under loads of wood;

The elders have abandoned the gate,

the young men their music.

The joy of our hearts has ceased,

dancing has turned into mourning;

The crown has fallen from our head:

woe to us that we sinned!

Because of this our hearts grow sick,

at this our eyes grow dim:

Because of Mount Zion, lying desolate,

and the jackals roaming there!

But you, LORD, are enthroned forever;

your throne stands from age to age.

*Why have you utterly forgotten us,

forsaken us for so long?

Bring us back to you, LORD, that we may return:

renew our days as of old.

For now you have indeed rejected us

and utterly turned your wrath against us.

Lamentations 

I hope I'm wrong about all of this.

Footnotes

*LaPierre is yet another hawkish boomer who managed not to serve in Vietnam, first due to a student, and then due to a medical, deferment. He's also another Catholic raised person who divorced and remarried, a betrayal of what Catholics believe.

Why do I note this?

I'm finding more and more that people who can set aside serious religious vows can set aside anything.

Related threads:

Some election predictions.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, 2026, J. D. Vance, Joseph Biden, Kamala Harris, Lying, National Conservatism, Predictions

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