By Seth Wilpan
The opinions expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and do not reflect opinions or positions held by Indivisible Northampton.
Most of the pundits and politicians I hear from are flabbergasted by the actions of the Trump administration.
How could they be so incompetent in dealing with the pandemic and stand behind policies that are unpopular with their own constituencies? Trump doesn’t want to admit he’s wrong they say. Trump is using his federal enforcement henchman, they say, to stage confrontations that make him look tough, which will appeal to his supporters. As for the Post Office, to their credit, no one any longer acknowledges the fig leaf of conservative principle to explain its dismantling.
It’s time to apply Occam’s razor and acknowledge the simpler explanation of how the pieces fit together. Trump and his cronies are planning to take over the country in November. The government’s inaction on the pandemic is tantamount to genocide, serving to kill off a good portion of Trump’s natural opposition keep the survivors too fearful to risk voting in person. (Oh, you think that’s a bridge too far, that the U.S. government is incapable of genocide?)
The Post Office will have been sufficiently crippled that vote-by-mail will be disrupted, providing a basis for claiming that the election results are illegitimate. Rampant economic privation and homelessness will create unrest which will simultaneously be stirred up and quelled by Trumps private brown-shirted polizei. That will provide the cover to declare a national emergency. Barr will cook up some kind of document to legitimize the putsch, and the Supreme Court will do what it has been hired to do.
While not everyone acknowledges the depth of the plot, everyone knows there’s a good possibility that Trump will not willingly transfer power to a new administration. Some democratic members of Congress have raised an alarm, but in reality there’s nothing they can do to stop it. They can’t pass any laws through the Republican senate, and even if they could, who would enforce them? The people may rise up, but our leader’s private militia will already be in place to gun them down. The only way out I can see is if the military steps in to enforce the transfer of power. I’m not holding my breath.
This November’s vote may be our last to preserve what vestiges of democracy remain in this republic. Massive voter turnout is important not just for the sake of a decisive result. It’s important that plenty of people have a stake in their vote being counted and would be upset if their vote is ignored.
Otherwise, we’d better start preparing for a new order in America. An America in which the depredations of the powerful against the weak are even more extreme, in which writing such as this will guarantee a prison term. Think East Germany.