What appears to be a three ring circus, high on a mixture of ketamine, Adderall, and Xanax, is really a working plan. Project 2025 provides the general framework, and Trump is modifying it with his own personal agenda. The goal is to advance the leadership principle of führerprinzip, where all power and sovereignty is vested in one leader. To that end, the Trump organization is following the time-honored path of authoritarian leaders throughout history.
The attacks on free speech, education, and the free press. The weaponization of the Justice Department, the elimination of watchdog agencies, the hamstringing of the IRS, the politicization of the courts, and the attacks on institutions of higher learning, are all necessary to achieve their goals. Eliminate books that contradict your message, call for violence against those who will not accept your authority, and flood the media with so many alternative theories of the truth that the real truth becomes unattainable. Do these things and you will be well on your way to autocratic rule.
While Hitler and his Schutzstaffel (SS) seemed to have had a well-oiled machine, that was far from the truth. The Nazi state was disorganized and chaotic with numerous leadership positions, departments, and security forces that lacked a constitution or clear structure. Hitler often changed state organization by creating new offices and shifting responsibilities without a clear plan. Ultimately, the government was described as “polycratic chaos.” Power during this chaos was scattered among different agencies but relied entirely on Hitler. Though he held ultimate authority, he often distributed power arbitrarily, and his subordinates constantly strived to satisfy him.
Trump’s version of the SS is a rag-tag assortment of radical organizations with varying agendas who have included many of Trump’s objectives among their own. Nazis, white supremacists, along with various and sundry radical malcontents, have all pledged some form of allegiance or alliance with the Trump agenda. Trump then uses his “bat signal” to summon them with tweets and verbal pronouncements. He promises them legal cover for their actions. When more direct control is needed, he has now placed his stooges in control of the FBI and CIA.
Drawing parallels between the Musk/Trump regime and Hitler, Stalin, or Mao Zedong might seem like radical left-wing rhetoric, but it was Musk who recently tweeted his support for the theory that this infamous trio of genocidal maniacs was not directly responsible for the deaths of millions of citizens. He claimed/retweeted that the real blame lay with “public sector workers.”
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| Joseph Stalin-Mao Zedong-Adolph Hitler |
The blowback was swift, and the tweet was quickly pulled. This tweet and others supporting politicians like Javier Milei of Argentina, Bolsonaro of Brazil, and Modi of India show the true nature of the man. Perhaps attacking “public sector workers” and blaming them for atrocities helps him justify the carnage he has waged on our own American public sector employees. Musk is not an employee of the government and should legally function as an “advisor.” In practice, he is but Trump’s henchman who may end up the scapegoat if it all goes in the crapper.
Hitler did not provide a clear vision of a Nazi government structure during his rise to power. Once in control, he created new departments and positions as needed, causing the Nazi state to grow organically and without a clear hierarchy. This led to a mix of bureaucracies, organizations, and offices with overlapping responsibilities and conflicts over jurisdiction. If you think that this sounds like something that is happening under Agent Orange, join the club.
In the Nazi state, polycratic chaos was seen as a contributing factor to “cumulative radicalization” that resulted in the Holocaust. In the Musk/Trump regime the death toll will probably be nothing more than vague losses where blame can be “assigned” elsewhere. Death by preventable diseases, deaths indirectly caused after the loss of medical coverage, deaths after the elderly are made homeless, and any losses resulting from the elimination of funding for medical research can all be difficult to link to the lack of a cogent central administration.
The motivations may be somewhat varied for those now involved. Just know that the result will be of great financial benefit for the anointed few. I’ll give you three guesses as to who will end up paying for all of this under the pretext that they are saving us money. If two of your answers are me and you, you can go to the head of the class.
While a central goal of the Trump/Project 2025 agenda is to shift us away from the tedium of democracy and toward the confines of authoritarian dictatorship, the underlying objective is wealth concentration. As free speech is constrained, legal hurdles removed, oversight eliminated, and power consolidated, an American oligarchy will arise from the ashes of our former republic like a Phoenix.
In the new American oligarchy, those without enormous wealth will be slaves. Not slaves in the more traditional sense with direct ownership, but the more subtle version known as debt slavery. This is a practice where people are coerced to work under conditions that are exploitative. In the Amazon today, poor laborers are lured to remote areas where they rack up debts to plantation owners who overcharge for subsistence items. In America this situation was prevalent in the coal mines as made famous in the song, Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Earnie Ford.
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
A chasm is opening between the oligarch class and those who serve them. The financial burden of responsibility is shifting away from the wealthy and being heaped upon the working class. Eliminate Social Security and other forms of financial safety nets. Take away good education for all but those who can afford one. Enact tariffs that hurt wage earners far more than corporations who merely pass on the costs to consumers. As homegrown terrorists go, none are more dangerous than a certain blonde-haired orange-faced billionaire and his henchmen
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