I’m not going to comment on Wednesday’s “debate.” Still too early. Any analysis will only hold for a few days and then it will all be different. Suffice to say that Trump, once again, is doing things his way.
What is important to note is that the structure of the United States is still there. We’ve got the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the three branches of government, the election cycles, the free press, our educational system, our military, and independent states.
But that’s all it is: a structure. It’s been hollowed out and suffers from an infestation of dry rot brought on by a class of termites that no longer honor the law or the freedoms that we are guaranteed by our national charters. We are slowly but surely being choked off from our freedoms; we are being told what we can and cannot do, what we can and cannot say, what we can and cannot know.
I’m not the only one who feels this. (HT: JJ Sefton)
A coup d’etat is when a small group of people suddenly try to take power and subjugate a nation by force.
A coup du publique is when a small group of people already in power try to further subjugate an entire population by methodically taking away whatever rights they may have left.
That global sense of unease, that nearly audible universal skincrawl taking place across the planet, that unquestionable deprivation of the right to ask questions, that which is happening right now: that is the coup du publique in action.
In a run-of-the-mill coup d’etat, it is axiomatic that the people staging the coup seize the radio station, usually even before they track down and meat hook the unfortunate Great Leader of the People and Terror of the Nation’s Enemies and President For Life and replace him with some other Grand High Dirtbag.
OK, so we have a name for it: “coup du publique.”
In a sense, a coup is the opposite of a revolution in that it thrives not on the active involvement of the citizenry, but its passive isolation, unlike in popular uprisings and protests.
For example, besides the fact that it was over in time for dinner, that Jan. 6 participants called the next day asking if they could stop by to pick up jackets they left behind, that a significant percentage of the participants were being paid by certain government agencies to be there, that participants stood around taking pictures of statues, and that the police on scene may have allowed a large proportion of the protestors in is why the tragic stupidity of January 6 was not a coup or an insurrection or anything more than a stupid thoughtless gift to the Democrats and their deep state allies.
But what if you flip that script just a tiny bit and make sure that – before any other planning, ally recruiting, etc., is even started – you made sure to quietly, incrementally take control of the information infrastructure first? A few years ago, that meant radio and television stations and phone company HQ – today that means the internet as it is all three in one.
And if instead of overthrowing a government, you did this to ensure a government’s survival and expansion – the public be damned. Then you would not have a coup d’etat but a coup du publique.
This explains what we’re experiencing. But it doesn’t tell us what to do about it. For that, we turn to Michael Walsh at The Pipeline.
Perhaps one solution, then, is to abandon primaries altogether and return to the days of the smoke-filled rooms, during which the pros and cons of each candidate can be weighed and judged by party elders and officials; after all, the U.S. was never meant to be a plebiscitary democracy, and a system that produced Lincoln and Grant ought not to have been discarded so lightly, especially when it has since given us Romney and McCain.
Desperate times demand desperate measures. You can find all four of my Epoch Times columns on this subject linked at the bottom of the last in the series, “What Is to Be Done? Preparing the Information Battlespace,” which include numerous suggestions for fixes and improvements. Remember: principles, not programs. Let’s discuss these ideas in the weeks going forward; please feel free to add your two cents in the comments below. Until this, chew on this:
What does the GOP stand for? The party fought Trump every step of the way, double-crossed him constantly, feebly supported his policy positions, undercut his authority via the media at every opportunity, and otherwise made it clear to the conservative electorate that in the GOP establishment they had an enemy every bit as dangerous as the Democrats.
This is not the place to argue the merits (non-existent, in any case) of the two bogus impeachments. Rather it is to force the GOP to act more like the Leninist/Stalinist Democrats and speak with one voice, in the pursuit of a single objective: winning. In these fraught times, “comity” is luxury only congenital losers can afford, and the sooner the party purges itself the better off both it and the country will be. As Barry Goldwater famously offered: “a choice, not an echo.” Now’s the time to take him up on it.
Or perhaps it’s finally time to start thinking beyond party boundaries and consider a unity ticket that dispenses simultaneously with Trump, Mike Pence, Biden, and Kamala Harris: and changes the equation at one stroke: DeSantis/Bobby Kennedy, Jr., anybody? No revenge, no “identity” tickets, just two men either of whom could be a plausible presidential leader, even if you don’t agree with both of them in every particular.
I think most voters are beginning to realize that there isn’t a GOP cavalry coming to rescue them. That boat sailed while Paul Ryan was House Speaker.
(2) Parties vs. uniparty
There has been a seismic shift in the way Republican voters see political parties. After Obama forced government-controlled health care on America, the Tea Party movement began a desperate fight against socialism’s advances. From the energy of that movement, Republicans eventually took back the House and Senate. Despite those triumphs, Paul Ryan rubber-stamped Obama’s budgets, while refusing to build Trump’s border wall. McConnell’s Senate Republicans, who had run on repealing Obamacare, cemented socialized medicine with McCain’s decisive betrayal.
Grassroots voters finally rejected Establishment Republicans and catapulted outsider Donald Trump into office. In response, Republicans quietly assisted Democrats in their attempt to remove Trump through the Russia hoax. In the space of a decade, most Republican officeholders were outed as RINOs, before voters properly concluded that they were actually part of a single D.C. Uniparty all along.
What will you do, indeed?
Have a good weekend.