America is at the cusp of a nearly completed coup and enshrinement of a King/dictator/oligarchy form of government that our Constitution was written to avoid. DJT has been presiding over an alternative Federal Government since he was elected in 2015, much to his surprise. He has presided over the Congress through his manipulation of the MAGA movement and has been allowed to rule over his "alternative" Federal Government from his alternative WH since he grudgingly left office in 2021, as he was not held to account for his clear leadership of the Jan. 6, 2021 coup attempt to invade Congress and overthrow the result of the presidential election, which he lost by ALL accounts. The feckless Biden DOJ/FBI/AG allowed him to carryon presidential business as usual, including absconding with his presidential papers, and controlling Congress through threats of "primarying" all who opposed him, thus eliminating opposition from within the GOP. What caught the eye of this 80yo retired physician and Medicare patient is the $500B cut to an already anemic Medicare, likely to force the healthcare providers already penalized for providing service to us Medicare funded elderly patients and lifelong contributors to Medicare to stop providing care to ALL Medicare patients.. This is a dictator consolidating his authority over every aspect of the health and wellbeing of American citizens. Is this really the country we voted for in 2015/2020? Did we vote in a dictator? Are we getting what we voted for or deserve? Thanks to Sabrina and HCR telling us the truth in an ever more anemic MSM environment. We are NOT alone and may God help us!
yes, I fear what the budget cuts will do to the poor. not just medicaid and medicare but snap food stamps. had I thought of it, I'd have included cutting food assistance as another shot of proof that trump wants to incite racial violence. it's hard to remain peaceful when your kids are starving.
TrumPox isn't counting on all the >white< people who are just as dependent on Medicaid, SNAP, Medicare and Social Security - yes they're attacking that too, through the machinations of DOGE. A lot of those white people voted for the Orange Scourge. They just wanted to "own the libs". They're about to find out just what that really means.
"The ever-prescient Thom Hartmann recently distilled the dictators’ playbook into two steps: Aspirant dictators must first create an ‘enemy within.’ Check. Then, they encourage or exploit “big, splashy attacks on the country” to seize more power. If race riots start, this second box will be checked."
I literally could not agree more. I've been anticipating this since Trump's second invasion of the White House. There aren't many artificial carrots to be believed, and even real carrots only get you so far. Trump is hoping to bring out the very real sticks now. But he's dependent on people falling for his unveiled instigating, provoking and inciting. There's no way he allows a midterm election, and violence as a predictable reaction to his backing people into a corner is exactly the strategy he's had planned since forever. Why? Because people rightfully fucking hate him and his parasitic cult of bedunced nihilists.
Your ever-longer list of his atrocities is accurate and horrifying but pointless. What matters is one thing alone: what we’re doing to stem atrocities, halt the pathological tsunami of this president (my commenters claim it is pure pathology, not Russian mole income, I disagree but temporarily rest my case). In fact, we are doing next to nothing. Protests? ha-ha. He rewrites them or writes them off. The only legal way is: to whisk all Republicans out of office as soon as possible. Failing that, there are only illegal yet imperative ways to rescue the nation. Are key people in the military willing to buck the chief? Are key people in key agencies willing to sabotage the chief? That is the stuff which is soon going to count.
one hopes the retired generals are talking amongst themselves. but I disagree that protests are pointless. they matter, and eventually MSM will cover them.
One final point. It’s becoming increasingly clear from recent newspaper articles/statements of Trump and his aides that he is no longer running the show. His aides are, probably Miller above all others. They let Trump blow his stack, make outrageous impulsive statements whenever he feels like it, it provides a dust storm for the headlines, then they adjust, tweak or retract their import or their timetable. This makes sabotaging certain acts/executive orders harder, since his bulldogs are watching, waiting to pounce. It must be done, but it must be done carefully.
I agree we need, and I believe we'll get, a blue tsunami come 2026. Until then, we have to fight this Orange Scourge every way we possibly can - including protests. His reaction to them is irrelevant. What's important is the growing visibility to let the world - especially both chambers of congress - know we're still here and we're angry.
When Trump was elected I listed in my journal 16 authoritarian anti-American steps he would take to bring us down. He completed all but one of them within a few weeks of his inauguration.
The last one on my list is your statement, “Trump wants to trigger racial violence to give him cover to declare martial law before the midterms,” except I think he would be happy to declare martial law using white protesters if he could provoke enough of us to violence.
We might not have midterms if this keeps up. He warned us about that, too: “You might not need any more elections,” referring to his takeover.
When DOGE began its rampage I cried for hours. But tears are not enough.
We must protest, non-violently. We must financially support candidates who oppose this regime’s takeover. We must urge congresspeople, especially Republicans, to get off their butts. We must wake up our friends and family members. Our children and grandchildren are going to have to live with the outcome. Will they live in freedom? It’s up to us and we can make sure they do.
It's a great reminder of the imperative that we continue to Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
The next nationwide rally is June 14, yes >that< June 14, be there or be square!
Let's ruin Chump's B'day. We need 3.5% or the population, or around 12,000,000 people to be present. So bring all your friends and families. Spread the word as far and wide as possible. Let's all get out there with a Howard Beale spirit and yell "We're as mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore!".
Carefully engineered race riots, yes, but also student riots deliberately provoked by the attacks on Harvard and other renowned universities. If student protests loop in outrage against the Gaza genocide (deliberately conflated by the Administration with antisemitism), we could see martial law and an excuse to cancel the midterms.
We cannot allow this to happen! We are a country of immigrants from all over the world! Our country is made up of people of all shades of color, all religions, all ethnicities, all education levels and a society of democracy!
Trump, the biggest liar I’ve heard and am aware of, has told one true thing: I’ll be a dictator on day one for just one thing - now extended to everything! Wise advice from Sabrina Haake to people of color - don’t riot because it’s just what Trump wants to call out Martial law. Then Trump will be arresting everyone he wants no matter color. We’ll be under complete dictatorship. Fox News isn’t news it’s a farce. While some Republicans get that Fox lies others have lost their judgement. In fact many are paying the price now for voting for Trump. What Trump is doing is treason as far as what I see. What I don’t get is why he cannot be stopped?
That was a half truth. Still, it's the most truth he ever told.
The reason he can't be stopped is that every single Republican in both congress and the SCOTUS is invertebrate. They're all jellyfish, every damn one of them. Except for the ones who are ambitious for power for themselves.
This has been his clear intention. This will be the final test of how much the true patriots in the military are will to participate in and allow. Compared to them, ICE and those thugs are armed with pea shooters. There could be enough members of our armed forces from four star general down to privates who will not engage in a war against other Americans.
There could be a true coup, an actual miltiary coup. It could be what's called a "soft coup" where enough of them refuse to carry out unconstitional and illegal orders and manage to peacefully oust Trump and his regime and replace them with temporary military leadership, or what I a "hard coup" in contrast. This is called a coup d'état. It could be where tanks surround the White House and Trump possibly is arrested.
From Wikipedia: "A soft coup, sometimes referred to as a silent coup, is an illegal overthrow of a government. Unlike a classical coup d'état, it is achieved without the use of military force.
The concept of a soft coup as a strategy is attributed to the American political scientist Gene Sharp, a Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who has been a theorist and author of works on the dynamics of nonviolent conflict. He studied the potential to spark, guide, and maximize the power of sometimes short-lived mass uprisings, as he tried to understand how unarmed insurrections have been far more politically significant than observers focused on military warfare have cared to admit." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_coup
"A coup d'état or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27état
My biggest concern is that lack of leadership from SCOTUS so far may leave much of law enforcment and military unsure as to whether any orders from Trump are suffiicently against the constitution for them to refuse.
If left to late by congress and SCOTUS their voices will be too little, too late to prevent the dictatorship.
With some luck and a lot of effort by us - the mere masses - we might be able to, hopefully, achieve a political outcome/reckoning. We just need to keep showing up for demonstrations, communicating to the politicians, and vote in the midterms.
I can a scenario where there are so many huge protests around the country wiith millions of people risking arrest and even their lives to defy Trump's march to total authoritarian rule added to others who resist in large ways to small ways we can succeed. More people will be hit personally by what Trump does. There will be less tolerance for the burtality of his masked ICE Gestapo. Prices will go up because of the tarriff war. As Trump's actions become more outrageous enough people may join the resistance to bring the normal day to day of the country to a halt.
please Ms Haake be careful, you do not what to find yourself on a plane to El Salvador , free speech only belongs to Trump no one else, in the latest bill he is being granted immunity from all actions he takes. I can't wait until the judges of the Supreme court who gave him his powers find themselves on the plane to El Salvador, only then will they understand what they have done Martial Law is coming once that bill is passed there will be no more Free America only then will those who voted for him and think he is doing great will find out what is in store for them i am so sorry for my American cousins it will not be pretty and will suffer a great deal BUT please be careful yourself you will be unable to defend yourself as your rights are going to be taken away from you and i for one wish to keep reading your articles
thank you, I'm assuming also that they'll work their way down to me at some point, after they start arresting well known critics first. until they imprison me, I'll keep telling the truth because I don't feel like I have any choice.
Charlotte's Web is literally spelling it out with DJT as a nihilistic version of Templeton the rat. Demonstrating unwavering selfishness, gluttony, and greed to the world. At one time I thought our fearless leader might be intellectually challenged. Now I feel he is acting to meet the intellectual level of his base. Growing their loyalty by pretending to be one of "them", even though in truth he loathes (and legislates against) the very flock he has recruited to prop him up. He has also bullied and primed the press to report as he dictates. They have all fallen in line and will clearly provide us with his vision and spin. Like the children's novel, the end seems to be in the beginning. Let's hope Sabrina and others with integrity save the proverbial egg sac. It will be tough to recover from this death march, but if we all band together perhaps we can convince our duped neighbors to be friends again down the road...
Ah, but there are already some cracks in the facade. A lot of his base is dependent on the social safety net that he and his acolytes are dismantling, and they're aware of it and starting to spit out the Kool-Aid. There are also some cracks forming in the "administration", predictably considering all those egos clashing.
There is much that could be commebted on here, hoever I am going to stick to one main concern. Why have the ICE staff not been arressted or even been suspended. Will the same inaction happen if Trump openly flouts a major decision by SCOTUS.
If nothing is done that will be the pivotal moment in US democracy that may well go down in history such as Reichstag when Hitler removed parliments power and the Night of the Long Knives when he targeted his opponents.
It may endup civil war if martial law enacted.
A quote from the Holocust museum, (substitute jews for all others)
"The Nazis promised to
fix the economy and put people back to work;
return Germany to the status of a great European, and even world, power;
regain territory Germany had lost in World War I;
and create a strong authoritarian German government.
But the Nazis also played on people’s fears and prejudices. They falsely claimed that Jews and Communists were to blame for all of Germany’s problems. The Nazis promised to unite Germans along racial and ethnic lines. The Nazis planned to exclude Jews and others from German society. "
America is at the cusp of a nearly completed coup and enshrinement of a King/dictator/oligarchy form of government that our Constitution was written to avoid. DJT has been presiding over an alternative Federal Government since he was elected in 2015, much to his surprise. He has presided over the Congress through his manipulation of the MAGA movement and has been allowed to rule over his "alternative" Federal Government from his alternative WH since he grudgingly left office in 2021, as he was not held to account for his clear leadership of the Jan. 6, 2021 coup attempt to invade Congress and overthrow the result of the presidential election, which he lost by ALL accounts. The feckless Biden DOJ/FBI/AG allowed him to carryon presidential business as usual, including absconding with his presidential papers, and controlling Congress through threats of "primarying" all who opposed him, thus eliminating opposition from within the GOP. What caught the eye of this 80yo retired physician and Medicare patient is the $500B cut to an already anemic Medicare, likely to force the healthcare providers already penalized for providing service to us Medicare funded elderly patients and lifelong contributors to Medicare to stop providing care to ALL Medicare patients.. This is a dictator consolidating his authority over every aspect of the health and wellbeing of American citizens. Is this really the country we voted for in 2015/2020? Did we vote in a dictator? Are we getting what we voted for or deserve? Thanks to Sabrina and HCR telling us the truth in an ever more anemic MSM environment. We are NOT alone and may God help us!
yes, I fear what the budget cuts will do to the poor. not just medicaid and medicare but snap food stamps. had I thought of it, I'd have included cutting food assistance as another shot of proof that trump wants to incite racial violence. it's hard to remain peaceful when your kids are starving.
TrumPox isn't counting on all the >white< people who are just as dependent on Medicaid, SNAP, Medicare and Social Security - yes they're attacking that too, through the machinations of DOGE. A lot of those white people voted for the Orange Scourge. They just wanted to "own the libs". They're about to find out just what that really means.
This was my thought as well: make people desperate enough and they will break the law.
Solidarity.
Please have Family/Friends and Neighbor's Sign These Petitions. Articles II Section 4
Remove Entire Administration
Please make an informed decision. Citizensimpeachment.com Impeachtrumpagain.org
"The ever-prescient Thom Hartmann recently distilled the dictators’ playbook into two steps: Aspirant dictators must first create an ‘enemy within.’ Check. Then, they encourage or exploit “big, splashy attacks on the country” to seize more power. If race riots start, this second box will be checked."
I literally could not agree more. I've been anticipating this since Trump's second invasion of the White House. There aren't many artificial carrots to be believed, and even real carrots only get you so far. Trump is hoping to bring out the very real sticks now. But he's dependent on people falling for his unveiled instigating, provoking and inciting. There's no way he allows a midterm election, and violence as a predictable reaction to his backing people into a corner is exactly the strategy he's had planned since forever. Why? Because people rightfully fucking hate him and his parasitic cult of bedunced nihilists.
And if he can't incite one he can have his boys attack a peaceful demonstration, parole them, and arrest demonstrators.
I have no doubt he'll do that at some point. But he needs something more widespread to institute martial law.
Your ever-longer list of his atrocities is accurate and horrifying but pointless. What matters is one thing alone: what we’re doing to stem atrocities, halt the pathological tsunami of this president (my commenters claim it is pure pathology, not Russian mole income, I disagree but temporarily rest my case). In fact, we are doing next to nothing. Protests? ha-ha. He rewrites them or writes them off. The only legal way is: to whisk all Republicans out of office as soon as possible. Failing that, there are only illegal yet imperative ways to rescue the nation. Are key people in the military willing to buck the chief? Are key people in key agencies willing to sabotage the chief? That is the stuff which is soon going to count.
one hopes the retired generals are talking amongst themselves. but I disagree that protests are pointless. they matter, and eventually MSM will cover them.
Especially when we hit that 3.5% critical mass, or around 12,000,000 of us.
P.S. Speaking of retired generals, I'm a big fan of Mark Milley.
One final point. It’s becoming increasingly clear from recent newspaper articles/statements of Trump and his aides that he is no longer running the show. His aides are, probably Miller above all others. They let Trump blow his stack, make outrageous impulsive statements whenever he feels like it, it provides a dust storm for the headlines, then they adjust, tweak or retract their import or their timetable. This makes sabotaging certain acts/executive orders harder, since his bulldogs are watching, waiting to pounce. It must be done, but it must be done carefully.
I agree we need, and I believe we'll get, a blue tsunami come 2026. Until then, we have to fight this Orange Scourge every way we possibly can - including protests. His reaction to them is irrelevant. What's important is the growing visibility to let the world - especially both chambers of congress - know we're still here and we're angry.
thanks for your clear analysis. very chilling.
When Trump was elected I listed in my journal 16 authoritarian anti-American steps he would take to bring us down. He completed all but one of them within a few weeks of his inauguration.
The last one on my list is your statement, “Trump wants to trigger racial violence to give him cover to declare martial law before the midterms,” except I think he would be happy to declare martial law using white protesters if he could provoke enough of us to violence.
We might not have midterms if this keeps up. He warned us about that, too: “You might not need any more elections,” referring to his takeover.
When DOGE began its rampage I cried for hours. But tears are not enough.
We must protest, non-violently. We must financially support candidates who oppose this regime’s takeover. We must urge congresspeople, especially Republicans, to get off their butts. We must wake up our friends and family members. Our children and grandchildren are going to have to live with the outcome. Will they live in freedom? It’s up to us and we can make sure they do.
It's a great reminder of the imperative that we continue to Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
The next nationwide rally is June 14, yes >that< June 14, be there or be square!
Let's ruin Chump's B'day. We need 3.5% or the population, or around 12,000,000 people to be present. So bring all your friends and families. Spread the word as far and wide as possible. Let's all get out there with a Howard Beale spirit and yell "We're as mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore!".
https://www.nokings.org/
P.S. Stay the hell away from D.C.! Don't give him an excuse to declare martial law!
Nailed it again. Helter Skelter, with Trump as Charles Manson on steroids.
Carefully engineered race riots, yes, but also student riots deliberately provoked by the attacks on Harvard and other renowned universities. If student protests loop in outrage against the Gaza genocide (deliberately conflated by the Administration with antisemitism), we could see martial law and an excuse to cancel the midterms.
pretty sure that's on trump's menu
We cannot allow this to happen! We are a country of immigrants from all over the world! Our country is made up of people of all shades of color, all religions, all ethnicities, all education levels and a society of democracy!
Trump, the biggest liar I’ve heard and am aware of, has told one true thing: I’ll be a dictator on day one for just one thing - now extended to everything! Wise advice from Sabrina Haake to people of color - don’t riot because it’s just what Trump wants to call out Martial law. Then Trump will be arresting everyone he wants no matter color. We’ll be under complete dictatorship. Fox News isn’t news it’s a farce. While some Republicans get that Fox lies others have lost their judgement. In fact many are paying the price now for voting for Trump. What Trump is doing is treason as far as what I see. What I don’t get is why he cannot be stopped?
That was a half truth. Still, it's the most truth he ever told.
The reason he can't be stopped is that every single Republican in both congress and the SCOTUS is invertebrate. They're all jellyfish, every damn one of them. Except for the ones who are ambitious for power for themselves.
This has been his clear intention. This will be the final test of how much the true patriots in the military are will to participate in and allow. Compared to them, ICE and those thugs are armed with pea shooters. There could be enough members of our armed forces from four star general down to privates who will not engage in a war against other Americans.
There could be a true coup, an actual miltiary coup. It could be what's called a "soft coup" where enough of them refuse to carry out unconstitional and illegal orders and manage to peacefully oust Trump and his regime and replace them with temporary military leadership, or what I a "hard coup" in contrast. This is called a coup d'état. It could be where tanks surround the White House and Trump possibly is arrested.
From Wikipedia: "A soft coup, sometimes referred to as a silent coup, is an illegal overthrow of a government. Unlike a classical coup d'état, it is achieved without the use of military force.
The concept of a soft coup as a strategy is attributed to the American political scientist Gene Sharp, a Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who has been a theorist and author of works on the dynamics of nonviolent conflict. He studied the potential to spark, guide, and maximize the power of sometimes short-lived mass uprisings, as he tried to understand how unarmed insurrections have been far more politically significant than observers focused on military warfare have cared to admit." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_coup
"A coup d'état or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27état
My biggest concern is that lack of leadership from SCOTUS so far may leave much of law enforcment and military unsure as to whether any orders from Trump are suffiicently against the constitution for them to refuse.
If left to late by congress and SCOTUS their voices will be too little, too late to prevent the dictatorship.
That's what I'm hoping for/counting on. I believe a significant percentage of our military take their oath seriously. Like Mark Milley.
I can't see of any other outcome (in my lifetime a least - I'm 81) that will return democracy to the United States.
With some luck and a lot of effort by us - the mere masses - we might be able to, hopefully, achieve a political outcome/reckoning. We just need to keep showing up for demonstrations, communicating to the politicians, and vote in the midterms.
I can a scenario where there are so many huge protests around the country wiith millions of people risking arrest and even their lives to defy Trump's march to total authoritarian rule added to others who resist in large ways to small ways we can succeed. More people will be hit personally by what Trump does. There will be less tolerance for the burtality of his masked ICE Gestapo. Prices will go up because of the tarriff war. As Trump's actions become more outrageous enough people may join the resistance to bring the normal day to day of the country to a halt.
please Ms Haake be careful, you do not what to find yourself on a plane to El Salvador , free speech only belongs to Trump no one else, in the latest bill he is being granted immunity from all actions he takes. I can't wait until the judges of the Supreme court who gave him his powers find themselves on the plane to El Salvador, only then will they understand what they have done Martial Law is coming once that bill is passed there will be no more Free America only then will those who voted for him and think he is doing great will find out what is in store for them i am so sorry for my American cousins it will not be pretty and will suffer a great deal BUT please be careful yourself you will be unable to defend yourself as your rights are going to be taken away from you and i for one wish to keep reading your articles
thank you, I'm assuming also that they'll work their way down to me at some point, after they start arresting well known critics first. until they imprison me, I'll keep telling the truth because I don't feel like I have any choice.
I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.
Charlotte's Web is literally spelling it out with DJT as a nihilistic version of Templeton the rat. Demonstrating unwavering selfishness, gluttony, and greed to the world. At one time I thought our fearless leader might be intellectually challenged. Now I feel he is acting to meet the intellectual level of his base. Growing their loyalty by pretending to be one of "them", even though in truth he loathes (and legislates against) the very flock he has recruited to prop him up. He has also bullied and primed the press to report as he dictates. They have all fallen in line and will clearly provide us with his vision and spin. Like the children's novel, the end seems to be in the beginning. Let's hope Sabrina and others with integrity save the proverbial egg sac. It will be tough to recover from this death march, but if we all band together perhaps we can convince our duped neighbors to be friends again down the road...
Ah, but there are already some cracks in the facade. A lot of his base is dependent on the social safety net that he and his acolytes are dismantling, and they're aware of it and starting to spit out the Kool-Aid. There are also some cracks forming in the "administration", predictably considering all those egos clashing.
Don’t take the bait!
Remember when Charlie Manson said he wanted to create a race war? Don’t take the bait.
There is much that could be commebted on here, hoever I am going to stick to one main concern. Why have the ICE staff not been arressted or even been suspended. Will the same inaction happen if Trump openly flouts a major decision by SCOTUS.
If nothing is done that will be the pivotal moment in US democracy that may well go down in history such as Reichstag when Hitler removed parliments power and the Night of the Long Knives when he targeted his opponents.
It may endup civil war if martial law enacted.
A quote from the Holocust museum, (substitute jews for all others)
"The Nazis promised to
fix the economy and put people back to work;
return Germany to the status of a great European, and even world, power;
regain territory Germany had lost in World War I;
and create a strong authoritarian German government.
But the Nazis also played on people’s fears and prejudices. They falsely claimed that Jews and Communists were to blame for all of Germany’s problems. The Nazis promised to unite Germans along racial and ethnic lines. The Nazis planned to exclude Jews and others from German society. "
because who would suspend them? they work for trump.
Totally agree on the ICE staff. I've been wondering if they aren't really pardoned J6 rioters in baclavas.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if some them are.
He's already openly flouted major decisions by the SCOTUS. Now we know.
netanyahu STARTED a WAR to stay OUT of PRISON!
trump WILL try to do the same thing!!