Tip of the hat to EarlG on democraticunderground.com

Just in case you missed it – and the corporate media is doing all it can to make sure that you did – late last week the Washington Post ran a story that detailed plans that were being formulated for a second Trump presidency. Sadly this revelation seems to have then been consigned to the edges of the internet and the chattering class while the corporate media focuses on Hamas and Israel and how old President Biden is.

What the Washington Post reported was absolutely frightening as it basically laid out Trump’s plan to end our democracy with a huge upshift in centralized executive power. While I do not spend 24 hours a day plugged into news sources, I do usually listen to some a fair amount of NPR news daily and scan some local internet news sources. This story barely got a mention.

When this story has been reported, it is usually in the mode of “Well there goes crazy Uncle Donnie again” or “Boy that Trump sure says a lot of crazy stuff.” They are not taking it seriously. The kind of thing that Trump has said he will do are things like:     

It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.

The US then “would resemble a banana republic”, a University of Virginia law professor told the Washington Post when it revealed these schemes. Almost as troubling, two New York Times stories outlined Trump’s autocratic plans to put loyal lawyers in key posts and limit the independence of federal agencies.

The synopsis of the Washington Post article on the Google search gives us this very scary bit:

5 ways Trump and allies plan for a more authoritarian second term

• 1Use the Justice Department for political purposes.

• 2Purge the government and install loyalists.

• 3Consolidate power in the presidency.

• 4Pardon Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

• 5Crack down on immigrants harder, with extraordinary tools.

That first one by itself should scare the bejeebers out of any rational American. The second and third items are in a nutshell the plan to end our democracy – that is to grab power and consolidate it all in the presidency. Bye, bye elections.

The Washington Post article puts some flesh on these five points:

The Post reported Sunday that Trump and his allies have mapped out specific plans to use the federal government to target his enemies. They have signaled a desire to pursue not only President Biden but also high-profile former allies who have turned critical of Trump.

Those former allies include ex-attorney general William P. Barr, ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, ex-White House chief of staff John F. Kelly and ex-Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb. Just to emphasize, that’s the incumbent president as well as the nation’s former top law enforcement officer, top military official and top White House staffer.

{Editor’s note: did Iowa’s Kim Reynolds elevate herself to a spot on Trump’s list with her endorsement of DeSantis last week?}

On the second point of Purging the government the Post says this:

Jonathan Swan reported for Axios last year that Trump allies were considering reclassifying as many as 50,000 federal employees so that they would lose employment protections and could more easily be replaced.

That’s a fraction of the federal workforce, but the effort could focus on career nonpartisan officials who have significant sway over policy. Presidents usually get to replace only about 4,000 political appointees.

Trump could theoretically use this to recast the ranks of those in charge of national security, intelligence, the State Department, law enforcement and the military. He has frequently singled out all of these areas as being rife with officials insufficiently aligned with him.

What is that Maya Angelou meme that is always brought up at a time like this?  “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Trump is telling us he will end our democracy. Believe him!

We are now two months out from the Iowa caucuses and the man who will end democracy is light years ahead of his opponents in Iowa. That is truly sad and scary. Iowans would easily sell out their country to a tin horn con man.

Unfortunately now that Trump has openly breached the line of ending democracy, none of his rivals are calling for him (Trump) to step down nor are they defending democracy. You can bet that that Trump’s plans to end democracy are being scrutinized for their own use by his opponents.