Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
<From Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth:
William Shakespeare>
<i.>
When I finished this series in January 2022, I assumed that I wouldn't need to revisit it. Surely, I told myself, at some point, the image of Donald Trump, his authoritarian leanings, and his violent cult followers, determined to impose them on the nation, would finally recede in the rearview mirror, especially as the so-called Republican Party's electoral losses continued to mount up, and their donors would yearn to move on.
The losses continue to pile up, as the handful of midterm off-year results demonstrated, a mere three weeks ago. In Kentucky, Democratic Governor Andy Bashear cruised to re-election by a solid five-point margin over Mitch McConnell's protege, Daniel Cameron. Ohioans approved Issue 1, a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights, by a 13.2% margin.
In Virginia, Democrats held the State Senate, and reclaimed the House of Delegates, snuffing out Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin's hopes of passing a 15-week abortion ban for at least another two years. The results presumably also spiked chatter among the donor classes of Youngkin's viability as a "white knight," one capable of saving his party from the demon called Trump.
The sole bright spot for Republicans came in Mississippi, where voters gave Governor Tate Reeves a second term over Elvis's cousin, Democrat Brandon Presley. But even there, Reeves eked out a 3.2% margin, or 26,619 votes, in the closest gubernatorial race seen there since 1999.
Analysts suggested that Presley's willingness to run on a pro-life platform, as the Governor did, potentially cost him a rare shot at an upset in a ruby red state. We'll never know for sure, of course, but there is one upside -- that is, he probably won't get to make albums.
<ii.>
Add these results onto the damp squib of the 2022 midterms, where fears of a Red Wave turned into a Red Mirage -- and the 2018 midterms, where Democrats retook the U.S. House of Representatives, ending Republicans' two-year run of unified government -- and a reasonable observer might conclude that Trumpism, whatever shapes it takes, is a toxic brew that nobody with an IQ above room temperature wants to drink.
Surely, they'd have had enough of losing by now, right? No such luck, since we're talking about the party of the "Dear Leader," who came perilously close to realizing his President For Life ambitions on January 6, 2021, when his followers stormed our nation's Capitol. Far from being tempered, the enemies of democracy only seem ever more emboldened, and ever more determined, to bring it down, "by any means necessary," to coin a phrase.
Examples abound, such as Ohio, where Republicans are talking about ignoring the voters' will, and stripping its courts of jurisdiction over abortion. Or in Wisconsin, where Janet Protasiewicz's game-changing election to its Supreme Court has stirred Republicans -- unwilling to part with the ill-gotten advantages they've gained, through years of gerrymandered minority rule -- to talk of impeaching her.
Or in Arizona and Arkansas, which have opted for the old school voter suppression option, by floating constitutional amendments that would make it harder to pass any kind of ballot measure. As the standing joke goes, Republicans are all in for states' rights -- until their citizens actually vote.
But as oppressive, and noxious and malicious, as these practices seem -- and, as anti-democratic, and manipulative, and vindictive, as they surely are -- all of them pale against Project 2025, the engine by which Team Trump and its allies hope to bring about what they've craved for so long, an American Fourth Reich.
In simple terms, it amounts to a Handmaids Tale-style future on steroids, an unvarnished police state, plain and simple, driven by the twin engines of aggrieved white nationalism, and the unchecked impulses of dominion theology, in the unholiest, ghastliest sense of the term.
For Trump and his minions, it will amount to a lifelong dream come true, with the world's richest nation forever yoked to the ever-changing moods and excesses of its unhinged ruler, and his equally power mad, kleptocratic inner circle. For the great majority, it will unleash a nightmarish spiral of repression, one that has seemed unimaginable and unfathomable -- that is, until now.
<iii.>
On the surface, at least, a look at the Heritage Foundation's website for Project 2025 suggests nothing so dystopian. The centerpiece is an aggressive federal recruiting effort, targeting some 4,000 appointed positions that fall under the Presidential Personnel Office. Trump's former PPO director, John McEntee, is overseeing the effort, which Project 2025 Director Dan Evans describes thusly, in the accompanying press release:
"Our coalition will then review applicants and match them to agencies and offer such suggestions to an eventual transition team. Our goal is to bring conservative warriors from across the entire United States to Washington to ensure that the next administration serves the interests of the American people.”
Hence, Project 2025's website includes a portal for right-wing culture warriors to upload resumes for consideration in a future Trump administration, should that eventuality arise. But it's impossible to square such benign rhetoric with the more troubling picture that's leaked out, particularly of internal discussions that focus on sweeping expansions of administrative power not seen, even during Trump's first term.
They start with the uncorking of Trump's favored hobby horse, the Insurrection Act, to crush the wave of demonstrations, presumably, that would greet his unwanted return. Trump would also invoke the law to arrest migrants right at the border, as Trump's senior henchman, Stephen Miller, has confirmed (see New York Times link below).
Trump also plans to target the two agencies he sees making his life especially miserable -- the FBI, and the U.S. Justice Department -- by stocking them with zealots ready to do his bidding. Just as in Nazi Germany, career employees who didn't toe the line would come under fierce pressure to retire -- if they wanted to stay healthy -- replaced when their time is up, or pushed up, under some pretext or other (see link below: "Gleichshaltung, GOP-Style").
The list goes on and on, amplified by Trump's social media posts and speeches -- reviving attempts to revoke birthright citizenship; invoking the Alien and Sedition Act as pretexts for further clampdowns, and deportations; herding his enemies, real or imagined, into mental institutions, prisons, or giant holding pens, apparently inspired by the mass deportations of 1953-54 (the largest such endeavors in American history, so far).
Name the abuse of power, and he plans to unleash it. It does not take a math whiz, nor a nuclear physicist, to imagine the lasting damage that such a full throttle assault on human rights will mean, in the world's largest and longest-running democracy, one that may take decades to undo -- that is, if the voters allow it.
<Separated at birth? Josef Goebbels (left),
Nazi Propaganda Minister;
Trump aide, Stephen Miller (right)>
<Daily Kos>
<iv.>
For those willing to shrug off such dispiriting exercises as case of "Trump being Trump," they better think again. Trump's latest Nuremberg-style rallies have taken on a darker, and more apocalyptic cast, littered with phrases that sound straight out of Adolf Hitler's playbook, such as this outburst delivered to an audience in New Hampshire, and his Truth Social website:
"In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran's Day, we pledge to you will that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within."
Add increasingly frequent references to the poisoning of America by deviant and criminalized migrants; the conspiratorial aspirations of nameless enemies out to undermine his ill-disguised ambitions; and vows to punish "bad Jews" and other opponents for their betrayals, and you end up with a lot of uncomfortable parallels with the collapse of Germany's Weimar Republic, after a mere 14 years.
Without the entry of American manpower and material to bolster British and Russian allies, the so-called Third Reich may well have lasted longer than the dozen years it occupied the world stage, from 1933 to 1945. Yet we should not mistake the positive results of our past as a permanent shield against the autocrats of tomorrow, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on strongmen past and present, warns us:
"Some have wondered why the Trump campaign is being so open about the repressive policies they intend to implement. This 'transparency' is line with authoritarian history: Autocrats often tell you who they are and what they intend to do to you before they take office. They do this as a challenge to norms, and they do this as a threat."
To paraphrase our earlier joke, Republicans are unblinking enemies of the "Deep State" -- that is, unless they can seize the opportunity to impose one more to their liking.
<v.>
So where, exactly, do these latest events leave us, considering the existential threat that Project 2025 and Team Trump represent? Are those who cast themselves as the defenders of democracy honestly up to the awesome task of safeguarding it?
At first glance, that savior seems to be the legal system, but frankly, the results have been mixed. Most January 6 rioters served a median sentence of 60 days, with varying combinations of community service, fines, home detention, and probation being imposed, depending on the offense. A handful who committed violent acts received longer sentences, of up to 20 years.
But even those sentences are not as stiff as they sound, as we see from the case of the so-called "QAnon Shaman," Jacob Chansley. He served a mere 27 months of a 41-month federal term, a period marked by procedural sparring over whether he deserved the organic vegetarian fare that he demanded. (and got, of course, under a religious liberty argument.)
Chansley just made headlines again, by filing paperwork to run as a Libertarian in Arizona's Eighth Congressional District. Apparently, he's figured out that it's better to get your hands on the levers of power, since it saves the trouble of smearing feces on the walls. If he wins, I suspect that he'll feel comfortable in an environment headed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, another active player who worked to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election loss.
Although Trump and a handful of his cohorts have been charged, the vast majority -- the 147 House Republicans who refused to certify Biden's election, their Senate enablers, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, and right-wing stalwarts, like "Supreme Court Justice" Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginni -- have not been, and may never be. They walk among us, unscathed and untouched, as if the nightmarish events of January 6 had never unfolded.
The failure to hold any of them legally accountable is beyond comprehension, and an insult to anyone who has ever taken the federal oath to "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Without such an accounting, it is difficult to imagine how a democracy can thrive, as the Democrats continue to uphold the democratic norms that their Republican rivals so increasingly disdain.
The sluggish pace of the various legal cases involving Trump also suggests that the long-desired magic bullet, of which so many liberals and legal scholars dream -- the smoking gun, the Atticus Finch-style closing argument that seals a conviction -- may not arrive in time to take Trump off the game board, before the 2024 campaign unfolds in earnest.
<Celebrating Phil Ochs Blog:
https://celebratingphilochs.com/>
Yet our land is still troubled by men who have to hateThey twist away our freedom and they twist away our fate
Fear is their weapon and treason is their cry.We can stop them if we try.
<Phil Ochs, "Power And Glory,"
Missing verse (not used on original recorded version)>
<Coda>
In the end, it will probably fall to those of us who oppose the self-aggrandized destruction of democracy that Project 2025 represents, and continue to remind our coworkers, friends, and neighbors of the dangers that it poses. For this is the joke that all autocrats play on those foolish enough to enable them -- that only some sort of omnipotent authoritarian father figure can cure their ills.
In a different era, that dubious accolade may well have gone to Trump's chief rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. However, DeSantis -- like the mainstream media who relentlessly promoted him -- failed to read the room.
As events have shown, there is no market for a "Diet Trump" brand. Trump's fanbase doesn't want a kinder, gentler version of their aspiring Fuehrer. They embrace him because he is the blunt instrument they've always wanted, not in spite of it, which a critical aspect of the Trump phenomenon that continues to elude his rivals and critics.
Before long, however, the initial promise invariably dries up, as the newly-coined autocratic regime devours more and more resources to sustain its all-powerful leader and his clique, or diverts them to fund its pet projects -- typically, unwinnable wars, or unsustainable economic models, as China is discovering under its blustering neo-Maoist dictator, Xi Jinping.
Yet simply calling out Trump and his cohorts, while it's important, will not be enough in itself. We must also push back against those who continue to normalize his behavior, such as the mainstream media who continues to treat him like another candidate, who happens to have a few rough edges, as Salon notes:
"But the mainstream media is bored with Trump's rhetoric and has now largely moved on. That irresponsible choice further normalizes Trump's evil and the larger neofascist assault on the country's democracy and civil society.
"It is nearly incredible that the presumed nominee of one of the country's two institutional political parties is explicitly channeling Hitler and the Nazis. That should be dominating the news. Trump's Fourth Reich aspirations constitute a national emergency. But America is an unhealthy society where all this will likely be normalizes as just 'culture war tactics' or political 'polarization.'"
Stephen Miller certainly holds no such doubts, as we see from his closing words to the New York Times: "Bottom line, President Trump will do whatever it takes."
Indeed, he can, as he promises, and threatens, and will -- that is, if we, the people, give him the chance. For the sake of our democracy, and our nation, it is a glittering prize that must remain, always and forever, eternally out of his reach. --The Reckoner
Links To Go (Wake Up,
Global Project Against Hate And Extremism:
Project 2025: The Far-Right Authoritarian Playbook:
Heritage Foundation:
Former PPO DIrector John McEntee Joins Project 2025:
Ramen Noodle Nation: Gleichshaltung, GOP-Style:
Ramen Noodle Nation:
"Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Creeps" (Parts I-IV):
Salon: Donald Trump Dreams
Of An American Fourth Reich -- And He's Not Kidding:
The New York Times: Sweeping Raids,
Giant Camps, And Mass Deportations:
<"Now Renting..."/The Reckoner>
