As long as Trump remains in office, he and his supporters remain capable of anything

 

The leftist journalist John L. Spivak, in commenting upon the alleged conspiracy by industrialists to stage a military-backed coup in 1933—the so-called “Business Plot”—with the intent of “forcing” FDR to accept being a figurehead president, noted that 

The takeover plot failed because though those involved had astonishing talents for making breathtaking millions of dollars, they lacked an elementary understanding of people and the moral forces that activate them. In a money-standard civilization such as ours, the universal regard for anyone who is rich tends to persuade some millionaires that they are knowledgeable in fields other than the making of money. The conspirators went about the plot as if they were hiring an office manager; all they needed was to send a messenger to the man they had selected.

The “office manager” the industrialists—the same kind of people that FDR in his famous 1936 Madison Square Garden speech proclaimed that he “welcomed their hatred”—hoped to recruit was Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, who had supported the "Bonus Army" protesters. However, they seemed to have missed what Butler said in a speech prior to his being approached for this mission:

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street…I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

In testimony before Congress, Butler claimed that a Gerald MacGuire repeatedly contacted him about supplying him with 500,000 armed men and financial support if he led a fascist takeover of the government. At the time, near everyone regarded the whole thing as a complete hoax, although given Butler’s impeccable reputation, it was believed that MacGuire was engaged in “exploring” the possibility of a coup on behalf of wealthy backers for whom the New Deal was anathema, and who would all deny any knowledge of the alleged plot. But if indeed Butler was approached to lead a fascist-style takeover of the government (the “pretext” being that FDR was in “ill health”), the alleged plotters seriously misread their man, for Butler was well known for his support of FDR and antipathy toward unrestrained capitalism.

As Spivak noted, the rich seem to think that since they are good at making money, that makes them “qualified” in other fields of endeavor, as if they can “buy” a PH.D without actually having to take a single class or read a single book on any subject that requires a modicum of intellect or critical thinking. We have heard Donald Trump repeatedly claim his “genius” in a variety of fields in which he offered crackpot ideas, and his belief he was “smarter” than all the generals in the military. If we need any more proof—or rather, just more to put on top of the Mount Everest-sized pile—that  Trump’s presidency has been nothing more than a massive ego-trip bereft of any semblance of intellectual curiosity (other than, say, drinking deadly chemicals to “kill”  the COVID-19). Nor does Trump (save for his most fanatical base) possess that “elementary understanding of people and the moral forces that activate them,” which was borne out by the fact that even in states with Republican-controlled legislatures or governors that Joe Biden won, the governors and election officials refused  to heed Trump’s pressure to overturn the election on ethical and legal grounds.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump from keeping his focus on riling up his personal militias on election fraud conspiracies while the world around him is falling apart. While once more Trump is trying to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to give him just one court “victory”—again targeting a state (Pennsylvania) with a Republican-dominated legislature that approved expanded mail-in voting—his insistence that cyber security, especially that targeting Russian hacking efforts, is just another thing that makes him look “bad.” His insistence on believing Vladimir Putin’s lies has opened this country to massive security breaches as we see now with the SolarWinds episode. Trump did not want to hear anything about Russian hacking, and this refusal gave Russian hackers a “window” to operate freely, because they knew that cyber security experts were afraid for their jobs if they brought the subject up. This latest hacking allegedly began this past March, which gave the hackers (likely Russian intelligence agents), plenty of time to do a great deal of damage. Of course the Russians are going to deny it; only a fool like Trump actually believes such denials.

Of course the pandemic continues to rage all over the world, and in this country we find that Texas and Florida deliberately reduced testing and “reevaluated” what qualified as a COVID-19 death, while delaying reporting before the election in an obvious effort to effect the vote. Trump’s own attitude toward the virus seems to be “If you don’t talk about it, it isn’t real,” and that goes for testing too. Of course with millions of Trump supporters who don’t believe the virus is “real,” it doesn’t really matter if Trump is only concerned about his political life and not that of people who haven’t stopped breathing yet.

For Trump’s “army,” the battle continues for what can only be described as a fascist overthrow of democracy. According to Politico, Trump’s most numb-nut supporters—including Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn—have called on Trump to impose martial law via the Insurrection Act to undo the election:

Nonetheless, in the minds of some authoritarian-leaning and conspiracy-minded Trump supporters, the Insurrection Act has become a needed step to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from assuming the presidency. Their evidence-deficient reasoning: Democrats illegally rigged the election and are attempting a coup, and Trump must send in the troops to undo this conspiracy. The conviction shows how hard-edged MAGA ideology has become in the wake of Trump’s election loss. While scattered theories about a “deep state” arrayed against Trump have long circulated in MAGA circles, calls for troops to stop a democratically elected president from taking office have taken those ideas to a more conspiratorial and militaristic level. It also displays the exalted level to which Trump has been elevated among his most zealous fans as his departure looms.

Let’s recall that the 1933 “Business Plot” was to operate along similar lines, albeit under less “secrecy.” Today we have an anti-democratic conspiracy being led by a “businessman” who has lived his entire life ruled by his own laws and cannot function by compromise, or accept “losing.” Trump has deliberately sought to inflame his base with evidence-free claims of fraud without a single thought about the danger of doing so. He has been less than subtle about his supporters taking to the streets to overturn the election on his behalf. His supporters have in fact taken to the streets, sometimes violently and often armed to “protest” the election result. Given Trump’s abnormal behavior that is being fed by many far-right Republicans and media, it is a very real danger that if an “army” of Trump supporters did march on Washington DC to prevent Biden from taking office, Trump would do nothing to stop it. If Trump actually called on the Army itself to perform that action in order to prevent an “illegal” president from taking office, it would pose the most serious crisis in this country’s history since the Civil War.  

Trump is actually “keen” on the idea, but he twists it by claiming it is to send out the Army to quell an “insurrection” by anti-Trump protesters, if he actually refuses to leave office because of what he would call “proven fraud,” as he suggested to Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro.  The effort to concoct such “proven fraud” continues apace, as the New York Times reported that on Friday there was a “raucous” meeting that included Sidney Powell in which Trump proposed that Powell be appointed “special prosecutor” to investigate election fraud. Most Trump advisors opposed such a move, including Rudy Giuliani, because of the likelihood that such an investigation by Powell would only provide more embarrassment for the regime, given her incompetence and habit of promoting the most bizarre conspiracies, and “witnesses” and “experts” who turn out to be complete fakers themselves.

Meanwhile, a far-right group called True the Vote is attempting to “preemptively” disenfranchise 360,000 voters in Georgia prior to the runoff elections to determine control of the U.S. Senate. Some counties have taken their own steps to suppress the vote by reducing the number of early voting stations, which has led to the issuing of complaints to election officials.  It is worth noting that in this country there are 240 million people who are legally qualified to vote, with the number who did not vote in 2020 roughly equal to the number who voted for Joe Biden. We should be trying to trying to encourage more people to vote, not discourage them. But for Republicans, greater democracy is anathema because like all masters of the plantation, they fear as much as they patronize the plebes, which is why Republicans always seem to demonize those who promote such “socialist” ideas like affordable health care; it makes them more “equal.”

Despite the Electoral College vote, the danger is still not over. The refusal of Trump’s most fanatical supporters to accept reality and possibly react “affirmatively” to Trump’s call to “action” cannot be dismissed out of hand as a “hoax,” since Trump has taken pains not to discourage such action. That is what a “leader” with authoritarian impulses does with the help of far-right media propaganda that lends “deep state” conspiracies a measure of “credence” for a “base” that craves authoritarian leaders who promise to dispose of their social and ideological “enemies” and undesirables.