- Trump deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington DC.
- La Migra* terrorized Chicago.
- Trump planned to unleash the National Guard on Chicago and Portland and, if blocked from using the local National Guard, to call in forces from some other state.
- Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, digital mobs pressed to fire anyone who criticized him and the FCC (briefly) forced Jimmy Kimmel of the air, and the government sought IRS and RICO actions against activist groups on the left.
- Steve Miller announced an "all of government effort" to dismantle "Antifa."
- Pete Hegseth summoned all generals to Washington, DC and Trump lectured them about the enemy within.
- Paramount bought out CBS and put Bari Weiss in charge of news.
- The DOJ indicted James Comey and Letitia James and set their eyes on Adam Schiff.
- Trump welcomed a government shutdown to allow for more power grabs.
- Russell Vought pledged to cut funding and personnel in a blatantly partisan manner.
- Republican made terrifying remarks about the upcoming "No Kings" march.
- Republicans in general and Trump in particular made hysterical warnings and threats if Zohran Mandami were elected Mayor.
- And Mike Johnson practically voted the House into permanent recess to avoid a vote on the Epstein files.
We seemed at an irreversible tipping point into dictatorship that nothing could stop. And then in November and December, Trump suffered a setback.
- Four Republicans broke rank to force a vote on the Epstein files and Congress voted overwhelmingly to demand their release.
- Congress returned to session following that vote.
- The government shutdown became a political millstone for Trump and did not yield any significant power grabs.
- Trump spent the shutdown, with essential federal employees going unpaid and people losing their SNAP benefits, posting about his super-expensive ballroom and remodeling of the Kennedy Center, seemingly unaware of how tone deaf that was.
- Congress passed annual funding for SNAP benefits, depriving Trump of a valuable hostage in any future shutdown.
- House Republicans passed an extension of Obamacare subsidies against Trump's wishes.
- State and local elections swung strongly toward the Democrats and Trump did not contest the results.
- Greg Bovino and his goons withdrew from Chicago, leaving the city bloody but unbowed.
- Trump quietly backed down from his National Guard deployments.
- The Supreme Court largely blocked any future plans to deploy the National Guard.**
- Marjorie Taylor Green broke with Trump.
- The Indiana legislature refused to gerrymander, despite threats from online Trump supporters.
- Mandami charmed Trump into dropping his threats.
- The rightwing influencers started fighting among themselves about the Charlie Kirk assassination in particular and antisemitism in general.
- Indictments against Comey and James were dismissed.
- The DOJ actually began investigating the investigators in the Adam Schiff case.
But it was always a mistake to see this as Trump being defeated, as opposed to suffering a setback. And now he has once again seized momentum.
Some flew under the radar screen.
While we celebrated victory the Administration prepared a memo making clear that plans to criminalize the opposition are by no means over. While the memo essentially declared any leftwing view to be suspect, its focus on doxing or impeding law enforcement strongly suggests that immigrant rights groups are the main targets.
Others were more blatant.
Most obvious is the invasion of Venezuela. The threat is now present to every leader in the Western Hemisphere -- toe our line or it might be you next. And now Trump is seriously threatening to destroy NATO by invading Greenland. And now he has seized Venezuelan oil and is depositing the proceeds of sale in offshore accounts to serve as his personal slush fund, beyond the reach of Congress or the courts.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been threatened with criminal charges in an attempt to force him to lower interest rates.
Trump has started "joking" about cancelling the 2026 elections.
And if we missed an opportunity to make the assassination of Charlie Kirk our Reichstag Fire moment, well, the postman always rings twice. The assassination of two National Guard troops by an Afghan granted asylum has been just the excuse Trump needed for further crackdown on immigration -- shutting down entry from a wide range of countries that had nothing to do with the shooting. And Trump is starting to act like a smart authoritarian. A smart authoritarian knows that if he wants to crack down on some ethnic minority, first he has to whip up hatred against it. In this case, Trump called Minneapolis Somalis garbage and drew attention to a very real COVID fraud case involving Somalis. Rightwing influencers did the rest. One soon produced a report alleging widespread daycare fraud by Somalis in Minneapolis and set off a full-scale moral panic. Trump, having succeeded in whipping up hatred, had his excuse for a crackdown.
La Migra is terrorizing Minneapolis on an unprecedented scale -- 2000 agents from ICE and 1000 from Border Patrol. Operations in Los Angeles and Chicago were simply not on this scale, and operated in much larger cities. By all accounts, Minneapolis is a city under occupation and the goal is to crush it into submission. And, frankly, to make an example of Minneapolis. No doubt the scale of the attack was made possible by the massive expansion of ICE with the One Bonkers Barbaric Bonanza and the severity the result of putting Border Patrol in charge. It seems a safe assumption that future blitzes by La Migra will look much that same. And can we face it? Despite all the increases in funding, La Migra still does not have enough forces to conquer and subjugate a country of over 300 million.
But it doesn't have to. All it has to do is pour in enough resources for a long enough time to fully conquer and subjugate one major US city -- in this case, Minneapolis, but any city would do. After that, it need only threaten any future target with the same fate to produce submission. Such was the strategy with Venezuela. Or with Columbia University. Just crush one target and the rest will fall into line. This is what has to be stopped.
*Referring to the combined forces of ICE and Border Patrol.
**The ruling, it should be noted, made no sense at all, since it said he could deploy the National Guard only if the Army couldn't do the job! But at least for now, it has also blocked deployment of the Army.
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