Trump: This Could Get Ugly
As it becomes increasingly apparent that the U.S. president has an unsavory connection with Russia, the calls for him to face impeachment are getting louder. So where is this going?
Incredibly, the idea of a civil war in the U.S. seems to be getting tossed around here. Perhaps it began with Trump’s friend Roger Stone, Republican political consultant, lobbyist and strategist, who famously predicted such bloodshed when interviewed long before the growing speculation as to the president’s loyalty to his country.
Now we see a call to arms, in which an ex-CIA official is calling for Trump’s supporters to get ready to massacre the president’s opponents en masse. Is the guy insane? Of course. Should he be taken seriously? Absolutely.
Here, however, is his problem: rule of law; we’re a nation of laws. When he says “Trump supporters will come to his defense with rifles if necessary,” he seems to have forgotten that these fine people will be breaking the law, and thus will be running into 1.1 million members of U.S. law enforcement agencies, supported as necessary by another 1.3 million people in the military, whose smaller weapons are shown above. As noted previously, unlike the U.S. Civil War that took five years to run its course, this one will be over in about 15 minutes.
I don’t say this to downplay the danger. This isn’t Watergate in 1974, a time of antiwar sentiment, prosperity and improving race relations; it’s 2018, a time of intense ignorance and hate. And Trump isn’t Nixon. Though the two share the same love of power and belief that they’re above the law, Nixon was a cool-headed intellectual, where Trump is a street thug. This really could get ugly.
Craig,
You seem to be having a meltdown into a crazy fantasy !
Since when was President Nixon considered a “cool headed intellectual” ? Nixon had his talents, but intellectualism wasn’t a description used at the time of Nixon.
Nixon was a professional politician suffering from paranoia and depression. The world was a very different place. Ideology ruled statecraft and the US led the world against two massive power blocks it imagined were more powerful than they really were, but were certainly dangerous.
The USSR no longer exists! The ’empire’ it created no longer exists, even the ideology so feared by the Western world has essentially disappeared.
Russia isn’t a real enemy capable of waging war against the West, it lacks the military, logistical and economic strength and has no method of motivating the Russian people to become involved in a suicidal military conflict.
President Trump is an unusual demagogue, since he has rejected the path of cheap popularity of provoking enemies as a distraction to failing domestic policies. Instead, with domestic policies working well, he is defusing international tensions and disengaging the US military from foreign adventures, a policy the old left used to promote!
Instead the President is the first American leader to engage the world in terms of the changed circumstances in which the US now finds itself.
The President’s policy of returning administration from Obama’s rule by Presidential Fiat, back to rule by Congressional law, is hardly the act of a demagogue.
Fanning the flames of conflict and disorder is unproductive, so is living in a fantasy that somehow the election of 2016 can be reversed.
Forget about excitable rantings from extremists of both right and left, the future of US politics will be decided by the same electoral process, as has provided stable government for over 100 years.