May you live in interesting times. The opening of an alleged Chinese curse (I’m too tired to research it but seem to recall it was such) and a reminder that even rapid positive changes can be unsettling.
Unlike some, the last three weeks (roughly) have not been something where I’ve been scared that I would wake up and find it a dream. I’ve been far more scared that I will wake up and the enemy will have gotten it in one sock and is effectively fighting back. So far they haven’t, and I bow towards Donald Trump and his team.
I had a sneaking suspicion that things would be interesting as soon as I heard that the transition team would be privately funded and not working with the previous Regency as used to be the norm. When I didn’t hear the usual leaks, or even some of the usual behind-the-scenes chatter, suspicions intensified.
Wow. What was being planned was beyond my wildest imagination. There has been a blitz from the word go, and like all good blitzes it was meticulously planned, contingencies developed, great legal counsel was clearly involved, and the logistics were in place. It hit so many places at once the enemy couldn’t figure out where to fight back, and it was also clear that the Trump team was setting things up so that the enemy had to defend their worst assaults on freedom, liberty, and the Constitution in public.
Read this as an example, looking at just one of the EOs and actions. Then read this excellent take from David Strom. Then think of how much work went into the hundred plus (?) EOs piled up and ready to go that first night. That was quite the sight with them all on the desk to be signed, and more keep coming. It is worth noting that every time the enemy even starts to think about getting back on balance, out comes another major EO, often on a hot-button topic for the progressives, to throw them even further off balance. Right now, I’m not sure they can truly decide where to start and can’t handle the sheer volume of things to challenge.
Then, add in the extremely prudent acts in putting people on leave, locking them out of buildings and systems, etc. to prevent the open sabotage that was a hallmark during Trumps first term. I noted with approval that apparently one of the first acts done by DOGE was to mirror drives so that such sabotage would be easy to detect and deal with. That it also preserves a lot of data many would have liked to seen deleted before the audit is another good thing.
Yes, I do keep using the term “enemy” deliberately and advisedly. They are not the loyal opposition. What they have shown themselves to be are opponents of individual freedom, individual liberty, the Constitution, and even of civilization itself. They pretty much dropped all pretenses otherwise during the Biden Regency and declared war on the American people. Or, did you think all those SWAT raids that saw people judicially executed/murdered, and became one of the features of the J6 persecutions were an accident? Messages were being sent, and not just through the corrupted corporate and political media (and boy have the last couple of days been fun with the data coming out of USAID on that). Did you think the 80,000 IRS were going to go after anyone on the left? The Lois Lerner brigades had a target, and it was everyone not a progressive. I could go on, but the point is made. These were not and are not the actions of a loyal opposition, but a disloyal (to the Constitution) enemy.
I’m going to skip over a few things I’ve noticed as I am hoping Trump and DOGE can get several more weeks of accomplishment in before the enemy starts fighting back/fighting back effectively. I really hope the enemy does not figure some of it out and the grand rope-a-dope going on continues.
That said, it is not a time to drop your guard or your preparedness. The usual suspects have doxxed the DOGE team, and while the new leadership at DOJ is investigating that and a myriad of threats, it’s still a problem. It is a bigger one for the people doing this as within their bubbles they have no clue how PO’d the public is and how much (and how fast) that is growing as more corruption comes out. The public mood is far angrier than most realize, and far too many of our credentialed so-called elite really don’t get that this time they need to care. They have not caught up with the times, and still think violence (by their usual crew) is something to be controlled like a rheostat so as to make the controlled opposition behave. Reality is that for the majority of Americans, it’s a switch and nobody on any side should want to see that flipped. Violence against Trump, Vance, his cabinet, and the DOGE team is almost guaranteed to flip it though.
Again, they live such insular lives within their bubbles that they really don’t get that it is truly no longer the Republican party (and controlled opposition) they knew all their lives. What it is now is a mix of libertarian, conservative, and populist that used the existing structure because it was convenient. It’s no longer the group of squishes that would let them keep running things even when the party “won” an election. The concept that the winning team would govern and not let them keep on like always is, I suspect, a horrifying lèse-majesté that truly shocks them. The horror!
There may be a few of the enemy who get it, and understand where they are at right now. Most don’t. They can’t (or won’t) deal with reality and the changes underway. Which is where danger comes in. As noted above, violence against Trump and Company will have repercussions no sane person wants to see happen. Yet, the BlueSky crowd was busy doxxing and making threats early on. I’m hoping that legal consequences for same may cause some to hit the brakes a bit, but I think far too many are not going to calm down given how many rice bowls just got kicked over.
Cornered rats are very dangerous, and the credentialed so-called elites are several steps above that. They see the system that they grew up in and that has given them power, money, and more failing. The NGOs were sinecures for children, nieces, and nephews that guaranteed the money and power would stay in those families for generations. Quite a few of those types have no other marketable skill nor do they have alternate career plans even if they did have skills. Given that, I truly am worried we could see some nuclear-grade stupid.
I actually think there are plans already in place for such (note Trump’s “I’ve left instructions”), and even if not I would be saying restraint, restraint, restraint. Stupidity on their part does not demand stupidity in return.
Make no mistake: we are in a revolution. This type of revolution has very high odds for success and a return to a truly Constitutional Republic. As someone noted on X the other day, it’s not something you can shut off at this point. Fact is, it is burn the boats time and we need to go all in on DOGE and the efforts underway. We have even more to lose in some ways than the enemy, in that we can lose our gains and freedoms, as well as our souls. However, we also have far more to gain through a successful revolution/restoration than they will. Their way of life is gone no matter what.
Expect the unexpected; think, then act; and, sit back and enjoy the show. I think Sarah used an analogy recently of a roller coaster and it sure is a good descriptor of the last couple of weeks. It’s fun, more than slightly scary (occasionally even terrifying), and not something you can leave mid-ride. My inner geek keeps hearing Kosh from Babylon 5 saying “The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.” Apt, and there are some interesting parallels between what is going on and what went on in Babylon 5.
I am going to pray for success, sanity on all sides, and the best possible outcome. I am going to make sure I’m prepared for turbulence. Most of all, I’m going to try not to get whiplash from the rapid events and not laugh too hard at all that is happening. Feel free to join me in sitting back and enjoying the show.
I agree with your assessment. The meticulous planning and full-speed-ahead actions taken by the Trump team/DOGE are key to the success he’s had so far. Dare I say, the distraction of DOGE likely helped with getting his cabinet confirmed? The high ranking Dems can’t focus on two things at the same time.
Heh. They sure are fighting on Kash and Tulsi, but suspect they are very scared there. Think they are just starting to figure out even with the injunction from that Stalinistic DC Judge that DOGE is about to air a LOT of dirty laundry. Reminds me, I need to get more popcorn… 🙂
Kash is the most important.
I prefer Restoration to Revolution. Restore us as citizens of a republic, not subjects to a faceless bureacracy.
To Trump and his admin, “Pedal to the Metal” should be the motto. We are near bankruptcy and need a restoration of liberty if we are to make it well past our 250th birthday.
I think the “local” opposition, ie the US Democrat party, is in utter disarray and not likely to recover soon. It is slowly dawning on them that they have lost their former blue-collar base on the issues and they have no clue how to recover it, made worse by the iron grip the hard left has on the party.
My biggest fear is that larger globalist forces (Soros?) will concoct/generate some kind of financial crisis to panic the population and drive them back to the “safety” of the Deep State. One “conspiracy theory” I have never been able to shake is the suggestion that Soros manipulated the 2008 financial meltdown with the specific goal in mind of getting Obama elected. Yeah McCain was not the greatest candidate to say the least. But he was running even in the polls with BO prior to the meltdown, afterwards he was toast.
You are right about violence that is one thing the left knows and does well. The irony of the riot in Phoenix and elsewhere, is that the local police have been told to stand down regarding helping ICE and they are on the front lines against the lefts shock troops. There are over 300 illegals at Cook County jail who won’t be turned over to ICE. Interesting times indeed.
Who won’t be willingly turned over to ICE.
They need a new pandemic. China is listening. They have a stake in this too.
History says the worst mistake the left could make is to take out Trump. In 1865, Lincoln was preparing to go easy on the former Confederate states. What replaced him after his assassination was a fifteen year nightmare of occupation and revenge by a federal government hell bent on breaking the south.
Your use of the term sinecures for the positions held in the NGOs and government bureaucracy is appropriate. We have developed an informal aristocracy that is ruling with less and less concern for the will of the people of the republic.
Can a republic survive being a strong state, or are we doomed in the long run of expiring similar to how the Roman republic lost its democratic aspects and became an imperial state? To preserve our republic do we need to deliberately limit the role our government plays both foreign and domestic? I’m not an isolationist at all, but it may not be a coincidence that USAID was a key area for these sinecures to be allocated to.
To preserve our republic do we need to deliberately limit the role our government plays both foreign and domestic?
*points to the US Constitution*
Our Founders would say “Oh he** yes.” They designed it that way.
“May you live in interesting times” was the invention of English fantasy fiction author Ernest Brahmah, and was often uttered by his chief protagonist Kai-Lung in his delightful Kai-Lung series of novels. Kai-Lung was an itinerant story-teller who wandered, Candide-like, around a richly imagined ancient/medieval China modeled (perhaps) after China of the Tang Dynasty period. Kai-Lung get involved in one adventure after another, always coming out on top, but not before undergoing all sorts of hilarious – madcap, slapstick — trials and tribulation.
Absolutely brilliant, and brilliantly funny, books — Brahmah was a blessed genius of humor writing..
For more about Ernest Brahmah see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Bramah
Thank you for that! I am going to have to check out his writing.
There will be motivated “nuts” that are incited by the “rhetoric” of the media and the left’s echo-spheres that will do some drastic things. In addition, there are those on the “right” that are afraid of losing their financial spigot access, and they will try and turn on this process. The question is, when.
The clock is ticking. And it isn’t a shot clock.
I do not doubt that once “riot season” arrives we will see leftist violence. How extreme and widespread that will be, I do not know; I do know that it will not be like Summer 2020 – police may stand down, hide out at the donout shop, whatever, but The Citizens will not tolerate it again (if things go kinetic “hiding out at the donut shop” might be the best thing cops can do – it wouldn’t take much for them to get lumped in with the violent left and once they’ve been judged to also be the enemy….well, Bad Day at Black Rock).
What I’m more concerned about is what mechanisms are being installed to prevent the left from subverting the Constitution and laws again. They did it once, there are people on the left who, while deep into the Leftist Zeitgeist, are not at all stupid and who can resurrect the grift. It may take them a while, but they’ve deeply tasted the sweet graft once and it’s addicting. It’s also the only way for them to restore themselves to power – they need the large cash flows only the taxpayers can provide.
There is a LOT of legislative work to do, and to do fast to ensure that. Can it be done? We will see.