Preparing for a police state
15 November 2024
Today’s blog by Robert Reich is quite troubling and appears, at least to me, to be on the mark:
The most powerful levers of control in the United States government are found in the six positions where intelligence-gathering and brute force overlap — the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Homeland Security, Attorney General, Director of the CIA, and Director of National Intelligence.
These six constitute the raw muscle of the federal government, where information about the nation’s security is gathered and force is wielded.
Trump could turn America into a police state by putting people into these positions who are more loyal to him than they are to America and the U.S. Constitution.
Trump has repeatedly warned of a so-called “enemy within.” If he is serious about this putative threat — and we must assume he is — he, and the people around him now planning all of this, must be ready to wield the power of the nation to spy on and use military force against such so-called internal enemies.
Consider Trump’s nominations this week, and he seems well on his way. More here
What should we do?
Each one of us should do more now to fight this descent into dictatorship. If you have never done anything but vote, now is the time to join an organization, attend a meeting or take some other action.
The primary motivation of Trump and Musk appears to be financial. We should do our part to ensure that we are not financing them. I have previously outlined steps we can take to limit this. In addition, others have suggested avoiding the advertisers on X (I cannot find a current list) and Fox (there may be other lists) and limiting business with Trump’s major supporters. Of course, we cannot do everything but we should try to do something.
We should not rely on social media to get our news because it is highly biased and typically indifferent to the truth. I find the mainstream media to be useful, even though they are not perfect. I regularly read the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and The Hill.
We need to get our youth more involved because they will be affected the most by Trump’s police state.
Trump is likely to die within several years, in my opinion, as his mental deterioration progresses. However, we need to limit the destruction he does to this country during that time. In addition, his successors may continue this destruction. It is better and easier for us to be courageous now and do what we can to stop this descent into dictatorship. It will be much more dangerous if we wait.
Non Americans should also be concerned. Trump’s dictatorship threatens a worldwide recession or depression as well as a world war because Russia, China, North Korea and Iran know that under Trump, the United States will be weak militarily and politically.
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