In the past, political corruption was done to give one person or one side an upper hand. In our current environment, in addition to this unfortunate but predictable behavior, we have something far more dangerous. In 2020, we have several very powerful individuals and groups who are not simply trying to “bend” the constitution to advance their cause; they want to break the constitution entirely.
Donald Trump - Divide and Conquer
One of these is Donald J. Trump, a RINO. He is not truly a Republican, but a totalitarian. He has been taking aim at the foundations of our democracy in order to completely break it. The most critical of these is the basic truth that a democracy only works when its citizens respect each other. This is even more fundamental than the direct assaults on our institutions because that assault wouldn't work if the country weren't so polarized.
As we all can see, Donald Trump unites his base - a little less than half the country - against the other half. And that base is very united. He has managed to strongly unite the other half as well in response. Both sides are angry. Over the last three years, commentators outside of his base (Democrats and moderate or former Republicans) have wondered: “Doesn’t he understand that he’s the president and he’s supposed to unite the country? Doesn’t he know our country is stronger when it is united?” The answer is: HE DOES KNOW. He absolutely knows that the country is stronger when united. And he could have done a lot to unite the country had he wanted to.
But he did the opposite. Intentionally.
Do you think all of his anger just happens incidentally? Do you think he inadvertently gets the entire country riled up with all the name-calling? Do you think his rally chants of “lock her up” are just for for fun? Of course not. They are intended to do exactly what they’ve been doing. They are intended to polarize the country. And let me assure you: Donald Trump knows that a democracy only works when its citizens respect each other. Trump is not just a teen-age bully who somehow stumbled into power. This was calculated.
I know there’s been a lot going on and it’s easy to get distracted, but remember to keep an eye on the fascist movement. As we all saw shortly after Trump took office, the American Nazi Party is alive and well in this country. They and the various flavors of that movement aren’t bringing attention to themselves right now but they are still out there in plain sight. There are significant numbers of people in this country that actually want a fascist government. They WILL support Trump and they are armed.
Putin - Rebuilding Russia Into A Superpower
In the midst of the impeachment hullaballoo, many of you probably didn’t notice that Putin has engineered a coup in Russia. He announced he is replacing their constitution. At Putin’s request, his entire cabinet resigned en masse. Vladimir Putin, former head of the FSB (the KGB’s successor agency), is trying to remake Russia into the powerhouse that was once the U.S.S.R. He has the intelligence, knowledge, and background to succeed. He has been extraordinarily successful at keeping himself in power despite term limits - he just rewrites the rules when his term is about to expire. Interestingly, Trump has “joked” about doing the same here in the U.S as well as joked about canceling the election altogether.
I know a lot of Republicans think the Russia investigation was a big “Nothing Burger” but there is a lot more evidence to connect Trump to Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections than there is to connect the Bidens to corruption in Ukraine. On page 2 in the Introduction to Volume I of the Mueller Report, the report says (emphasis mine in the following quotes): “A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean that there was no evidence of those facts.” On page 9, the report goes on to state: “Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal.” You have to look at those statements together. Although the evidence was “not sufficient to charge” that anyone was an unregistered agent of Russia, we can be sure that there was SOME evidence to that effect. If there weren’t, the report would have said “no evidence was found” rather than “insufficient evidence to charge”.
Why was there only some evidence found but not enough to charge? Because the Office of Special Counsel was blocked in its ability to investigate. On page 10 the report notes: “[T]he investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of this investigation.”The Report identifies multiple factors that impeded their ability to get to all of the evidence, including the fact that “documents were held outside the United States.” This isn’t the DNC’s documents they are referring to; they are referring to documents associated with the Trump campaign.
After listing other issues encountered such as individuals providing false information, the report says:
"Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts.”
The Report goes on to state: “... the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.”
To summarize this, we STILL do not know the extent of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, nor do we yet know the full roles played by Trump’s associates or played by members of his campaign in that interference. Stop buying into the “It’s a nothing burger” propaganda and the insistence that we have nothing to worry about from Russia. We have A LOT to worry about from Russia.
The “Useful” Group: The Constitutional Convention Coalition
There is yet another group involved and this group will ultimately determine the outcome. I don’t think this group wants to destroy American democracy altogether but they do want to rewrite the Constitution. We know this because they have been working on plans for a constitutional convention for years. In 2017, a group of GOP state lawmakers from 17 states met in Phoenix to work on plans for a constitutional convention. A Common Cause article calls out the dangers of a constitutional convention, particularly at this polarized time in our country. The Common Cause article also identifies the backers of this effort:
"The Convention of States effort has major resources behind it, including at least $500,000 from the Mercer family (known for their support of President Trump and Republican candidates) and numerous large contributions from the Koch-connected Donors Trust. The well-funded Convention of States campaign is led by Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler and former U.S. Sens. Tom Coburn, R-OK, and Jim DeMint, R-SC; DeMint also is a former Heritage Foundation president. The campaign has garnered major endorsements from other major conservative media personalities, elected officials, and special interest groups, including Senator Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Senator Rand Paul, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Pete Hegseth, Allen West, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and others.”
I could be wrong but I do not think that most people in this group want democracy entirely gone. I don’t think that they wants to replace our republic with a fascist state. I think they are simply trying to “bend” the rules so they end up with the upper hand. This “bending of the rules” also explains Alan Dershowitz’s argument that if you believe what you are doing is in the public’s interest, then anything goes. This is why he has no qualms about shredding the existing constitution during the impeachment: he thinks forcing a rewrite to the constitution is in the public good regardless of how it is done - as long as he and the more right-leaning members of the GOP will be in control of the outcome. In an attempt to DE-CENTRALIZE power and give it back to the states, the GOP is willing to CENTRALIZE that power first…into the hands of a RINO fascist who aligns himself with Putin. It will be a fatal miscalculation.
To this group I ask: Do you think that Trump is simply going to move over and hand power back to you? Do you think that you can somehow wrest it back from him after you have let his power goes unchecked? I don’t think you can. I don’t think you have even the faintest chance of that. But for the sake of argument, let’s look at how it would go if you actually did wrest power back, and even if you did manage to replace the constitution with the one you have been working on. In the extremely unlikely event you succeed with all that, you will find yourself with a very divided country. Yes, I know that that has already happened in our history. I know that the country never really came back together after the Civil War. But there is something very different this time. This time we have foreign adversaries that want us destroyed. They have been actively working to undermine our institutions and our elections. While we are fighting internally, they are ready to pounce.
Who is Outmaneuvering Whom?
I said above that I do not think that "most" people in this group want democracy entirely gone. Now I'll say that I also believe that some in this group DO want it destroyed. This constitutional convention effort has been in the works for years and there is no doubt that Putin is very much aware of it. If I were Putin, I would unquestionably send people to infiltrate the group. We can be sure that has happened. Putin is not stupid. He is dangerous.
Think about it. Trump wasn't part of the original plan to take over the state governments and force a constitutional convention. Nobody in that group even liked him. They considered him a dangerous threat to our country. The plan was to get somebody like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush into the White House. But Trump appeared (and really came out of nowhere) and ultimately he offered a "short-cut". It can be hard to resist a short-cut. The problem is that Trump is Putin's short-cut, not yours.
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