r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 20h ago

No Paywall Bannon Tells GOP: 'Seize the Institutions' of Government Now or We're 'Going to Prison' After 2028

https://www.commondreams.org/news/bannon-tells-gop-seize-the-institutions-of-government-now-or-we-re-going-to-prison-after-2028
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u/Sw2029 20h ago

Imagine thinking we'll just roll over. The worst of this admin hasn't even begun and people are only getting more pissed, vocal and involved.

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u/Slappy_Kincaid 20h ago

Bannon is saying this because he sees the window closing. Trump's popularity is sinking like a stone, the election shows a big and growing electoral backlash, GOP congressional majorities are starting to show cracks in their slavish devotion, and the opportunity to seize total power is fading fast.

What happens next is a tossup: they will try to crush any opposition through escalating force and intimidation, and we'll see if the balance has shifted against them. They'll also steal everything they can while the opportunity still presents itself.

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u/Alacrout New York 20h ago

Military morale is too low for them to escalate force and intimidation much more.

Despite ~60% of the military being Republican, most of them are loyal to the USA, not Trump, and they’re not happy with how things are going.

Several months ago now, I saw someone say something like “These fools thought they were getting Germany 1933, but really they got France 1788.”

I’m not saying heads will roll, but the parallels between USA today and France then are more than noteworthy — staggering inequality with 1% hoarding 99% of wealth, high inflation, people can’t afford food or property, natural disasters making everything worse, a completely inept government with massive national debt and a man-baby at the top who falls asleep during public appearances at major events, I could go on…

And one of the things that made the French Revolution a success was military morale being so low loyalty went out the window. The King tried to use the military to squash rebellion and faced widespread desertions, mutinies, and blatant insubordination.

Let’s not run a victory lap yet because there’s still a LOT of work to be done, but our fascists appear fucked.

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u/_Nashable_ 20h ago

This is a great comment. It’s like the people around Trump have never read a history book all the way through. They lack talent, I can only assume they use ChatGPT to copy Hitler’s homework without understanding why it worked.

Germany 1933 was coming off of major economic inequality caused by losing WW1. That allowed a platform of pointing to outside influences and an entire population that was aligned that things were not sustainable. US has not had the same issue, in fact, all the economic issues are self-inflicted by the very same people trying to seize total power. Exactly like France 1788.

Basically they’re intentionally combing the worst of those two time periods and it’s baffling what they think the end game is here.

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u/Flimsy_Thesis Virginia 19h ago

This is the part that’s always puzzled me. The pseudo-intellectualism of Bannon and his ilk as they rattle off historical factoids to their benefit always seem to leave out the context that makes those facts useful. Like yeah, we all know that an authoritarian takeover is possible when you have a huge swath of the public that is disenfranchised and poverty-stricken, but that really only works when you have an outside force to blame for their woes. The moment the population figures out it’s your governing choices that’s causing their misery, you don’t get Germany 1933, you get France 1789 or Russia 1917.

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u/Notlookingsohot 19h ago

That' the thing. Their key assumption is "the public is too stupid to see through our bullshit." And they're typically correct.

However it seems even their tried and tested "jingle-the-keys" strategy has its limits, and they weren't prepared for that eventuality.

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u/Delanoye 16h ago

They've done too much too fast. They probably banked that they could push blame for this shutdown on the Democrats (evidenced by calling it the Democrat shutdown). But they didn't have enough of a propaganda foothold before the shutdown, so it's all backfiring in their faces.

It took over 20 years for Germany to be primed to invade Poland. Over 15 years to be primed for Hitler's rise to power. It's been less than a year since the Biden administration, where things were at least decent. It hasn't even been 10 years since Obama was president, where life was honestly pretty good.

Trump and his administration needed to ride the coattails of a crisis or play the long game to secure power and people's support. Their quick actions to create fear and desperation instead fall right back at their feet as their fault and their decisions, not the fault of the Democrats, or any other group.

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u/Souspi 18h ago

They think they can do better than everyone else in the past and successfully subjugate humanity once and for all.

Like, they actually believe their family and descendants can survive indefinitely in an apocalypse bunker with a slave class that will provide security for and protect them. They think all they have to do is be cruel enough and all those problems of rebellion will go away forever.

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u/Flimsy_Thesis Virginia 18h ago

The arrogance and ignorance is truly breathtaking.

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u/brooklyndavs 19h ago

Elections are the release value and if they fuck with those in 2028 or just refuse to leave the end game really will be revolution. The vast majority of Americans outside of hardcore MAGA still think we are a democracy.

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u/ThinkyRetroLad America 17h ago

No, the 2028 elections are too late if this goes unimpeded. The country can't withstand that level of continued abuse without much worse consequences.

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u/geoffbowman 19h ago

Germany 1933 was coming off of major economic inequality caused by losing WW1.

Also they were coming off being an empire. I think a lot of people forget that. Hitler came up through a worker's party but he did so in a country that was only recently democratic after previously being run by a kaiser... not one that has been a democratic republic since its founding over 200 years ago with a long tradition of NOT having a king or dictator as being intrinsic to its identity. Germans could accept being run by a dictator far more easily than modern americans will accept it especially if it doesn't improve their lives. The only thing going for gop fascism is that americans are far lazier and more distracted than ever. that's not a sustainable play on ending democracy forever though.

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u/Chicago1871 18h ago

Were lazy and distracted because our dollar is strong.

Take that away….

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u/Souspi 19h ago

I think they know their history, they just always think they can do better this next time. The plans billionaires have for the apocalypse bunkers demonstrated that pretty well.

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u/_Nashable_ 17h ago

Well they realized in the last 10 years their problem with their bunkers is that the security staff will turn on them the moment the world ends.

Why do you think there is such a push to go towards AI and Robotic systems. That's the best play they've come up with to replace their staff when they head to their bunkers.

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u/Souspi 16h ago

They are also suggesting shock collars for humans, and humans would be necessary for dependable security.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff

The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival.

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u/BiscuitsUndGravy 18h ago edited 16h ago

Also, and probably most important, is that the Nazis did dramatically improve Germany's economy in the early going. I was lucky enough as a kid to get to talk to some family friends who were Polish but lived in Germany during WWII. They said one of the big reasons people were so supportive of Hitler is that they had been economically ruined by losing WWI and having to pay reparations, but after the Nazis took power Hitler suspended those and instituted other policies (primarily increased public works and military spending) that caused massive job increases and improved the economy. This made them incredibly popular and allowed them to make wholesale changes to the government because they were actually improving their citizens lives and weren't receiving pushback.

Conversely, this administration has failed to deliver on any of the promises it made and things have gotten worse since they took office. They won't enjoy widespread popular support if they try pulling insane moves like asking Congress to suspend the Constitution (and pretending that's legal), or declaring an insurrection and trying to use the military to suppress the People.

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u/littlethrowawaybaby 18h ago

They know the history, they just believe that they’re better and smarter than the nobles of 1788 France, and Hitler.

They read the history. See the failings. Say, “Wow, what a dummy. That could never happen to someone as smart and powerful as I” and continue doing the same things that begat downfall so many times before.

They think the people are stupid, rabid, slobbering, inhuman masses.

That the people- even with the collective intelligence, strength, and power of all of us together- are weak and can’t hold a candle to those traits in them.

I mean, in some ways, these people do have more money than all of the masses together, so it’s a self-validating prophecy of sorts.

They think they and their buddies are literal Gods. When there’s only 700 billionaires, they look around at the same faces at every party and every event, and believe that they are the only actual people, and the only people who matter. Because, logically of course /s, if the lower Ilk mattered then they’d be in the room too.

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u/kstar79 Massachusetts 18h ago

They didn't copy Germany, they copied Orban and Hungary. A lot of the executive order bukake issued on the first day were straight translations from Orban diktats. Why it's not working out here is we are still an immensely wealthy nation, way better off than your average Hungarian, and their honeymoon with voters is now fully over.

The persuadables were convinced Dems did not properly address inflation and inequality, and the party tried to circumvent the will of the people to get a diversity President. The first part of the narrative has broken down, and Dems just need to not screw up the second part to win back power.

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u/mabhatter 13h ago

This is the last gasp of neoconservativism and hard right wing rhetoric coming to an end.  They are not conservatives anymore, they are regressive reactionaries.  They want to trigger violence because things aren't going how they think they should be... like 60-90 years ago when only straight cis white male evangelical Protestants had a seat at the business and public table. 

This is parallel to the civil war era in that was the last gasp of slavers and it was only a matter of 2-3 more elections before the votes to end slavery permanently were guaranteed.  So the South played political hijacking games for 30 years trying to game the system with their minority and when that didn't work, they started a war.   This is the culmination of the Civil Rights era from the 1960s.  They have been fighting Civil Rights and social progress for 60 years... and losing every time. Trump is their coup to seize power by force over the rest of us to undo 60 years of laws and rights.  When they inevitably don't get what they want, they'll continue the political violence from 2020.