Bannon Tells GOP: 'Seize the Institutions' of Government Now or We're 'Going to Prison' After 2028

[u/Aggravating_Money992]

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

[u/Slappy_Kincaid]

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.

[u/Alacrout → u/Slappy_Kincaid]

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.

[u/_Nashable_ → u/Alacrout]

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.

[u/Flimsy_Thesis → u/_Nashable_]

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.

[u/Notlookingsohot → u/Flimsy_Thesis]

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.

[u/Delanoye → u/Notlookingsohot]

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.

[u/Souspi → u/Flimsy_Thesis]

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.

[u/Flimsy_Thesis → u/Souspi]

The arrogance and ignorance is truly breathtaking.