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Can we discuss the truth imperative as we march into war against tyranny?

Before I begin today, I wanted to take a moment to thank the small number of new paid subscribers who generously signed up after yesterday’s piece. It’s been a while since I had such an influx, and I really do appreciate it. I never came here to make money; I’m now retired and, as a result, have time on my hands to indulge my passion for politics and social justice. My aim from the outset has been to share my unvarnished thoughts in a world that has been turned upside down by a small, malign group of actors hellbent on rule, not governance.

In order to rule, these monsters have to divide us, and I hope you’ll indulge me for a moment to explain why I genuinely believe that independent, no-nonsense commentary and journalism are the glue that is holding the resistance to this tyranny together. News, in a broader context, has long served as a societal thermometer. It has allowed us, as citizens, to monitor the world's temperature and spot infections that would harm us, so that we can fight to maintain the society that provides us with the sustenance to exist and prosper.

Propaganda is nothing new; it’s as old as history itself because, as humans, we are by nature susceptible to persuasion. It’s a weakness we have: wanting to belong, to be respected and accepted. We are vulnerable to addiction because we like to feel good, and as a result, those in power or seeking power have used this addiction to exploit us for their own purposes. Joseph Goebbels, in 1930’s Germany, refined the art of propaganda at a time when there was no Internet, and the only outlets for messaging were printed media, radio broadcasts, and rallies.

If we look at the rise of the Third Reich, I can say that without fear of contradiction that the Heritage Foundation has used the Nazi playbook as a blueprint for what we are being subjected to today under Trump. You will often see the modern-day far right use victimhood to claim that Trump is nothing like Adolf Hitler, because he has no intention of gassing six million Jews. It’s an absurd assertion that is as ridiculous as his command of the English language. I have taken time to study the similarities between the rise of Nazi Germany and the rise of Trumpism, and if you overlay the two, you quickly realise that they are frighteningly similar.

Both regimes carefully blend a bastardised interpretation of religion, populist nationalism, and racial purity. Both share an expansionist ambition aimed at reimagining the world to accommodate top-down rule based on a hierarchical racist order. It’s where MAHA comes from, which is a comedy version of Hitler’s aryan race. The thing to remember about the Germans is their meticulous attention to detail. It is that very attention to detail that provided the evidence to prosecute the war crimes they committed. Trump has learned that lesson and does everything to create opacity, while seeking preemptive immunity ‘just in case’.

Image - Illustration by Bill Kuchman/POLITICO (source images via Getty Images and AP)

In Trump’s new world, he not only sees his power as absolute domestically but also believes that his Caesaristic rule should extend to the global stage. He views the world as wealth to be mined and controlled. Just as Hitler had an expansionist obsession, so does Trump. He believes the ‘Venezuelan model’ should be the template for a geopolitical MAGA franchising operation, just as he believes that tariffs can be used to soften up the extortion targets of his expansionist self-enrichment obsession. Sadly, Iran and the Supreme Court take a different view on extortion, though, strangely, the court does seem comfortable with absolute immunity for some reason.

Before we talk about everything that’s already gone wrong with his plans, bear with me as we explore the big picture of his ambitions and how it relates to the Third Reich. Hitler understood the power of the toolset that democracy provides to poison and destroy it from within. Democracy is the gift that keeps on giving to any would-be dictator. The United States is a representative democracy within the framework of a constitutional republic, and, as such, due process, while not perfect, is vulnerable to the same forms of exploitation.

It is with this understanding that The Heritage Foundation has so successfully exploited the framework of government by utilising executive action to create a day-one shadow legislative agenda. This has allowed circumvention of the powers afforded to Congress by the Founding Fathers. It’s also enabled Trump to seize and deploy the levers of government with impunity on a shoot-first, deal with the consequences later strategy. A strategy that Congress has been powerless to address because of the Svengali figure Trump has ascended to within the Republican Party. His iron-fisted rule of the party has rendered the votes that elected Republican representatives meaningless, because Congressional Republicans fear Trump more than they fear their own constituents.

Hitler legally dismantled the Weimar Republic from the inside out. After early failed attempts to seize power by force. Trump attempted to seize power on January 6th, 2021, with his ham-fisted insurrection. What should have been terrifying to Americans barely registered, so confident were they in their alleged checks and balances. The reality is, he wasn’t that far from succeeding. There will be those who claim this is nonsense, but it is no more nonsense than his claim that he won the 2020 election.

By any law of averages, Biden should have won the 2020 election in a massive landslide. Trump had left behind an economic wasteland and presided over the unnecessary deaths of an estimated quarter of a million Americans. He should have been like a lamb to the slaughter, but that was absolutely not the case. It is, of course, true to say that Biden won the largest popular vote in history, but that is NOT how elections are won in the US. The Electoral College delivered a Democratic House majority of 222 to 213, which proved challenging when combined with a 50/50 Senate. In my humble opinion, the writing was on the wall for what was to follow.

It is, to be fair, a miracle that Biden got so much done given the House majority, especially when they went on to relinquish control of the House in the 2022 midterms. This loss was thankfully offset by Democrats taking control of the Senate 51/49. The point I am trying to make here is that Trump effectively got a pass on seeing off a quarter of a million Americans, making grave diggers great again. It did not deliver the political fatal blow normally associated with such abject failure.

I can’t emphasise how important this political change was. It was the beginning of the impact that social media was exerting on US politics in particular, the introduction of ‘don’t believe your lying eyes’; it represented the further extension of the now-infamous ‘alternative facts’. The insurrection people saw with their own eyes became a ‘tourist day out’ and, in the words of Trump himself, a ‘love fest’. The normalisation of the political lie was all but complete.

Image - Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

We had a situation where the Democrats were so grateful to have seized power that they were blind to the impending threat to democracy before Biden even stepped into the Oval Office. There was a misguided assumption that ‘normal service’ had been resumed and that the insurrection would bury Trump in the eyes of the public. How very wrong they were. The Heritage Foundation were already hard at work preparing for the next assault on Democracy. They had learned much from Trump’s first term about where the weak points were and how best to test and stress the system.

This brings us back to the German approach to planning and detail. As Biden faced the challenges of picking up the pieces, strategic planning was already underway to build a structure for autocratic rule that would shift ALL power from the three branches of government to the executive branch. It is hard not to be impressed, from a planning perspective, by just how focused the Heritage Foundation was on preparing the ground for conservative rule in 2024. Of course, they didn’t know if Trump could overcome the legal obstacles that were emerging, but they were determined to be ready to hit the ground running regardless- not from when their candidate took office, but from day one of the transition.

The whole plan centred around ensuring there were no obstacles to impede the installation of theocratic autocracy in America. The scale of the challenge was enormous; they had to train an army of compliant civil servants with unquestioning loyalty not to the constitution, but to the president. Meanwhile, they had to develop a bespoke policy agenda blueprint that could be implemented from day one. Project 2025 was not drawn up on the back of a beer mat after a heavy night on the town; it brought together a coalition of hard-right political Bond Villains to game out their own deregulated ‘final solution’. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine government and eradicate any impediment that would create an economic drag on what would be the most corrupt administration in American history. Social Darwinism was the objective, and they had bizarrely decided to invoke God to achieve it.

What Americans are being forced to endure now is the result of everything Trump learned from his first term, but on steroids. I am of the firm belief that they could not have achieved the level of socioeconomic carnage they have achieved to date without Trump. His malignant narcissism and obsession with self-enrichment were the keys to the kingdom for the oligarchs who, in turn, bought him the keys to the White House, just as they helped him overcome what seemed like insurmountable legal jeopardy. His cult was the demographic that made it all possible. The gullible were the low-hanging fruit stranded in political no man’s land, unable to feed their kids. A gift that democrats had abandoned. They loved Trump's message on tackling affordability; without his cult followers, Republicans couldn’t win.

They wrote down and told the world what America would experience under a second term, and enough bought into it to hand him the keys to the US treasury to plunder on behalf of those who delivered him power. Meanwhile, Democrats sat back and watched it happen, not really waking up to Project 2025 until about 6 months out from the election. This, despite people like me screaming about the threat for close to a year.

A media coup was always central to the plan, and by the time of the 2024 election, the whole social media landscape was transformed into a MAGA propaganda machine. It was always only a matter of time before the already fearful mainstream media succumbed to pressure to comply, and that is where we are right now. This has resulted in a truth vacuum, which the likes of me and hundreds of others are attempting to fill with your support. On behalf of all the voices that are committed to placing the truth front and centre in our work, I want to say a big THANK YOU. The democratisation of truth is an inspirational development in these dark times.

Our strength lies in our collective objective to end this tyranny. A better-informed army is an army better prepared for the battle ahead. Be in no doubt this will be no easy fight, Trump will use every tool available to him to retain power, and there will be no rules of engagement. Be prepared to adapt, but above all, protect your vote, because they are going to place every obstacle they can in the way of you exercising your constitutional right to vote. KEEP CHECKING YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION and make a plan to vote.

In the words of the late great John Lewis:

“Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn’t know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in immovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn’t know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen.”

From a personal perspective, last night’s small overnight boost in new paid subscribers put a smile on my face and filled my heart with a deep sense of gratitude, too. For those who reached out to say they would love to become paid subscribers if they could, I say put that thought out of your mind. This community has been built on the principle of subscribing only if you can afford to. Free access to everyone is at the heart of what I do, and that will never change. If the paid support ended today, I’d find a way to adapt and continue what I do, and that is my promise to everyone who blesses me with their willingness to read my thoughts, many of which I know are not good news messages.

I remain a glass half full guy, and I firmly believe that we will emerge from this nightmare stronger and wiser for the time we spend together. Simply look upon my work as free English tea and biscuits; there’s an honesty box on the way out to which you can contribute with absolutely no obligation. Regardless, there will be fresh tea and biscuits tomorrow when we meet for our daily chat. Normal political service will resume tomorrow when we return to my economic assessment of where we are and where we need to be heading.