Trump’s Dictatorial Blitzkrieg and How to Stop It

Within hours of his inauguration Donald Trump fulfilled the first of his campaign promises, to be a dictator on day one. He succeeded in that. He issued a flurry of Executive Orders, some of which were decidedly unconstitutional, and like his attempt to overturn the 14th Amendment protections on citizenship which was rapidly shot down by a Federal Judge in Washington State. That doesn’t mean Trump’s attempt is over as certainly the government will appeal and it will eventually reach the Supreme Court. Even Trump’s loyalists on Supreme Court would hesitate to overturn a Constitutional Amendment with a century long precedent of Supreme Court decisions on its legality.

Trump also ended the Secret Service protect of his former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, a former top aide, and the head of the CDC Anthony Fauci. This opens the way for the people of the same violent militias that Trump pardoned for their violent attack on the Capitol on 6 January to target and assassinate them. That is his vengeance.

However, that was only couple of things that he did. His acting head of Homeland Security fired Admiral Linda Fagin, the Commandant of the Coast Guard the night of Trump’s Presidential Ball. After midnight Friday he fired more than a dozen Inspectors General from their oversight duties over agencies of the Executive Branch, and over the week issued executive order to all departments, including the military to end any DEI programs or activities. No more Black, Women, Hispanic, Native American, or Asian and Pacific Islander months or observances, or anything recognizing LGBTQ+ people. The specific programs being shut down were Air Force Training on the Tuskegee Airmen and the Women’s Air Service Pilots who opened the way for Blacks and women in the Air Force. Expect to see similar programs in the rest of the military to be eliminated.

There is so much more that his Executive Orders attacked, but that was the point. He used the classic military strategy of Blitzkrieg, adapted to taking control of the Federal Government to try to shock and paralyze his opponents, and in most cases in the short term it will work. But even a Blitzkrieg can be defeated using defense in depth, strongpoints, careful counterattacks to blunt the enemy offensive, and partisan attacks to hinder his logistics.

Let me explain. We still have means of slowing or even halting some of Trump’s most egregious attacks. They include the use of the courts at every level, city councils and county boards of directors, state legislators and Governors, and whoever in Congress still has the guts to resist to hold Trump’s efforts up in every way possible.

Beyond that, citizens should not allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the everything all at once Trump strategy. We must all pick, one, two or at three most three areas of interest that either concern us the most or in which we have experience or expertise where we can resist. We must pick our battles wisely, make use of what and who we know to turn weakness into strength. Trump and his allies are full of themselves, they think that they cannot lose. All of Trump’s Executive Orders are based on his belief that he is unbeatable, an act of hubris which is his weakness.

Resistance has to be smart and be based on a long term strategic end, which in our case is the defeat of Trump, MAGA, and his oligarch buddies, and all that they stand for. But ways and means that we use to accomplish that strategic end must be smart. We must use guile, deception, and intelligence to outsmart our enemy, and Trump is our enemy. We must use every legal, legislative, and informational means available to slow his efforts and built public support for our cause. This means that journalists need to write hard hitting investigative stories, that lawyers must litigate like they never have before, that physicians and scientists must write and testify to the truth. Academics must keep writing, teaching and publishing despite whatever opposition. Military officers and members must do what they can using the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the laws and customs of the service and military ethics to disobey unlawful orders. Ministers, Priests, Bishops, Rabbis and Imams must use their spiritual authority and the power of the pulpit to preach to the faithful and inspire them to take risks that they might not otherwise make in the interest of justice. Even people with no specialized interests or training can write their elected representatives, send letters to the editors of newspapers and television stations saying how Trump’s actions are harming them.

All of these actions mean that we all have to take risks if we are to stop Trump’s Blitzkrieg over our Constitution, laws and civil rights. If we don’t, this will always be Trump’s America. I for one cannot let that happen. Our cause is difficult because of how much of government Trump controls, but certainly not hopeless. We must rely on the inspiration of patriots past to guide our actions.

To quote the immortal Revolutionary War hero Captain John Paul Jones, “I have not yet begun to fight!” What say you?