While I never believed that Trump had died, I'll certainly join a well-intentioned betting pool over whether he will shuffle off by natural causes before end-of-term. Or even before the 2026 mid-terms. Which makes it important - even now - for us to contemplate potential transitions... or end games.
Whether the proximate cause of departure is physical or mental or scandal-driven or juridicial -- all of them plausible -- folks are already talking about how President J.D. Vance would be a puppet of Peter Thiel and (even worse) the Moldbug neo-monarchist cultists who now roam the White House, providing Peter et. al. with justifying, masturbatory incantations to continue attacking every institution and method of the vastly successful Enlightenment Experiment. The unique endeavor in a flat-fair society and competitive markets that enabled theie comfortable lives and every success of ingrate oligarchs.
So, will that be it? A smooth transition to the Vance (Thiel) potentate? A simple monarchist coup, establishing CEO-kingship, while finally ending the impudent bourgeoise rebellion of 1776?
Certainly there would be one silver lining. Ingrate-prepper oligarchs would cease their current efforts to trigger "The Event"... a collapse of civilization, allowing them to emerge later from their plush bunkers as lords among the flies. Why bother, when that power is already theirs, grace-a-Caesar Peter.
Of course only a fool would expect it to last. Not when the planet's quarter of a billion nerds - the ones who know cyber, nano, bio, nuclear and the rest - get fully roused and angry. (You won't like us, when we're mad.) So, even if the neo-monarchist putsch seems smooth at first, it would only set the fuse for Peter the 1st to learn - eventually - the lessons of Charles the first, Louis XVI and Nicholas II.
But perhaps I am deluded. Scan 6000 years of human history. Were we Americans a fleeting anomaly, in our impudently democratic egalitarianism? Like the brief brilliance of Periclean Athens or daVinci's Florence? The ghost of Machiavelli - Moldbug's supposed role model - can be heard murmuring "So it goes."
Except that I don't think it will be anywhere near that simple.
== The wing of the prophet strikes! ==
Because waiting in the wings are the religious zealots typified by House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson. Remember that Johnson would -- upon Trump's passage from the stage -- thereupon be next in line for the Oval Office. At least until the Senate approves President Vance's appointment of a new VP....
During which interval, Thiel and Vance would be wise to check every meal that they are served. Or the religious affiliations of the bodyguards standing behind them. (Look up Indira Gandhi.)
Or else -- more likely -- one scandal revelation could send Vance tumbling out of the way, in much the same manner as Spiro Agnew vanished from Nixon's line of succession.
(And yes, the long, long litany of corrupt Republicans goes that far back. Always remember Mike Johnson's 1990s predecessor as Speaker, Dennis Hastert! Similarly chosen by his GOP colleagues to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office and even then a well-known obscenity of a perv-predator monster. Look him up!)
So. Might a cult religio-caudillo step up to oust Thiel and Vance, replacing CEO-monarchy with theocracy? Robert Heinlein described this scenario in detail, eerily forecasting this mortal hazard to our enlightened, scientific and progress-oriented civilization, with the potential dawning of Nehemia Scudder. (Look up that name, as well!)
Others out there are likening our situation to the late Roman Republic toppling into imperial rule... or the late empire falling to barbarians... or else Idiocracy. I deem those comparisons to be historically simpleminded! Though pushed vigorously by dopes like Chris Hedges or else brilliantly-manipulative scoundrels like Orson Scott Card. Certainly dyspeptic jeremiads do us no good. They only serve the fanatics' End Times fixations.
== So. Will it come to all that? ==
Will things come to all that? It shouldn't, as a growing majority of Americans now clearly wish it not to! For one thing, all it would take is a couple of Republican senators to prevent Prez Vance picking a new VP. And those two need not be 'liberal Republicans.' They might even be radicals on the other side -- looking eagerly toward a Johnson-Scudder supremacy! And the Night of the Long Knives among GOP factions thus begins. Hand me the popcorn.
Or else -- a much finer scenario -- even before the 2026 mid-terms can change the political landscape, five decent Republicans in the House -- (just five!) -- could make Hakeem Jeffries speaker -- or else some compromise person who is a trustworthy adult. An eventuality that could save the life of JD Vance! As the cult's varied factions unite around him, re-joined by necessity... by their common cause of avoiding prison.
And now I know what some of you (all of you?) are muttering.
"Where are you gonna find that couple of residually-decent, patriotic Republican senators? Or five residually-decent GOP House members, willing to face the right's ire, in order to help save the nation that gave them everything?"
== The crux-question: what is holding them together? ==
For 20 years I marveled at the spectacularly obedient uniformity of the recent Republican Party. Aside from a few brave dissidents like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, they march in lockstep, almost all of them yattering - by nightfall - each day's meme/talking-point issued that morning on Fox. (Many of those memes having originated the day before from a KGB-Kremlin basement.)
Let's be clear. The 21st Century Republican Party is by far the most disciplined political entity in U.S. history. No one dares deviate a scintilla from Rupert Murdoch's program, no matter how spectacularly nuts and counterfactual it might be.
Which raises the question of HOW? How is such discipline maintained?
I mean, we're talking almost 300 reps & senators, plus their staffs, plus up to 10,000 GOP state legislators, plus increasing numbers of judges, including the blatantly suborned Supreme Court majority, plus so many others totaling several more tens of thousands in the Republican elite, who must be to some degree in-the-know. And many have to be disgusted, realizing that their entire movement has become a tool of cultists and foreign enemies.
Mind you, in his first term, Trump heeded the old guard Republican establishment and appointed grownups to his cabinet. Largely right wingers, sure, but at least most of them were knowledgeable about their new jobs, wanting to do them well. And what happened?
FORTY of Trump's 44 cabinet appointments later denounced him to varying degrees! Leading to the Donald's great vow:
No more grownups!
And lo, there are none. None whatsoever in the cabinet and appointees of Trump II.
And yet, even after recruiting mostly shills from Rupert's harem of Fox yammerers, that gives Trump no peace of mind! No guarantee of the till-death loyalty that old Two Scoops values, above all other traits.
This round, Don would want better assurance than just picking docile flatterers from the Fox News herd. In fact, I think I know how a former casino mafioso could accomplish it. And has.
== None of the current explanations work! ==
How are the top 1,000 or so republicans kept disciplined, with only a few dozen or so patriotic defectors, so far? Some of you have responded variously with notions like:
- Theory #1: Fanaticism. Those High GOPpers who aren't already mad ideologues have been forced to act that way, by the threat of being 'primaried' out of office in districts that are gerrymandered with double intent. First, to rob all district Democrats of any meaning to their votes. But also in order to multiply the voting power of local radicals. (I keep offering a partial solution to this!* One that some of YOU might help to do and spread, on your own!)
And yes, the suborned justices who empowered this crime should be careful, lest someday King Peter or Prophet Mike invite them over for tea, or the view from an upper-story window. While the ghost of Roger Taney moans at their consciences, rattling their sleep with his chains.
But no, mere ideology is a crappy theory to explain such disciplined uniformity! First, because even ideology can be variable, with hair-splitting like we see among liberals, though not among Republicans...
...but also because a hero who wakens from a trance and recants the madness can find other employment at a hundred NGOs, for example. And likely get a hero's treatment by history. And some might even bet on riding a blue wave, if they switch in time. Anyway, a hundred top tier GOP folks can redefine the ideology! Ideologues do it, all the time.
No. Fanaticism clearly does play a role. But it cannot provide the guarantee of till-death loyalty that Donald Trump so desperately wants and needs. It cannot explain the tight discipline that we observe.
- Theory #2: Lucre. Money. Bribery. Corruption. Those 1,000+ high Republicans, who are complicit in demolition of the Great Republic, might all be in it for the vigorish!
And sure, tsunamis of cash have flowed into those pockets, for decades. Aided by 'laws and rules' passed by the crooks in legislatures, and supported by corrupt justices. And especially by Trump's firing of nearly all of the Inspectors General across the federal government! Which should have made huge headlines, but simply washed away in the morass of each day's treasons. The "swamp' of K Street lobbyists never had it so good.
But no, mere corruption does not work either, as a theory to explain such tightly disciplined uniformity. I doubt that many of you have met corrupt officials, who tend to be very cautious about appearances! Some will say: "That's enough for this year. If I take any more bribes to do and say stupid things, I'll look like an idiot. Come back next year."
Such satiability is highly variable from one person to the next. But that's the point! It means that corruption-driven discipline is unreliable. Oh, money undoubtedly is a factor. But it utterly does not explain the uniformity. The discipline.
- Theory #3: Cauterized isolation: Under "friend to boys" Dennis Hastert, the 1990s Republican Party banned its members from ever negotiating with the other party without permission from the Speaker and the radical caucus. 200 years of traditional side discussions - cross-party consensus moves which led to civil rights bills and forward looking compromises - were jettisoned by command of the party's new masters.
Hastert even required that most House GOP reps keep their families in the home district, instead of in DC where their kids might go to school with the children of Democrats, leading to social meetings and (horrors!) even cross party friendships! (And yes, you are hearing about this here, for the first time. Why?)
This cauterization of contact with the other side empowered radicals to depict Democrats as vile 'demon-rats.' It also had the side benefit of sending House Reps flying "home" every Thursday night, returning to DC late Monday, which left only Tuesday and Wednesday to do the people's business in the Capitol. Leading to GOP-majority Congresses being the LAZIEST and least productive the nation ever saw. Seriously, look it up!
Sure all of the above tactics have clearly contributed to the GOP's stunning, lockstep uniformity in DC - and across the nation - becoming the most tightly disciplined partisan cult in American history.
Still, those of you who think #1 or #2 or #3 would suffice, shame on you for shrugging off the diversity among your foes! Dismissing them as kneejerk drones who are all the same! You hate that when they do it to liberals, right?
No, it doesn't work. Not even ALL of those methods, combined, would be adequate to explain what we have seen!
What's needed, in order to explain Republican uniformity and obedient discipline is something that's coercive enough to overcome all diversity!
People react differently to bribes or to ideology, but everyone knows what it is like to be afraid.
== The application of coercive pressure ==
The most obvious method of coercion is:
- Theory #4: Threats of violence. Yeah yeah. That can work. But threats of violence can lose effectiveness in sudden ways, abruptly becoming counter-productive, as when the threatened person gets really angry and turns to honest cops. It actually happens quite a lot, in cities that suffer intermittently from protection rackets. And those brave storefront shopkeepers are much, much more vulnerable than some multi-millionaire Congressman who can move anywhere. With renown as a hero.
Okay, sure. Heroes need to be... heroic. But are you saying those 1,000+ high GOPpers -- more like 10,000 overall -- include none with any guts, at all? Especially since there are many places in America - and beyond - that would protect them and their families?
Might you coerce a dozen or even a hundred this way? Maybe. But threaten too many and it collapses. Especially if -- as Ghislaine Maxwell clearly has done -- the threatened person can counter-threaten.
"If I die, the squeal caches that I've hidden in a dozen places will all come out!"
A former casino mob boss would know all about that.
Anyway, there is a form of coercive pressure that can work without any of those disadvantages. And yes, I am talking - and have talked for years - about...
Theory #5: blackmail.
== The ancient method that keeps on working ==
Blackmail methods have been refined for centuries. Russian secret services have used honey-pot lures to entrap high westerners since the time of the czars. Look up the 1980s scandal of the U.S. Moscow embassy Marine guards. Once ensnared for even a minor infraction, the victim can be nose-pulled through an escalating series of 'favors' until all is lost and they are firmly in the blackmailer's grasp.
Blatant recent examples include a Russian agent who used sex to essentially take over the top leadership of the National Rifle Association! And you actually thought it would stop there?
Now throw in the fact that - just in recent years - THREE Republican Congressmen have spoken of how leading figures in their party regularly throw 'orgies!'
As I discuss elsewhere, the thing about blackmail is that it is self-reinforcing. The victim feels isolated, helpless and all alone. And when it is supplemented by other factors... perhaps orgies, or bribery, or ideological suasion, or all three... the method is pretty much secure from heroism. I mean, who is gonna step up and reveal it all, when the immediate result will be revelation of your own dark secret? And thereupon demolition of everything you've built in your life? Moreover, there's no place on Earth that will be safe for you. Unless...
...unless, well, you do the hero thing just right. And I will shortly post a chapter from a novel in progress that illustrates exactly how it might be done!
== Oh, Lindsey... oh, Lisa & Susan... ==
I've found it stunning how many of the brightest folks I know, who share my worries about the suicide of a great nation in the EIGHTH PHASE of America's recurring civil war - simply shrug off this blatantly obvious method by which the anti-western cabal -- Putin's KGB plus Confederate MAGAs plus would-be feudal lord inheritance brats -- might enforce disciplined uniformity upon their most valuable tool: today's U.S. Republican Party.
Down the line, nearly everyone shrugs off even the possibility of rampant blackmail, preferring to dismiss the GOP's collapse into treason as a combination of graft and ideological troglodytism.
Though most will avow to some obvious exceptions! For example, even skeptics nod when the name Lindsey Graham comes up, murmuring: "Okay, I'll give you that one."
But let's spell i out: When a US senator gets re-elected, he or she then has six years before being called again to the bar of voter judgement. That might as well be a century. For at least the first couple of years, threats of being primaried should have little coercive dominance, with all that remaining time to win back the hearts of offended constituents. Likewise, after many years in office, you should be able to pick and choose among the bribe offers. Such a senator, at least, should feel free to stand up.
Lindsey has tried! Count the number of times he came forth, declaring: "Enough! This latest travesty of Trump's was the limit. I am done with Trump!"
Only then what happened? The very next day, he groveled, hurrying to kneel and kiss the ring and gush His Majesty's praises.
And it never occurred to you to ask how? HOW they curbed Graham's repeated attempts to break-away? Especially when he had six more years in office guaranteed? Come on! Either they have a bomb implanted next to his carotid artery... or else... well, most of you already know where I am going with this.
Then there's Susan Collins, who has spent a decade expressing "sadness" and "disappointment" with the "disturbing" behaviors and "unfortunate" hurts to every American value or decency being wrought by the New GOP. And yet, does she ever effectively VOTE against any of it? Or demand investigations? Or denounce any of the vileness and treason in ways that will matter?
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has voted against Trump, especially in the 2nd impeachment trial, when there was never any chance of reaching the 2/3 needed for actual removal. In 2021, when asked whether she would remain a Republican, Murkowski replied, "if the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me." And yet, just like Collins being 'disturbed,' it's all just ineffective sighs atop an endless mountain of effective complicity.
Hey Brin. Okay, they might - and likely do - have all sorts of kinky or incriminating stuff on Graham. But are you seriously suggesting that Collins or Murkowski are being blackmailed?"
I am. Because they both have male relatives and husbands who might be honey-potted. Though that is just a malign imputation, so let me be clear that I have ZERO evidence for such!
No. What matters is the pattern of behavior. Which is only explicable by theory #5.
== The ultimate outcome? ==
Okay, Brin. Even supposing you are right. What is to be done? With the FBI caving in to Trumpist pressures like a sugar-cube house that's doused in boiling lard, is there any way out?
Well, I will very soon post that novel chapter showing what a single blackmailed hero might do.
Further, late in the term of former President Biden, I issued a public call for him to offer pardons to any high victims of coercive blackmail who might step up, in the manner I describe. Republican or Democrat, if they help to destroy a major blackmail ring, then they should get some clemency for whatever kompromat the blackmailers hold. (Alas, Old Joe never answered.)
Still, some zillionaire might even now accomplish much the same thing! Offer whistle-blower rewards that include full coverage* of legal fees for anyone who steps forward in ways that collapse this travesty. And just the offer, by itself, would draw huge attention to the possibility! (* And maybe a villa in some non-extradition country?)
Attention is what blackmailers dread most. Even more than their victims fear it. For the victims, there may be some pity, even forgiveness and redemption for whatever got them snared. For blackmailers, there may be a much-feared tsunami of revenge.
== There is so much more ==
We should recall that decades ago homosexuals were banned from government service because of the possibility they might be blackmailed with threats of being outed. And while that scenario certainly still applies to some - e.g. likely two of the individuals alluded to here - it has mostly gone away by the simple measure of ending major persecution of - and normalization of - gays.
Still, there are countless things that remain blackmailable, many of them deservedly so! As Dennis Hastert and so many mostly republican pervs-in-high-office have been outed for pedophilia-predation, over the years.
Which brings us to my final scenario. And this one will make most of you howl in derision!
"Okay Brin, save such nonsense for a novel! A John Grisham paranoia plot-scheme! There's no way that in real life... there's no way... there's... wait a minute..."
Are you ready? Well, you'll recall the dilemma faced by the ex-casino mafioso who values till-death loyalty above all other traits? Even after recruiting all of his new appointees - not one of them a qualified grownup - from his favorite yammer-jibber 'news' network, he can never be sure that one or two -- or most -- of them won't turn on him later, when it suits them. So what's he to do?
Please squint and put yourself in his shoes! As I must do all the time, when imagining the motives, means and opportunities of fictional villains, asking myself "What would I do, if I were such a skullduggerous mob boss, who values absolute loyalty far more than competence, from my henchmen? Especially if I have access to all the skills and experience and technologies of the Kremlin and the slightly relabeled KGB?
The answer is simple:
"If you want an appointment to a cabinet position, you must give me leverage over you. To punish you, if you ever denounce me or publish a tell-all book about me."
For one of the semi-adults who served in the first Trump cabinet - say Tillerson or Barr, Mnuchin, Pompeo or Chao - that demand likely would not work. They all had other options.
But look at the faces in the coterie of half-wit nothings in the cabinet of Trump v.2! Name one who would not plausibly rush to earn their slot by giving old Two Scoops the desired kompromat! And it could all be arranged neatly in an hour, in a back casita at a certain golf resort, with camera crews standing by. Along with (perhaps) a donkey.
All right. It's a Grisham plot. But if you were Two Scoops, with motive, means and opportunity to guarantee till-death loyalty in this way, what would you do?
== And finally... Re-Register Republican! ==
I'll offer that chapter from my blackmail novel soon. It's already circulating.
But let me finish with the plea I have repeated for years.
You need to check your voter registration now! Many red states and counties are purging their voting rolls of Democrats or independents. But there is one likely way to safeguard your registration (and tell your friends.)
Re-register as Republican. I did ages ago, back when California was GOP gerrymandered, to vote in the only election that mattered in my district, the Republican primary. In many districts across America, that's the only election that matters. So arrange to vote in it!
1. You won't get purged.
2. You'll have a chance to vote against some monster and for a local Republican who seems like the older-fashioned kind. Maybe conservative, but ,aybe one with a decent heart.
3. If enough folks do this, boy will it screw up the calculations of the oligarchs behind the current madness.
Spread this method. Grit your teeth and do it. You'll get back at least a little bit of the voting power that was robbed from you! Give it a sigh and take up the "R"! Think of Lincoln and Teddy and Ike, and just do it.
== Finally... and for real finally, this time... ==
Order yours now.
For years I've shown clearly that we live in a time that's totally equivalent (in shocking ways) to the 1850s. If you want to prevent things from going full 1860s, we need to show our neighbors that we won't be any less than the heroes who stood up and stepped up to save America and freedom and all hope for an enlightened era.
And hence I've long urged folks to make a Union blue kepi their Halloween-season headgear. (This baseball cap version may more suit your style.)
Only for more than Halloween, this time. The next fourteen months are crucial. The next TWO months, in California, Virginia, New Jersey and Florida!
So. Order yours now.
