Purging, Dressing, and Sending Down
The Cultural Revolution Marches On.
As I have argued before Trump is attempting not just to seize power but to wage a cultural revolution. He is a Maoist and has surrounded himself with like minds.
Purging Unbelievers
Key to this has been his continued insistence on maintaining the big lie at the heart of his narrative and augmenting it. Now it is not just the deep state that cheated him in the election, it is the entire world that is cheating at trade. Those who do not share this dogma are purged. Trump announced this week that he will order the prosecution of Chris Krebs who ran cybersecurity during his first term and who had the temerity to state that the election was not, in fact, stolen. In the end for Trump, as for Mao the essential goal is to maintain the lie, at all costs.
Indeed, per Ken Klippenstein, Trump et al. are preparing to declare his opponents terrorists and to redefine protest as a potential “act of terror” under the national counterterrorism strategy. They are serious about wielding government as a blunt instrument against us and are putting open fascists in charge of it.
Purging Ideas
You purge unbelievers because of their beliefs. Because in the end, control of the mind is the the key of power. Trump has thus continued his effrot to eject Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk among others from the country. Their crime, believing things that Trump does not like, no more, no less. The fact that judges agree he can do this is an indictment not just of Trump and his gelded enabler Rubio, but America as a whole.
Trump’s other appratchiks have rushed to support this by purging books by African Americans and other minorities from libraries, while keeping Mein Kampf and other racism in stock, or by deleting valuable historical records that they dislike in the name of “efficiency.”
Indeed they have gone so far as to celebrate it with ICE promsing to stop Ideas at the border:
Sending Down the Cosmopolitans
One of Mao’s key initiatives during the Cultural Revolution was to send city childen to the countryside, forcing them to work on collective farms, engage in hard labor and be separated from their families. It was a policy that was supposed to deal with high youth unemployment, which was caused by the decaying economy and destroyed education system, and to help open up new lands for new (freedom?) cities.
As with many such initiatives it was a mess, with many youth being abandoned, many girls being aubsed, and achieved little in the way of economic improvement. Many of the youth struggled to return home and if they made it, found themselves unemployed once again. The stain on the culture is now remembered only by people like Xi Jinping as a net positive, and then only because he escaped Jail.
In addition to the supposed material benefits the movement appealed to the party who viewed cosmopolitan ideas and education youths as a threat to their values. They saw open mindedness as a threat, and liked the idea of city kids suffering with low-wage lives. Trump’s supporters see much the same thing in his plan to smash schools and force people to manufacturing. It is not economic policy, it is about “manliness”, even Juche, and a form of revenge porn against the cosmopolitan and well-educated.
Dressing the Part
Mao of course wasn’t just a political leader, he was a fashion leader. The jacket, the hat, the red books, and the Pins were required symbols of loyalty. Required often on pain of death. According to recent reports Trump now has his own:
The pin may look silly but it is significant, as significant as the ubiquitous flag pin became during the War on Terror. Post 9/11 every official in DC, every political hack in the US rushed to add little flag pins to their clothes. They rushed to declare they were on the side of the Patriots (and thus the side of war), and saying it was not enough, they flashed it, every single day.
As compelled as those pins were by groupthink, at least they were the American Flag, symbol of the nation, not of one man. With Trump it is him, above all else, and every one of his flacks knows it. They want to make sure we know it too, and sooner or later, they will force us to show it if they can.
Remember what they said: “a bloodless revolution, if the left allows it to be.”
Planning Ahead
Finally, and worst of all, Trump is planning ahead for the next step in his attack. On April 20th (Hitler’s Birthday) Trump’s executive order on immigration is set to expire and he is due to receive a report from DHS and the DOD (Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth) which will tell him whether he can and should declare a state of emergency over immigration and invoke the Insurrection Act. Doing this would, in their view, allow them to override Congress and the Courts on all matters and put the military to work in cities suspending Habeas Corpus. The date was chosen by Trump, the people writing the report were chosen by Trump, and signs point to him taking that step.
If Trump does this it would be in line with every other step he has taken to assume dictatorial powers and to come down hard on anyone and everyone who opposes him. When you stack this up with his preemptive assault on law firms who might sue against this it makes that much more sense. Once you have destroyed legal avenues, the court system becomes moot.
Some groups have been discussing what to do if this happens. Their work is good but nothing of it would be easy.
From this point forward we should expect things will only get worse. Because that has been Trump’s plan all along.