‘Think about the unthinkable’: could the US handle an even worse January 6?
The new documentary War Game follows lawmakers and military officials role-playing the response to a political coup

https://www.theguardian.com/fi...y-sundance-january-6

The movie's directors point out that Trump was "on the periphery" when they filmed the role-play exercise just over a year ago, and that bipartisan figures from both sides of the aisle took part.

The forces that drove the events of January 6, 2021, such as political polarization and "the alternative reality that some people seem to inhabit... transcend Donald Trump," said Moss.

"But Trump has moved front and center," he said.

"And I think the threats that we dramatize in the film are acute, are terrifying, are very real."

https://news.yahoo.com/jan-6-r...mcoWOI08wLd0Boh2xRrM

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/front...mentaries-streaming/

Jan. 6, Three Years Later: 10 Documentaries to Watch

https://news.yahoo.com/documen...jan-6-171812031.html

Time
A New Documentary Makes the Case That Jan. 6 Was the ‘Dumbest Day of All Time’
Andrew R. Chow
January 6, 2023·11 min read

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/31...ary-this-place-rules

Andrew Callaghan on new Jan. 6 documentary 'This Place Rules'
DECEMBER 31, 20227:57 AM ET
HEARD ON WEEKEND EDITION SATURDAY


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And here's the American Conservative Movement's narrative:

https://americanconservativemo...urrection-narrative/

Videos Finally Released to Public from January 6 Obliterate DoJ’s ‘Insurrection’ Narrative
by JD Rucker September 23, 2021 in Crime, White House Reading Time: 6 mins read

=============================================

My point in all this, especially the first link - the new documentary, is that it presupposed the coup or insurrection attempt is by the bad guys, with the good guys in charge of the thwarting mechanisms.

It won't be that way next time. Right now we are seeing an insurrection fomenting and ongoing using the political process, yet still filled with lies, especially the BIG LIE.

We know the supporters buy-in and narratives. We know that GOPer politicians have kowtowed by the dozens, after formally taking a stand against Trump. To name a few - McConnel, Cruz, Scott. Now the great majority of GOPers in congress are on-board.

Once in power, they WILL make the narratives and their base WILL help them. THEY will be deemed the good guys on the inside trying to thwart the insurrectionists.

They WILL flip the script, and pervert the rule of law and use the DOJ as a political weapon, and perhaps the military too.


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quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:

quote:

Originally posted by ANTELOPEDUNDEE:
It worked here.

https://www.citizensforethics....uary-6-insurrection/

Others are also vulnerable, especially several republicans in congress.

===================================

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...17939d345a2c9&ei=157

Trump urges Supreme Court to keep his name on ballot, warns of ‘bedlam’
Story by Ann Marimow • 14h

(excerpt)

Trump’s attorney asked the justices to put a “swift and decisive end” to efforts in more than 30 states to remove him from primary and general election ballots based on a section of the 14th Amendment that bars those who have engaged in insurrection from holding office.

The efforts to disqualify the leading Republican primary contender in the 2024 election, his lawyer Jonathan Mitchell wrote, “threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans” and “promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead.”
The language echoed remarks Trump made last week after an appeals court hearing in a separate case, in which Trump’s lawyers said he should be immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Trump warned that if the criminal charges against him succeed in damaging his candidacy, “It’ll be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very bad precedent. As we said, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box.”

The brief filed Thursday was a precursor to oral arguments on the Colorado ballot case that the high court has scheduled for Feb. 8 — an expedited timetable that ensures the justices will play a major role in shaping this year’s presidential election.

Whatever the justices decide is expected to resolve the issue nationwide as primary voting gets underway after this week’s Iowa caucuses, in which Trump scored a decisive win. The first state primary will be on Tuesday in New Hampshire.

Trump’s opening brief reiterates the former president’s assertions that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was not an insurrection. He says Section 3 does not apply to the office of the president and state courts cannot enforce the constitutional provision. Lastly, he says Colorado’s rules do not allow a state court to order the top election official to remove a candidate from the presidential primary ballot.

“And even if President Trump were subject to section 3 he did not ‘engage in’ anything that qualifies as ‘insurrection.’ The Court should reverse on these grounds and end these unconstitutional disqualification efforts once and for all,” his lawyer told the justices.

In the lead up to the highly-anticipated argument over Trump’s ballot eligibility, dozens of advocacy groups, academics, politicians and former government officials have begun filing briefs in support of either the former president or the six Colorado voters challenging Trump’s eligibility.

Attorneys for those voters have said that the Constitution’s language barring insurrectionists from office is clear, that it applies to presidents and that it does not require an act of Congress to be enforced.

In asking the justices to quickly review the matter, they said the high court should uphold the finding from Colorado that the former president intentionally incited his supporters to violence on Jan. 6 to disrupt the certification of the election — and exacerbated the attack while it was ongoing.

An amicus brief in support of keeping Trump on the ballot that was submitted Thursday included the signatures of nearly 180 congressional Republicans . Among them was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has largely steered clear of the 2024 Republican president race and who previously said Trump was responsible for provoking the 2021 insurrection.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...52a90afdb446c1&ei=31

Deposition transcript lays bare the GOP impeachment spin effort
Story by Philip Bump •
4h

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...3d65db8dafc72&ei=128

What if Jan. 6 happened again, only much, much worse?
Story by Jada Yuan • 37m

(excerpt)

Watching it back, said Heitkamp, “I didn’t realize I came into it that hot. And I realized that when I saw those images in the beginning, it just triggered me. It was almost like a post-traumatic response, like, ‘This is happening again.’” Despite Congress seemingly unified in condemning the Jan 6. insurrection, Heitkamp said, “Now we have the third highest-ranking member of the majority in the House calling people who did that ‘hostages.’” (Rep. Elise Stefanik [R-N.Y.] faced censure for repeating Trump’s language, saying that insurrectionists who’ve since been jailed are not prisoners but political “hostages.”)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...6a06ba40c96161&ei=39

Trump: The Political Threats Will Stop … When You Agree With My Lies
Story by Adam Rawnsley • 9h

As I said, Trump is the cover man for a much bigger picture.

===========================================

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/...n-republican-nominee

5 hours ago -
Politics & Policy
Behind the Curtain: Trump's exponential power surge

(excerpts)

Something shocking — and telling — has unfolded beyond Donald Trump's onstage, online and courtroom theatrics: He's running a professional, well-managed, disciplined presidential campaign.

His 2024 operation is more sophisticated — dare we say traditional — than the slapdash improvisation of his White House and two previous runs.
Why it matters: Trump likely will wrap up the nomination in record time, with almost universal GOP establishment backing.

If he were to win — and run the White House like he has his campaign — he could reshape America and its government more quickly, and in more lasting ways, than he did during his first term.

Between the lines: Many top Republicans assumed that, after the Capitol riot, no one sensible would go near him. The campaign would be fringe and cringe. Instead, Trump has rolled up the party even tighter than he did when he was president.

Now the GOP's biggest donors and power brokers not only figure he'll quickly become the nominee, they assume he'd beat President Biden if the expected rematch comes to pass.
Trump is the strongest politically that he's ever been within his party.
Reality check: Trump has surrounded himself with pros, but he's still Trump — an incendiary and chaotic messenger.

You see it in the unhinged, all-caps Truth Social posts. You saw it in his fuming rant about Haley on Tuesday night. He could say anything at any time.

Our conversations with Trump officials, allies and alumni reveal the off-the-rails public Trump has a more conventional, buttoned-up operation built around him. His advisers see this as a template for governing if he were to win.

This is in stark contrast to the infighting and improvisational madness of Trump's first term.

The Trump team has methodically wired obscure state Republican delegate rules to his advantage. Operatives have worked state by state over the past three years to be sure he benefited from mechanics such as winner-take-all rules.

Trump also wined and dined state party leaders at Mar-a-Lago and his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.

"This team is lean, efficient, experienced, eye on the prize — none of the backstabbing and gossip and drama," Charles Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans (the leading group of LGBT conservatives), and a member of the California Republican Party's rules committee, told us. "No divas. It drives [Trump critics] crazy."

Here again, Trump was greatly limited by disorganization and bureaucratic naïveté when he was in the White House. The Heritage Foundation and other groups are spending millions to make sure that doesn't happen again if he wins.

The establishment opposition melted and proved much more amenable to his ways and plans.

The shackles imposed on Trump in Term 1 are gone, especially in Congress.

========================================

https://www.axios.com/2023/12/...-republican-congress

Behind the Curtain — Another Trump 2025 edge: a compliant Congress

=======================================

Trump, who had flown solo his entire political life, allowed his allies to embrace the Heritage Foundation and other outside groups that are building talent banks and policy blueprints to help him swiftly staff the government to control and shrink what Trumpers call "the deep state."

Heritage's Project 2025 is prescreening thousands of potential administration appointees as part of a pre-transition effort that far exceeds what has ever been done for a party nominee, let alone a primary candidate.

Heritage president Kevin Roberts recently told The New York Times that he sees the think tank's role as "institutionalizing Trumpism ."
Like his campaign, Trump would come into a second term with a much bigger — and more loyal and ready — governing army.

Maybe the biggest shocker: Trump took indictments on 91 felonies in four criminal cases — a death knell for any other candidate — and turned them into a net positive. Even many traditional Republicans see the prosecutions as piling on.

"I've been indicted more than Al Capone," Trump crowed at his final New Hampshire rally.

What's next: Trump will amp up his attacks on his prospective general-election opponent — President Biden — while still working to clinch the Republican nomination, likely in March. It's yet another way that Trump 2024 is way ahead of the usual campaign game.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...c81afe346f41f8&ei=13

Trump's Win-Win Strategy to Take Back Power—Even if He Loses in November |
Story by Ted Griffith • 1h

(excerpt)

With powerful communication tools like hyperbole and misinformation, former President Donald Trump and his team have managed to create a compelling narrative about clear and present danger facing not just his supporters, but America as a whole. Trump, his lawyers, and conservative media opinion leaders have whittled down American's faith in democracy and its institutions to the stump. If Trump doesn't win the November election, they stand ready to burn its remaining roots to ashes. Not winning will be used as unassailable proof that the electoral system, indeed the entire government, needs not an overhaul, but an overthrow.

Why? Because forward thinking conservatives have analyzed the data. The demographics of America have shifted away from those that typically have supported them, and it's only going to get worse. To legitimately win the presidency, the GOP must ensure every possible conservative voter casts a ballot (as well as limiting the opportunities for those who'd vote Democrat). And the GOP is throwing bucketsful of tactics in hopes of achieving this—leaning hard on issues such as immigration, transgender rights, teaching critical race theory in schools, and freedom of speech at universities. Cultural issues that play to emotions over reason and ignore more traditional ballot box questions.

But the key here—these issues don't have to work at the ballot box. The issues only need to prove to Americans that if they want a conservative America, it can't be done within the status quo. Under the theme of common-good-constitutionalism (and its congenital twin, national conservatism), a moral rather than electoral foundation for governance is raising its long-hidden head.

The media is covering two long-term news stories as they normally would without considering that Trump has changed the rules. They are covering the machinations of his serial court cases as if they were judicial processes. They are covering the primary season as if this election year was any other. Like musicians on the Titanic, the media plays on as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

These are not ordinary judicial cases and candidate debates. They're only theater. The star of the show has made it clear that none of them have any credibility. He and his team have written, directed, and produced a narrative—with purpose—to distract and manipulate the thoughts of American voters who'd never in their lives believe they could ever collectively be responsible for voting autocracy into power.

The strategy of using lies to cast distrust on the political process and institutions that manage the welfare of the nation is the only possible path to victory. Hence Trump's increasing level of support with every legal defeat. Why? Because it raises the emotional stakes of conservative voters to ensure they get to the voting booth. A loss itself would be proof positive (for them) that democracy's day is done. Already, 25 percent of Americans believe that the FBI orchestrated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including 34 percent of Republicans overall and 44 percent of those that voted for Trump.

It's a win-win strategy.

We've seen already that even if you don't win an election, losing creates a stage for false declarations of injustice. Trump and his allies will not relitigate the 2024 election (as they did post-2020). No, they will use it as proof that the whole system must come down.

In 2025, win or lose, that process will begin. The only question: can American institutions survive the assault, especially if this coordinated attack on their reputations is left undefended. At a minimum, the media must give this larger more dangerous story as much attention as it does the decisions of black-robed judges and the bunting of political theater.

https://youtu.be/koPmZ0VSUk8?si=KtP_nlqQ1xTKRlkf

Donald Trump Is A Fascist | Stephen Miller’s Horrific Immigration Plan | Bernie Stops A Fight

The former president is sending loud and clear signals that a second Trump term would be a fascist nightmare, complete with mass immigration raids and internment camps. In Washington, Sen. Bernie Sanders diffused a physical confrontation between a fellow Senator and the head of the Teamsters.