Saturday Special: We Didn't See This Coming???
The President has prepared for years for his assault on our democracy and has been quite upfront about what he planned. So, why were opposing government leaders taken by surprise?
Everybody appears to be absolutely gob-smacked, side-swiped, and flung into total numbnuttiness by the chainsaw governing style the President and his lieutenants have used over the past two weeks. Quick and extreme, shock and awe. And nobody saw it coming?
Inauguration Day 2016, the newly-sworn-in President could not wait to sign the array of Executive Orders lying on his desk in the Oval Office. While everyone else in D.C. were either partying or protesting, he joined a phalanx of uniformed GOP supporters in photo ops that afternoon. He was going to get it done, whatever It was. What's more, those EOs were all prepared and ready to go before he even stepped over the threshold.
By the way, the GOP uniform of black suit, white shirt, and red tie first emerged right after 911 while George W. Bush responded to that crisis. It continued to be the accepted dress code of the GOP ever since. If you've read the book, Dress for Success,
you will know that black and red are extreme power colors meant to intimidate business opponents.
After losing the 2020 election, not only did the President spread propaganda that the election was rigged, he stirred his assembled ersatz army into a deadly mob on January 6, 2021. Though many of them landed in prison for their deeds, hundreds more prepared to defend their cause when called upon after he won the 2024 election. Of course, one of his first acts was to rescue all 1500 of his MAGA hostages. And he did it with such authority: "Oh fuck it! Release 'em all!"
Now there's executive decision-making at its most stellar. Did anybody take notes about how that is done?
While in Boise, ID to enjoy the Basque festival, a regiment of MAGA troops paraded down the main street right next to the festival, drowning out the youthful Basque dancers merely meters away. The spectacle was met by solemn pedestrians along the street. These soldiers were deploying to a nearby park for their own rally, but wanted everyone along the route to know they exist, driving their menacing black vehicles, waving their American flags, and turning their patriotic music on high volume. We are here and we are ready!
I could only imagine what the Black man standing near me was thinking. His face stoic and without a trace of fear, he bore the silent aspect of resistance. This was more of the same malignence that he had endured all his life.
For me, it was terrifying.
When I was nine years old, I walked into the living room to find my parents watching a TV documentary about Adolph Eichmann and the death camps of the Holocaust. Instead of banishing me for my protection, my parents allowed me to watch. We were all spellbound by the news footage on the screen.
That was my initiation into learning more about this horrifying event and other similar genocides. In college, I took advantage of a class, titled Survival Literature, that included books about the Warsaw Ghetto, the death camps, and the process that authoritarian leaders take to subdue their peoples. Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto was particularly strong in its portrayal of the subtle mission creep that these processes take. Nobody sees the final solution coming until it's too late.
MAGAs mission has been implemented on a grassroots level over that past few years in preparation for his eventual power play. In my community, the local school board experienced the chaos and disregard for public opinion and students' rights by three newly-elected Trustees. As the majority on the Board, they immediately fired the legal team of twenty years and forced the Superintendent to resign. They insulted parents who tried to speak during meetings. They texted behind the dais during discussions, which is a violation of open meeting laws. One Trustee actually called a parent, who had just finished speaking, an asshole. She didn't know the mic was hot.
Meanwhile, the MAGA lawyer they had hired to replace the former team sat there, scrolling on his cell phone. When asked a question about protocols, etc., he said he didn't have that information just off the top of his head and returned to his phone. Over the two years he worked for the school district, he charged over $400K for legal work, saying most of that time was spent learning Educational Law. He was basically an ambulance chaser, but he loved the President and lost his own campaign for state governor the previous year.
This is the havoc that the President's army has been fostering in communities, especially in rural areas. At least in the 2024 election, non-MAGAs were voted in to replace a couple of these folks and legal action was brought against the Trustees. What did happen that was gratifying was the parents formed their own army, the Red Shirts, because of the tee shirts they wore to meetings. They fought hard against this intrusion into a system that worked for decades. New legal representation was hired and finally, a new Superintendent, though flawed, moved in to bring order to the schools.
Meanwhile, the President spent the four years between his terms organizing his own social network, coalescing his followers with impassioned rallies, and won the support of corporate billionaires. During his campaign, his told us all what he wanted to do. Some of us shivered with the knowledge that he was channeling Hitler, but everybody, including satirists told us, "No, he's not Hitler." Others said, "Well, let's just see what he's going to do." And a few weeks before his Inauguration, he started spouting dribble about annexing Canada and Greenland, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. This didn't stir our Congress to prepare to stop these ridiculous moves? "Oh, he's not going to do anything like that."
Won't he?
Those of us who saw the Fourth Reich forming right before our eyes want to scream, "But don't you see what's happening?" This is what despots do! And Hitler annexed Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland by military force. Our President has been undermining our military for months and recently took away the security detail of a general who warned us all that he was the most dangerous man in the world. We were listening, but why didn't we take the general seriously?
So, here we are, wringing our hands and clutching our pearls over the sweep of Executive Orders and political blather coming out of the Oval Office. The building blocks were set in place as we watched. Thousands organized protests, which has always been a dramatic and mostly useless exercise in futility. But hey, it makes us feel like we're fighting for democracy while we wave those placards, yell slogans, and fill the streets with our shaking fists.
We voice out anger and angst on social media, but does it do anything at all? We remind ourselves we should write to our Congressional and Legislative representatives, but they have been busy shoring up their career objectives. Most of them rarely show up for work. And many of them have been pointing fingers at each other, wondering why they lost the election.
Despite his felony convictions, the Jan. 6th report, and numerous other attempts to bring him to justice, somehow Teflon Don continues to sign his EOs and move us closer to a goose-stepping regime that should be relegated to the far distant past. His Assistant President has already shown us how to salute properly.
And we didn't see this coming?
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to explore other writings in the Ring Around the Basin Archive. I also love to read your comments, so please share your thoughts. Let’s start a conversation. And if you wish to support my writings, please consider subscribing or upgrading to a paid subscription. It’s now only $50/year. Even better, I would appreciate it if you could share Ring Around the Basin with your friends. Thank you!
All my books, Paradise Ridge, When the Horses Come and Go, and Ghost in the Forest are currently available on Kindle. Ghost in the Forest, is also available in paperback. Paradise Ridge is out-of-print, but the Kindle version is re-edited and better quality.
Book Review of Ghost in the Forest:
"Ghost in The Forest' is a great read! Take note People. If you love stories about environmentalism and nature, its clash with urban mindsets, as well as personal transformation, this is the book for you!
"Ghost in The Forest" is a quick 126-page read. It's the story of Dori, a woman trapped in a mix of grief over parental loss and refusing to accept how her hometown and her friends have changed over the years. Because of this, Dori has become a recluse and a self-imposed misanthrope who finds more comfort amongst the hiking trails around her hometown of Morristown than in her dealings with the raw reality of other humans.
The book, in some ways, resembled Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” in that the story follows a protagonist's love of nature and angst about humans encroaching on it. In this case, it’s how Morristown is transforming into a mountain biking destination where cyclists run rampant on trails and nature.
However, a tragedy involving said mountain biking becomes a major pivot point for Dori, leading to a series of events that eventually bring about personal evolution and discovery.
If you're a nature lover, this book is a must-read. It beautifully portrays the clash between environmentalism and urban mindsets and the journey of personal transformation. The book's vivid descriptions of nature and the protagonist's love for it will surely intrigue you.
Paradise Ridge Review by western author D. B. Jackson:
If you draw circle roughly around an area that includes northern Nevada, southern Oregon, and southern Idaho, within that circle exists a culture and people who live a lifestyle largely untouched by modern values. These are the "buckaroos" and Basque characters author Sue Cauhape brings to life in her literary novel, "Paradise Ridge".
Leandro, the illegitimate seventh son of patriarch Xavier Arriaga and his mistress, Gisela, is at the center of this intriguing story that travels exceedingly successfully at both the personal level of the characters, as well as the compelling level where the story is told.
Cauhape writes in a literary style that reminds me of Annie Poulx. Paradise Ridge, on the surface, appears to be an upscale Western novel...once inside the pages, you will soon discover a potential classic waiting to be discovered.
I rated this book a 5...because that's all the stars there were.
Sue, you sound smart. That's the difference here.
Your photo is chilling. I wonder how many of your readers recognize it. A lot of us are still awake out here, Sue. We are praying for someone to rise and lead us.