Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Overthrow of Our Constitutional Republic Has Already Happened!
There is an explanatory post by Sundance that gives all the background needed to understand how the intelligence community now controls how the federal government Executive Branch operates. Its information might be quite a surprise to some. It is long but very informative and goes a long way in explaining why almost all of government is so intent that Trump must be taken out of the game and also why Sundance has been so adamant in his support of Trump.
Sundance explains how the ‘Patriot Act’ set up the weaponization of the federal government against the people after the 9/11 attack, followed by:
Published in GeneralWhat Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms, so that only their political opposition became the target of this new national security system.
I’m still trying to catch up on reading the Tablet magazine article about that!
What’s the title of the Tablet article?
I believe this is the one, although I keep it open on other computers.
But maybe it’s only related.
Or maybe it’s the exact same topic. Well, . . . that’s the sort of think I would hope to understand if I ever found enough time and brain cells for both articles!
I’ve opened a tab for the article you linked on this computer. Thank you. Looks soberingly insightful.
It seems as if we now have a modern version of the Praetorian Guard calling the shots.
Endless thousands of fevered, conspiratorial, scarcely readable words more reminiscent of a word association game than a logical argument. Scores of named individuals and topics addressed — including the auto bailouts! — all somehow connected in mysterious ways only the enlightened (or perhaps the demented) can appreciate.
If this is what passes for intellectual analysis on the right we are more screwed than previously understood. I don’t know who Sundance is, but this article has persuaded me I needn’t bother reading anything else he’s written.
My favorite part is this:
“President Trump has something behind him, something holding him in the gap. He has the power and favor of the purest truth around him, and he has the support of a grateful nation.”
Around 65% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, so he doesn’t have the support of a grateful nation at all, not even close.
“He has the power and favor of the purest truth”? As I’ve pointed out previously, Trump and truth are mutually incompatible; you can have one or the other but not both.
The something standing behind Trump is, I suspect, a guy with handcuffs.
I have read articles that Sundance has posted for several years now.
But I doubt if I have yet encountered a single word on that web site that suggests that Trump actually puts his pants on one leg at a time.
As far as I am concerned, that almost seems fair, given the endlessness hysteria of Big relentless Media screaming: “Trump is Hitler!” “Russia! Russia! RussiaGate!”
Even so, every once in a while I wish that Sundance and people there would take their blinders off.
From the description in the OP here, it sounds obvious. I’ve been saying this for a while.
I don’t know about all the Trump-puffery mentioned by @Yarob. Haven’t read the article. I’m fairly Trump, but the “He’s the greatest man ever” stuff gets old fast. Still, it’s not like the story as laid out in the OP here should surprise anybody. If anybody’s just getting on the train now, well… Welcome!
Gee, I thought this post was about the frightening loss of the Rule of Law and clear descent of our nation into malevolent Police State but I guess some people’s all consuming hatred of Trump is far more important than losing all our rights and freedoms.
Some “Republicans” can not bring themselves to question the events of 2020 because this would lead them to not criticize Trump about something for once, ever. Sad!
I appreciate those NTs who at least can separate the collapse of the Republic from the rise of Trump as separate things. I believe that some even go so far as to see the latter as a consequence of the former and not the other way around, or merely a spooky coincidence.
Careful — you’ll summon Jonah Goldberg.
@CarolJoy, You once commented, I think, on a piece I wrote about a longtime acquaintance of mine, Ray McGovern, a neighbor when I lived in Arlington, our children grew uo together there. Ray was a founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and he has recognized an errant element in our intelligence function for a long time, starting before the turn of the century, for sure. Ray is truly not a Trump acolyte but actually appears to see him as the force that the intelligence community fears and that prompts their behavior. I have had some of the same type reactions to the Sundance ‘extreme’ Trump advocacy and I try to make sure I have other credible sources to back it up. Ray is still holding to his original opinion as far as I can tell although his focus has shifted to the Ukraine conflict. Our problem stems from what has taken place within the intelligence community.
Was “Sundance” at the “Conservative Treehouse” one of those who told us that Durham was on the case and to “trust the plan”? Honestly can’t remember if it was him or someone else at that site.
Bob, here is a truly info-packed summary of how much the Deep State has separated the citizenry from the protections of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights:
https://youtu.be/thqhzxI4kZI
It’s run time is something like 5 mins. And well worth the time spent on it.
As far as I remember Sundance was never optimistic about Durham.
What for, other than to sustain our ‘police state’?
No substance here, just words to support an opinion. We usually require some facts around opinions at Ricochet.
Someone at that site was all in on “trusting the plan.” I recall the posts about it here. I suppose I could do a search here and see if anything turns up, but the search function is so bad I’ll probably get 40 pages of irrelevant garbage.
Nah, I’ll watch baseball instead.
Actually a search for “durham sundance” only returned 5 items, but I don’t know if any of them are irrelevant garbage.
If it came up in comments, though, the search wouldn’t find them at all.
Might get a better result looking to see what Sundance thought about Barr.
12 results on “sundance barr” but I didn’t look any closer.
So what is the solution?
I generally find Sundance on the Conservative treehouse to be very informative and mostly correct in predicting the course of events. I don’t share the same degree of confidence in Donald Trump, who failed to get to grips with the “deep state” when he had the chance. Trouble is that there isn’t a better alternative than Trump, by which I mean someone who would be a competent executive and who isn’t owned by donors.
It would be nice to think that Trump learned his lesson from last time and would start his next administration by basically saying “you’re fired” to about 50,000 federal bureaucrats on his first day. I doubt it though. And the utterly corrupt relationship between the “intelligence” bureaucracy and the media needs to be dealt with. Preferably by abolishing the CIA just for a start, and imposing a bit of “diversity” on media ownership. Unfortunately it’s hard to see Trump being canny enough to turn the globalists’ own agenda against themselves.
This is a pretty good assessment and since we seem to be more or less stuck with Trump (no other viable options) let’s hope and pray he is better from the outset in 2024.
Yes, amen to that. Give him, or one of his people a call and hammer that point home. He seems to be a bit impressionable for someone who’s been independently wealthy since he was a kid. When you get old you should be thinking about what you’re going to leave behind – he might get a chance to save his country from total collapse, so does he want to be remembered as a man who at least tried.
Thank you for your comment. It is odd that you posted it today because a week ago or so, I was trying to remember who here on Ricochet had known Ray McGovern.
I gave Trump very high marks until he decided to declare COVID a national emergency. A few weeks later, he even seemed to have suggested that he relied on the bad advice of Fauci or other insiders as to what was going on, as as far as what the actual meaning of “US National Emergency” would entail.
So although up until that March 13th 2020 moment, I thought he had done very well as President.
But looking after a nation is much like parenting small children. You can do just great until that one moment that you forget to check on little Tiffany for five minutes and then she is at the bottom of the pool.
Even so, I’d be forgiving of Trump if he would acknowledge that he has made some big mistakes. Right now that is one of the things that bothers me a lot about the man.
@caroljoy Yes, I am in agreement with you that Trump would be much better off to walk back much of what he did early in Covid and how he let the vaccine story get ahead of him. The fact remains though that we have numerous individuals in influential power positions in our government and closely tied institutions who know full-well these things and do nothing to combat them while pretending to be patriots supporting the people. This is why I repeatedly fall back in a degree of reliance on Sundance because his analyses are so frequently confirmed by later events as appears to have been the case with the DeSantis story as it developed and the facts always seem to leave Trump as the people’s only ‘never give up’ advocate. Ray McGovern is a lifelong Democrat who sees the intelligence community and its influential hold on the federal government in much the same way as Sundance.
Trump is not the most competent but he is the most committed.
Dear BryanG@Stephens,
The actual solution may be this since I don’t think lawfare is going to get us out of this mess.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/adding-strategic-nonviolence-unconventional-warfare-doctrine
Nonviolent resistance only works against a foe who will stop at oppression. Would not have stopped Hitler.
Do we honestly think the people who invade homes at gunpoint and drag them out will care at all about nonviolence?
Yes, the point I’ve made in the past is that people like Ghandi weren’t really all that brave since they were “fighting” a system that wouldn’t just roll over them with tanks like China does.