It’s a Rebellion. Yes, a Rebellion. To secure the Blessings of Liberty, it will need to be “Put Down.”

Or else

News from reporters at AXIOS broke yesterday of a massive right-wing conspiracy of organizations and efforts, funded by right-wing billionaires, feverishly planning for not just winning the presidency in 2024, including by any corrupt election and vote manipulation necessary, but also planning for an enormous purge of all of the agencies of federal governance and security, replacing the core of the civil service with thousands of hand-picked apparatchiks who’s fealty will be to Trump or his successor, and to the consolidation of a new autocratic order in America. Here’s the current lede:

Former President Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his "America First” ideology, people involved in the discussions tell Axios.

The impact could go well beyond typical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the Justice Department — including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say.¹

The revelations are extraordinary, to put it mildly. They signal that we are no longer in the midst of a conventional electoral contest between competing ideas and priorities in furthering the great American experiment in democracy and self-rule.

It means that we now face an internal rebellion that poses an existential threat to our basic democratic institutions and values. It means we are now facing what is sometimes called a “soft coup.” And as we know from so many such coups in other countries around the world, there is nothing “soft” about such a corrupt seizure of power. A soft coup replaces the contest of ideas with the whims of thugs, instituting some form of unilateral “strong man” rule.

Based on the experience of the last five years, learnings from Trumpism about the enormous vulnerabilities and weaknesses in our democratic republic are being systematically assessed and addressed, and formed into a comprehensive plan for the imposition of what will be a “modern” form of autocracy (some might call it fascism), plain and simple.

So let’s recap: there is now a well-funded, widespread, documented and relatively public (yet formally legal) effort underway to capture (corruptly and with intimidation and violence, if necessary) our formal democratic governing system and to transform it from a democratic state into a more muscular strong-man state.

This is not a political strategy. It represents the antithesis of the give and take of politics. It’s a strategy to end politics as we know it. It’s an outright threat to our future as a free people.

Admittedly, it takes a while for the implications of all of this to sink in. I highly recommend the several articles now posted by AXIOS, which you can find through the link in the footnote below this text.

As one begins to accept the seriousness of this massive and frightening effort, one is faced with the big, almost surreal, dilemma that it poses:

The dilemma is that all of the planning and much of the execution of this rebellion is happening and can happen “legally,” at least in the formal senses in which we think about the legality of our systems for regulating and refereeing contests for elected office and for power in our country, including bedrock principles of free speech and assembly, etc.

The short of it is that this is the dilemma that Lincoln faced before the civil war. The individuals and states that were rebelling or planning rebellion were all working within existing “legal” and constitutional frameworks — until they weren’t. Again, the short of it is that Lincoln and others worked desperately to avoid a major fissure and eruption of major violence. But eventually, the rebels forced the issue and Lincoln accepted the necessity of responding with a type of decisiveness and muscularity that our fledgling democracy had not before contemplated or experienced. Of course, not all threatened rebellions need be resolved in civil war. But decisive and muscular leadership and action will always be needed to stop people who would seek by any means, to subjugate a free people.

How does one face an internal rebellion that begins from within currently accepted parameters of electoral and legal contestation? It must start from knowledge of the people involved, their serious actions and statements in this direction, and nature and seriousness of the planning. And it is much easier to recognize when, as here:

• we know most of the planners and their backers;

• the work and intentions of the planners are quite public and clear; and

• it is clearly a plan designed to radically change not just the government, but our way of governance.

This is what we all now need to start thinking and talking about. Everywhere, with everyone we know. What can and should we do about this rebellion that is “in the works,” when the works are mostly still legal?

Presumably much of the answer rests in informing and somehow activating our public. The evidence of all of the actions to date and the new planning is easily accessed and shared. The first big eruption of it, on Jan. 6th of 2020, is being publicly and expertly dissected by the bipartisan committee. And we are suddenly learning so much more about the ongoing and future-planning through the AXIOS reporting and there is sure to be much more to come of that.

• But what do we do about the fact that most of the ongoing seizure of electoral and legislative, executive, and judicial power at all levels of government is well underway and formally cast within the bounds of legality or at least within the contestable bounds of legality?

• What can be our strategies to resist this rebellion, this planned coup when so much of our population has accepted, if not embraced, the “Big Lie?

• What can be done about the fact that many courts, including the Supreme Court, may be against us?

• Can Lincoln teach us anything about this moment? Who else?

Having only given this a first round of thought that I’m now thinking out loud, I am at first blush inclined to believe that our only hope for putting down this rebellion in 2024 and beyond (in the medium time range) is for the election of a muscular Republican president committed to democracy. Basically a Liz Cheney or Kinzinger (not as muscular though) or someone of that character. Why would I, a committed democrat, advocate for an arch conservative like Liz Cheney to be elected president at this time?

First, because I cannot see where there might be a Lincoln or other necessary leaders among our Democratic or democracy-committed leaders. Putting down this rebellion and defending democracy might have to be done with some means and at a level of “costs” that I don’t see our Democratic leaders able or willing to countenance. It is not unlikely that there will need to be some sort of “muscular” democracy-defending responses — not at the level that Lincoln was forced to restore to, but muscular nevertheless. Who among our democratic leaders has the capacity to rally the necessary resolve and forces?

The second reason to favor a strong conservative Republican taking this on as president is that these are the people who created this malignancy in the first place. Any democratic-led attempt to “put down” this rebellion will be inherently partisan and escalatory. It will likely create deep fissures that will be hard to repair and that could take decades or longer to do so.

Since the malignancy we are facing was developed and continues to metastasize within the GOP, democracy-committed GOP leaders like Liz Cheney, willing and able to face-down the insurrectionists, are in a better position to do what is necessary to beat them back.

Bottom line: The rebellion against our democracy is in process and is being meticulously planned to be hatched from within the nurturing womb of our democratic polity, but “genetically modified” to devour and consume the very body from which it was hatched. The questions for the rest of us begin with:

• Can we actually understand and face the realities and the stakes in the rebellion that is before us?

• Can we successfully educate and alert our fellow Americans to the peril?

• What mechanisms can and must we successfully use to quash this rebellion?

• How far are we willing to go to defend democracy and our future as a free people? (What, for instance, if WE had the capacity to “steal” the next election and it was the only way to save democracy? Would we do it?)

• How are we going to strengthen and secure the blessings of liberty going forward?

I have some thoughts about all of this (surprise, surprise) but I think it’s important for all of us first to catch-up to and get our minds around this threat and its dilemmas.

Then, hopefully, out of the community of people who are committed to democracy, we (writ large) can consider and develop our own plans in a clear-headed (Lincolnesque?) way.

Anyone else care to think out loud? If so, click on the link below. Thanks.

1. https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/trump-2025-radical-plan-second-term