A Coup by Any Other Name, Power Line,
“In the post “Trump agonistes” last week I noted what I saw in the news stories that have created the consuming controversies of the past few weeks: hostile officials inside the executive branch of the government seeking the removal of Donald Trump from office. They are powerful. They lack any qualms about abusing their positions. They are determined. And they have the invaluable assistance of the Democrats’ mainstream media adjunct.
With malicious intent, “current officials” inside the intelligence agencies with access to top secret information, for example, have passed it on under the cloak of anonymity to their friends in the mainstream media. Even “former officials” — i.e., former Obama administration officials — have gotten in on the act. (The source of their information is neither revealed nor apparent.)
The subversion of an incumbent Republican president by the intelligence community in the permanent government is an old story, as is the role of the mainstream media. President Trump’s death struggle with his invisible opponents, however, has arrived early in his first term in office.
Victor Davis Hanson amplifies and elaborates on the contribution of the mainstream media angle in his long, indispensable NRO column “A coup by any other name?” We are thinking along the same lines; one section of Dr. Hanson’s column is headed “Trump agonistes.”
Here is the salient point regarding the media: “The effort to remove the president is conducted by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the wire services, and the major networks. And we have seen nothing like it in our time. In the last six months, Americans have been told quite falsely so many untruths about the Trump administration by their news agencies that for all practical purposes, there is no such thing as a media as we once knew it.”
We wend our way inevitably to this destination: “We are now watching insidious regime change, aimed at removing the president of the United States not because of what he has done so far, but because of his personality and what he might do to the Obama agenda — and because for a variety of cultural reasons, our elite simply despises his very being.”
I would add as a footnote that Christopher Roach’s “Tales of a coup: What Trump can learn from Gorbachev” makes a good companion to the Hanson column.”
- I commented on another blog about the media last December: “I read a fictional story many years ago in which, as I recall, the Obama administration had a purge of society’s leading Republicans. All the names you know were killed or imprisoned by the thousands and the media were very willing collaborators until they started getting shot by snipers who left notes saying “a traitor lies, a traitor dies.” Soon the TV reporters were less and less willing to tow the Democratic party line, as patriots began to actively rebel and retaliate. Let’s hope this is as bad as the media gets, and the situation doesn’t deteriorate from here.”
Found the cool story referenced above – https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/what-i-saw-at-the-coup/
I cannot recommend reading the story at the link above enough. Forget the books I have written – read Matt Bracken’s story linked above.
I’ll give you a glimpse of this impressive story:
“…What I have heard called “the plan” began as idle office chat, nothing more. (Of course, not much chat is ever truly idle at the very highest levels of power, between senior presidential advisors.) The first time I heard it mentioned was over lunch with Dennis in the White House Mess, down in the basement next to the situation room. We were at a quiet corner table of the wood-paneled dining room, tossing ideas for the next talking points back and forth. Routine.
One of right-wing hate radio’s loudest and most poisonous voices was conducting an embarrassing public feud with our press secretary. The President had trapped himself in a seeming contradiction. The video and audio were both damning, and one must admit, very funny—if one’s goal was to make the President look and sound like a liar and a fool. The Youtube videos were getting millions of hits; the TV comics were not letting it go. We had been knocked completely off message, the optics were horrible, and our favorability ratings were collapsing at a crucial moment. (It seems like an ice-age ago when such trivialities actually mattered to me.)
I said something offhandedly to Dennis. “I just wish we could get rid of those bastards, once and for all.”
He stared at me for a long time, chewing on his second BLT sandwich until the Navy steward retreated from range, and then he said, “Actually, Jacinda, there is sort of a plan for that.”
“What do you mean, ‘a plan for that’?…”
