…Sarah Kendzior characterized the shutdown as a “hostile restructuring.” And I think that’s a much more accurate way of describing what we are seeing here.
The events of the last couple of years have moved so quickly lets not forget the early days of the administration. Steve Bannon. Bannon is a believer in “The Fourth Turning.”
The goal is to break the system. To bring it to its knees. In the early days of the administration we saw how they approached this: either getting rid of or marginalising the “smart” people and the people not loyal to Trump. Leaving important posts unfilled and departments woefully understaffed. I said at the time that this wouldn’t break the Federal Government. The Federal Government is a huge chaotic “machine” that thunders along like a runaway railway-train. But things would slip through the cracks. Not everything that “used to be done” would get done. Corners would be cut. As anyone who have had to work in situations where you are understaffed and under-resourced we know this would be inevitable.
And the shut-down is merely another phase in the “stealth civil war.” Because the reality is that WillFarnaby is not alone in his opinions. And in an administration that allowed Michael Wolff to just hang out at the White House, that was unable to stop Omarosa from covertly recording private and confidential encounters, it is very easy to imagine that there are plenty of people running wild in the WH that share WillFarnaby’s views.
It doesn’t matter that Bannon’s no longer there. His surrogates, like Stephen Miller, are still there and are key in everything that we are seeing happening. Putin wants to break everything as well. And there are others in the administration who just want to make money. Its a perfect storm of evil people with different motivations who have figured out how to take advantage of the stupidest person on the planet to wreck havoc with the most powerful country in the world.
So how long will this last?
I’m too scared to make a prediction. The best case scenario IMHO is a couple of weeks-to-a-month from now. For a quick resolution to the shutdown it relies on Republicans putting pressure on McConnell, it needs for someone to figure out a way to give Trump a win without actually giving him anything. Trump is the wildcard. He is thick-as-shit and does whatever the last-person tells him to do. So this could all be over with a single tweet.
Here’s what I’m imagining the worst case scenario is.
The shutdown continues. The news cycle moves on. People stop paying attention.
Law suits start. The administration looses, maybe they start limited payroll. Or they start to look at ways of replacing federal employees with contractors. They start to sell off the national parks, increase privatization. WillFarnaby is our guide on what they plan to do, just read his posts to get an insight into how they think.
Trump wants his wall. The goal of everyone else is to break things, to destabilize America, to make money. Looking at it from a distance its fascinating to watch, in a very morbid sense. If you wanted to take over the United States you wouldn’t do it with an army: you would do it with a plan as utterly preposterous as this. So in the worst case scenario when would it end? It wouldn’t. It would evolve, the administration would “rebrand” the shutdown, ignore the law, a new crisis will be introduced, the media moves on, and our perception of what is and isn’t “normal” shifts yet again.
I’m picking and hoping for some variation of the best case scenario. But the longer this drags out the happier people like Bannon will be. This is everything he’s been dreaming of and more, and it takes him one step closer to his goal.