Blitzkrieg

We knew this was coming - but maybe not at this intensity

I started writing this piece at the end of Trump’s first week in office. Thing is, crazy shit just kept happening that pulled my focus and I kept pushing this to the back of the line. Which is pretty spot on, because that’s precisely what this essay is about.

I had a bunch of notes, talking about how it was always Trump’s plan to “flood the zone with shit” at the start of his second term with the goal of “shock and awe”. He pushed to have his Cabinet posts confirmed ahead of time because hitting the ground running and attempting to catch the Washington establishment off guard was his strategy from the start. I had a bunch of examples, and things to point out and discuss.

Then Ezra Klein penned an excellent article in the New York Times, which he then turned into the video below. If you haven’t seen it, or read the article, I highly recommend taking the time to do so now.

Klein does such a good job of exposing the Trump strategy here and does it in far better a way than I would have. Even though people were surprised with the intensity of Trump and Musk’s attack on democracy¹, you are already starting to see organized resistance, both from elected officials, the courts, and the people of the United States.

Football has the concept of a scripted drive, it’s a set of plays that a coach puts together for a team’s first possession of a game. The idea is that the team can work on those plays throughout the week of practice to try to hone them to a finely tuned attack. Once the opposing team has a chance to see what you are trying to do, they can start making adjustments to put their strengths against your weaknesses. Therefore, a lot of times that first drive is critical for the attacking team.

Trump’s first three weeks in office are following a script as well, and his initial drive was nearly flawless in its execution. Perhaps the only stumble was an underestimation of the bipartisan push back on his far-reaching freeze of federal funding that resulted in a court order blocking the freeze.² In the last week, however, there have been signs that the Democrats are finally reacting to the attacks and beginning to mount a defense. In some cases, the “old guard” still seems to be dangerously out of touch, but there are some in the party that seem to realize the gravity of the situation. These include many of the younger members of the party such as Maxwell Frost, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, and more. Connecticut Senator Christopher Murphy has also been very public and vocal in opposition to the Trump administration, but I would like to see more members of the Senate speak out and push their Republican colleagues to do the same.

As a nation we are reeling. We need to stay strong and stay in the game. Remember, the strategy of the aspiring autocrat is to bash his subjects into weary submission. Although there have been times where it feels like an unwinnable fight, we have to keep faith and realize that the fight is just beginning.

Take care and stay strong.

1. I am not sure why this is though. Trump spent the entire campaign telling everyone exactly what he was going to do. The Heritage Foundation released a book explaining the process for implementing Project 2025, even if Trump lied about his knowledge of it. Even Musk’s behavior closely tracks to another far-right strategy, which I plan to write about in depth. The fact that the establishment was surprised lends more credence to the idea that the American political public suffered from a failure of imagination. Once again, we as a whole either did not listen or did not believe that Trump was going to do exactly what he told us he was going to do.

2. This is something to watch though. Although a court has already compelled the administration to halt the freeze, there are indications that the Trump team may be ignoring all or part of that order. If Trump feels that he can subvert and ignore court orders, we are in a far worse situation than most understand.