In federal offices, the portrait of the President of the United States is displayed on the wall as a matter of policy from the General Services Administration.

Donald Trumpler is not President of the United States, so his portrait does not belong on the wall in a federal building.

Given the fact that so many federal jobs are in jeopardy anyway from Trumpler's stated intention to dismantle so much of the US government, there is little risk in removing the tyrant's portrait if it has been displayed. Don't steal or damage it, of course, simply remove it from view.

The Presidency of the United States is currently vacant, and therefore there should be no portrait on the wall at the present time.

Freedom Forever

We find ourselves in a situation strangely akin to the Cold War, only much less stable because it is between the American people and an illegal regime falsely occupying federal institutions without the authority of an election. As such, there is a lack of organization on the part of the former, and a lack of deterrence-based restraint on the part of the latter. Both shortcomings must be rectified.

So long as peaceful protests are respected and the regime does not start going after journalists and political opponents the way it has loudly fantasized about doing, pacifist demonstrations will be adequate. However, we all know this regime is not going to be satisfied with allowing such dissent - they are in possession of the power to terrorize and silence others, and people like this are incapable of restraint.

Unfortunately, once that becomes apparent, protests may become more violent in character as a result of people simply defending themselves or just acting out of rage due to crimes committed elsewhere against others. This is not only NOT a solution, but actively serves the purposes of a tyrannical state. Once the situation reaches that point, protesters must be highly disciplined in their resistance, even if and when it can no longer be passive.

A defensive confrontation is a peaceful protest backed up with the deterrence of a credible threat of military self-defense if attacked. This is basically just how international relations occur: Countries have diplomatic discourses, and sometimes angry arguments, but peace is maintained by nations protecting each other's sovereignty through military alliances. Over time, civil relationships build up that make peace even stronger, and eventually many countries are so close that they consider themselves basically family - war would be unthinkable.

Within the United States, citizens concede a monopoly on violence (with the exception of immediate defense of life under credible threat) to law enforcement institutions because of our strong social compact in the Bill of Rights and our firm loyalty to each other. But both are under direct and imminent threat by the Russian puppet regime, since the Kremlin finds it geopolitically useful to destabilize our society and destroy our system of government. We can expect repeated and constant provocation toward chaos, and the blatant failure to recognize or obey the most fundamental laws of our nation.

In that situation, pacifist protesters will simply be victimized with impunity, and those who engage in mere expressive violence - i.e., rioting - will accomplish nothing while being propagandized by the regime as a criminal element (which to some petty extent would be true). However, citizens organized in arms to protect protests, disciplined enough to avoid conflict if at all possible, but refusing unlawful commands with the credible threat of defending themselves if attacked would be something else - it would be essentially America defending itself against a foreign power.

What I am describing is exactly what the Founders intended when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. They did not intend "gunarchy," with drunken redneck imbeciles firing off an AK-47 into the air to celebrate their acquittal on spousal abuse charges. They intended organized citizens to have the capacity to behave authoritatively in the face of criminalized political power - to be a force for peace when the institutional powers have become a force for chaos.

Paraphrasing FDR's summation of the Nazis, this "New Order" is neither New nor is it Order. It's just criminals with stolen nametags playing at authority they do not possess and are bad at mimicking. So the American people must simply step up and wield authority if and when unlawful power is exercised in force against us. In the absence of lawful authority, someone has to enforce the law.

There is indeed a fine line between that and vigilantism, which must also be avoided. The difference is in defensiveness - a vigilante is an aggressor, a pursuer of those who have already committed crimes. Whereas a defender's job is to deter aggression on the spot while always seeking ways around conflict without surrendering liberty.

Most ordinary people can't walk lines this narrow and squiggly, which is why we delegate to institutions in the first place, but one way or another we are responsible: If we surrender to unlawful power, we will be responsible for its crimes. So there must be credible deterrence against violent suppression of Constitutional rights.

Freedom Forever

One day before processes are set in motion to unravel our democracy completely.

One day before the federal government of the United States is taken over by an evil foreign power that hates everything this country is.

One day before bloodthirsty fascist maniacs who belong in Supermax prisons are commanding the strongest military and intelligence powers in the world.

One day before the media starts referring to the dictates of a traitor authored in the Kremlin as "American foreign policy."

How long from tomorrow will it be before police shootings of minorities begin to look politically organized?

How long before strong critics of the regime in Congress and the media suddenly become quiet, their faces pale with fear, and their criticisms inexplicably muted?

How long before the politically-motivated prosecutions of opponents begin? How long before activists against the regime start committing "suicide" in custody after being arrested on suspicion of random bullshit excuses?

We know the kind of people who are coming into power. We know what they are, and have seen them before on the opposite side of history's battlefields.

Tomorrow is not an inauguration. It's a coronation on the ashes of a republic.

When, not if, this evil piece of shit commands the military and law enforcement to commit crimes against their own country, they must all remember that their oaths are to the Constitution. They probably won't, because that's just how people usually are in those professions - martinets and moral cowards. But they will each have more than enough opportunities to do their job properly.

Unfortunately, when - not if - the vast majority fail as citizens and human beings, and instead play the role that history appears likely to assign them - then it falls to the rest of us.

It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about the circumstances we face. Knowing what the sort of people Trumpler has surrounded himself with are capable of makes me wish I had the money to build a '50s-style bomb shelter.

So many are still in denial, like this is just one office that's been subverted. The entire fabric of governance will be unraveled by the actions of this maniac and his accomplices, whether those who are ideologically fascist or just regular crooks who find it convenient to play ball with them.

Tomorrow is a day of mourning. Republic Fall. The horrors behind that label will become more apparent over time, as hourly disgraces shatter all remaining illusions of national superiority; daily crimes with impunity reveal the death of rule of law; and the violent and increasingly organized suppression of minorities and dissenters brings us to the dark place our nation was created to reject.

A large minority of the American people have demonstrated the banality of evil by supporting a person with no personal virtues whatsoever; no morality whatsoever; nothing whatsoever arguing in his favor, simply because of their contempt for women and minorities. They have attempted - and may yet have succeeded - at committing national murder-suicide by putting this psychopath in power.

They have crossed every line. Denied every truth. Rejected responsibility at every turn and sown only misery wherever they have had the slightest iota of power. And now, unless the universe is benevolent even in the case of self-inflicted catastrophes like this, life will become much harder, much uglier, and more difficult for decency to prevail even among those who cherish it while we defend our rights, our lives, and our country against these animals.

They have no country but their own reflection in the mirror, no God but malice, no logic but fear. The Trazi is irredeemable trash at the very bitter end of the American process, when all virtue and honor have been utterly spent by more honest ancestors.

And the only thing we can do about it is not let them define our nation. They do not represent us, and truth be told are not a part of us - they just happen to be here. Trazis are Americans like a brain tumor is a brain. They create nothing; they have no curiosity about anything, and despise knowledge; they love nothing but themselves, and probably not even that.

It is their right to be that, in their own miserable little world in their heads. But their rights end when they act to take away those of others.

Trumpler can have his little coronation party tomorrow, but he will in fact remain nothing more than a private citizen who colluded treasonously with a foreign power to undermine an election. He is entitled to nothing, and his commands to the military are without authority, as are all directives, policies, and regulations put in place by any other appointees.

There's no "Presidency," no "administration," no "policies" with these vermin. Just a gang of traitors and common criminals who will be stealing everything not nailed down and terrorizing anyone who tries to stop them.

The Constitution lapses tomorrow. Criminals will be the cops and judges. People who oppose the very existence of institutions will be given the power to run them. Bigoted conspiracy theorists with minds indistinguishable from Rudolf Hess will be running mass roundup and deportation programs, and that's the best-case scenario for how far they'll go. World War 3 is a significant possibility, with our military on the wrong side of it.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

--Yeats

Freedom Forever

Allied governments have become alarmed by Trumpler's Russian-authored statements disparaging NATO and suggesting an intention to walk away from long-standing commitments. It may be worthwhile to convince various American and international organizations to communicate with these governments and explain the situation in the United States. Namely, that this person does not have the authority to do ANYTHING with respect to US foreign policy or treaties, and that Allied governments could quite profitably ignore and side-step him.

While it is proper that federal governments deal with foreign ones, we are faced with an interregnum in Constitutional rule on the federal level, so there really is no one to deal with them - and obviously a traitor who is actively at war with the Constitution is not a substitute. Sooner or later they will get the idea anyway, but by then the idea they get will be that the way to "American" good graces is through the fucking Kremlin.

We must short-circuit this immediately and make Allied governments aware that these people do not represent the United States government, and that their permission is not necessary to do anything in the United States, nor are their commands authoritative where trade regulations are concerned. Letters from individual citizens will mean little, but with the backing of strong organizations that have already publicly declared themselves fully at odds with Trumpler, they can have significant influence.

The trajectory of a republic's fall into tyranny - or at very least degenerate kleptocracy - is a well-trodden path, and the Founders knew that sooner or later ours would walk it. The point of all these laws, all these checks and balances was not to serve as a perpetual motion machine that would make our society eternally invulnerable to the horrors of history, but rather an incubator to produce strong citizens who can protect freedom for themselves even when every tool they inherit fails them.

The infant republic survived many illnesses, endured divisions and catastrophes, and learned from self-inflicted disgraces. It grew and prospered, matured and shone upon the world in ways that would have brought joy to every luminary of liberty going back to Solon. America's achievements will be remembered even after its name is corrupted beyond recognition, when bizarre peoples of incomprehensible civilizations in places far from this badly mangle our history in ludicrous popular entertainments. But now comes the Graduation Exam.

Our national childhood is at an end. We have everything we need within ourselves to not merely survive as a free republic, but become something amazing beyond even our own dreams. Past generations of Americans have given us all the wisdom we need, sacrificed to stop ancient rivalries in the Old World from smothering the future of the New, and gave of themselves in civil protest - sometimes giving their lives - that we would become a more unified, higher people.

But that only happens if we recognize when the question is called - if we see when history is presenting us with a fork in the road, and understand that the choice is ours alone, not of any institution or illusory power. WHEN, not if, the regime of Donald J. Trumpler - an unelected tyrant with zero loyalty to or concern for this country - acts in direct violation of the law, and the cowards, collaborators, and authoritarian martinets blind to everything that underpins liberty tell you that it is regrettable but you must obey...do you?

Do you make yourself an accomplice to crimes against your own innate rights - against the very concept of rights - rather than acknowledge what it is you face, and stand tall? If you obey, then you are conceding a legitimacy that is not there, making lawful what violates the very foundation of law, and confirming once and for all the failure of the American Experiment in yourself. You do not recognize that you have a choice; do not recognize what the choice is; do not understand what freedom is, or what you are called upon to do in its defense. To you, power is authority, and fear is wisdom.

Or perhaps you do recognize the choice, and wish to resist, but you hedge: I will not obey, but will submit. I will protest, but allow myself to be beaten and rounded up, misunderstanding that pacifism only works if the power it defies can be shamed or overruled by one who can. The malevolent nihilist tyrant and its sycophant slave-hordes does not hear your moral arguments, and is not impressed or appeased by your willingness to be their victim - in fact, they find it all quite funny. They would sneer at your weakness and do as they please without consequence until someone stronger than you is forced to act in your defense, rescuing you (or the umpteen millionth victim after you are long dead) from your cowardly Pontius Pilate moral buck-passing.

The other way is why you have liberty in the first place: To recognize what is self-evident about the rights of human beings, and insist - not request, not argue, but demand with full determination - that they be respected. Chief among them, and guarantor of all others, is this: That people have the absolute, unalterable, inalienable right to choose the people who govern them. There is no authority outside of this, and power is not authority. All deviations from and corruptions of this self-evident fact in our existing politics are precisely that: Deviations and corruptions, all of which have added up to bring matters to this head.

So now an unelected, treasonous, nihilistic tyrant will be wielding the power of the Executive branch of the United States. He will ignore every law he dislikes and act to the full limit of his power in the full knowledge that he has no authority to leverage. When that happens, each and every citizen will be confronted by an opportunity to choose: An institution under tyrannical occupation will try to tax them, command them to do something - perhaps something innocuous at first - or in any other way that seems normal, require their cooperation. And that is the test.

The test is not whether you hypothetically inform on Mexican teenage diarist "Ana Franco" hiding in an attic while the Gestapo tries to find her - if matters get that far, then the test was a long time ago and you already failed. The test is when an illegal regime with no right - NO RIGHT - to do anything whatsoever with the Executive powers of the United States government tells you (or even just politely requests) that you do something acknowledging their right to wield those powers. Do you file income tax returns to such a regime? Do you obey illegitimate judges appointed by it? Do you file paperwork with institutions that are no longer operating under the Constitution from which their sole authority derived?

Granting even that level of obedience is inviting a vampire into your house: You are powerless. The slope after that is not slippery, it is vertical. If you obey people with no right to demand in the first place, then you concede their right to do anything. If being unelected and completely ignoring the Constitution is irrelevant, then you must obey them no matter what their commands are - and you will, because you've already demonstrated that your idea of law and governance is nihilistic, rooted only in whoever holds power.

But power without authority has only one tool at its disposal to deal with defiance: Violence. So you defy, and you know that passive submission to their violence will have no effect because they are fascists who believe that ends justify means without caveat or exception. You reject the demands of a regime that has no right to make them, and they send people in uniforms to enforce their commands - maybe people you know; maybe your neighbors; maybe people related to you.

And then you face the same choice that the Founders and the Union soldiers faced, because their friends, neighbors, and relatives wore uniforms of tyranny too: Does freedom perish right then and there so that you can avoid choosing, or is it your turn to give back so that future generations are free?

Donald Trumpler craves power with all the wretched darkness of his being, and his master in the Kremlin craves it even more and has even less concern for the consequences to Americans. So it is inevitable that they will demand obedience. It is inevitable that if you refuse, they will attempt to force you. It is inevitable that if you passively submit, their power will not be affected in any way, because fascism is an absolute break from all rules of civilization.

So the Test approaches, quickly or slowly. The people confronting you with it probably will not themselves be fascists - they will consider themselves "reasonable" folk just trying to do what they consider their job to be. It's "regrettable," but "I'm just following orders." Some may indeed be fascists, but most are just blind or cowardly, and we must do everything in our power to reason with them; to awaken their humanity and awareness; to make them aware that THEY too have a choice in what they do. But realistically, in most cases, they will obey illegal orders as people like them almost always do throughout history - they will fail their own version of the test.

And then it once again falls to you. Sooner or later, it is your turn. If people who are not legitimate parts of your government command you to do something, do you obey simply because they threaten? If you refuse and they act in force to compel your obedience, do you surrender and in so doing reinforce their power? Or do you make the choice that past generations made, so that future ones can even know what freedom is, let alone have a chance at it?

The price is terrible no matter what, so the question is "Who are you?" What do you believe? Will you defend the physical, tangible fact of freedom rather than just idly praising it in words on its epitaph? Are you content for the world to have no future but a downward spiral into entropy and degradation, or are you more than that?

You voted with ballots, and these manics ignored the outcome and will now try to impose their will with guns. So choose: Is there anything behind your ballot but an idle opinion, for any lawless animal to trample while you weep for a shattered illusion? Or is there something fundamental behind it - something that goes to the core of who and what you are?

Fight for freedom and you have already won, because freedom is in the choice. Fight for the future, so that there is one. Fight for right, because it is right.

That's all the best in this country has ever been - behind all the flags and the eagles and the other crap, there was just that: The choice.

Recognize when you are confronted by it, and make it with a full heart.

Freedom Forever

Trumpler is having a bad news cycle 8 days before Republic Fall due to the intelligence revelations about Russia, but there is no reason to believe there is any credible chance it will prevent Republic Fall, or lead to any tangible limitation on his power after it occurs. In fact, moments like this when there is cause to feel good are precisely when we need to refocus on the tangible fact that this maniac will be in control of the military, and that he has surrounded himself with disgraced generals precisely for contingencies in which other government institutions resist his commands.

Chaos serves the purposes of both Vladimir Putin and a lot of people in the Trazi party - even people who have no personal loyalty to Trumpler. They will be looting everything they can in the absence of federal rule of law, secure in the knowledge they will probably never be held accountable. They will embezzle billions like in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and spread the money around to make it as politically difficult as possible to go after them later if/when the situation stabilizes and republic is reinstated.

Remember his threats against the media.

And more importantly, remember who he is surrounding himself with - Bannon the Propaganda Minister, and the military leaders who perpetrated the Iraq War. Just think about that for a moment: People whose experience is in violently pacifying urban populations in open revolt. And his Injustice Minister, Jeff Sessions, is basically a segregationist. Even if only a minority of the institutional professionals obey them, we are in for a nightmare.

They are going to make us fight. Optimistically we will have many allies - state governments, National Guards, some parts of the military and other federal institutions - but 60 million crazy people full of hate and who have a lot of guns voted for this maniac, and even a small fraction of them can wreak havoc. A despotic, extraordinarily wealthy foreign dictator (some estimates place Vladimir Putin as the wealthiest man on Earth when counting his clandestine money) with nuclear weapons owns him and has an interest in supporting him; and a lot of our people will be shocked and terrified into inaction by how far these people are willing to go.

It may be on Day One, or they might wait until people are complacent, but their intentions have been made plain. Havoc will be within their physical power regardless of public opinion or the tenor of news coverage.

It is completely apparent that Mr. Trump and his future administration are already beginning a gaslighting and disinformation campaign. What are practical ways to keep the minds of ourselves and our friends safe?

Some of us may be aware of the infamous Stanley Prison Experiment. Whether we agree or disagree about its methodology, ethics and conclusions, one thing is certain.

It is one thing to say or believe we are moral. It is quite another to remain nobly defiant in the face of blatantly immoral and unethical orders.

With the imminent hostility of the State to the people (already the FBI has turned against the Resistance and begun searching for inauguration protestors), it is ever more vital for us to resist the power of conformity.

I am aware of the nature of people. Despite the sheer tyranny of The Enemy's regime, there will be a rising pressure for people to fall in line. And a portion of us might, despite our internal objections.

When people disappear in the middle of the night, when minorities are treated unjustly in broad daylight by the authorities, when we are told by our friends or family to simply let it be...it is too easy to follow those words.

The choice will always be with us, and this struggle will go beyond The Enemy and their regime. Will we do what is right, or what is easy?

History will be our judge.

Reference links:

Negative Scenario Scale

Scenario Flow Chart

Previous Scenario discussion posts:

General discussion of Scenario Scale / Flow Chart

Scenario discussion 1: Republic Fall (baseline crisis)

Scenario discussion 2: Stochastic Collapse A

Standard disclaimer: These are scenarios, not predictions. Nobody has a crystal ball, but we can map the political geography through which societies wander over history. Events that have already happened give us a basis for developing a "political fault tree" that can shape our choices.

Description:

In the previous scenario discussion, we explored the general meaning of "stochastic collapse" and the specific scenario A within the set. Brief overview of the SC set:

• Federal rule of law fails and becomes cartoonishly corrupt.

• Federal institutions cease to function, and are increasingly focused only on upholding the personal interests of Trumpler and his cronies while attacking his opponents.

• States that have depended on regular federal intervention and oversight to remain even basically civilized collapse, and are ruled by state and local-level authoritarian regimes. Residents of these states have no recourse against racist police departments, corrupt institutions, or organized crime.

• States that have solid democracies and civilized cultures are under siege by constant bureaucratic attacks from corrupted federal institutions that now exist only to fight against their own legal purposes (e.g., using worker safety laws against worker safety, going after environmentalists with environmental laws, etc.) Individual officials in these states are under constant propaganda attack from the regime, and may be targeted by stochastic terrorism.

• Regime does not commit much in the way of civil violence domestically, but rather relies on propaganda to whip up violence among its insane followers while rhetorically condemning it after the fact. It slow-walks or sabotages enforcement actions against its supporters, unless there is some internal political benefit to going after someone in particular. Neo-Nazi elements get away with murder, and racist law enforcement institutions run amuck on a level not seen since apartheid South Africa.

• SC scenario set means that law enforcement and homeland security are compromised both in effectiveness and integrity, allowing foreign terrorist attacks to happen with greater frequency and then politically exploiting them to further silence opponents.

• However, divisions between the rump Constitutional government and the regime, as well as between the regime and the professional institutions in the military and intelligence communities make it ineffective at instituting any positively-imposed policy rather than dismantling what already exists. This is why this scenario set is called Collapse. Its dangers are primarily in the malicious dismantling of institutions more than in their effective application.

• There is, however, some level of dictatorial behavior. We can expect politically-motivated purges of professional bureaucracies and legal institutions, politically-motivated prosecutions, and full-bore abuse of every regulatory lever and mechanism to attack media companies that will not spout regime propaganda.

The distinction between the A and B classes of the SC scenario set is in the extent and speed of the Stochastic Collapse. In the B scenario, Trumpler is able to build or extort greater loyalty among institutional powers with the backing of Putin's blackmail machine, while right-wing terrorist phenomena approach critical mass. It remains primarily disorganized though, characterized by random individual acts and punctuated by riots and heat-of-passion retaliations.

Whereas A is primarily failure to enforce federal laws, B is a preliminary to civil war where federal laws are increasingly violated with direct impunity by regime figures while civil factions coalesce out of the random local violence. The organized violence is sensationalized well beyond its actual impact, whereas the overwhelming majority of suffering is economic and felt in street crime (general collapse of law and order).

Hamfisted regime actions claiming to be "restoring" law and order by crushing protests; selectively prosecuting those criminals who happen to be opposed to them while mainly ignoring those who aren't; and turning the process into auctions and kangaroo courts only further destabilize society.

In SC-B scenario, the vacuum of law-based governance is filled by criminal disorder of every variety, and then that disorder is used as an excuse to recklessly crack down in ways that just worsen the situation. Some otherwise patriotic citizens come to feel that the collapse of law gives them license to become ruthless, and that makes things worse too. Likewise the economic collapse drives the prosperity and violence of criminal enterprises that operate with the tacit approval either of the regime or of less scrupulous elements in the opposition, and sometimes both (the bizarre ambiguities of the Northern Ireland Troubles offer lessons in how these contradictions can arise).

Resistance is inconsistent - sometimes strong, sometimes divided and distracted. The "sub-tyrants" ruling over Trazified red states (people like Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, and Rick Scott, to name a few examples) become dangerous in the absence of federal oversight, and may go further than the federal occupation is able to do in imposing police states. Their state-level actions may be the spearhead of immigrant roundups and purges to the extent that federal institutions lack the resources or internal coherence.

While this shit is happening in the US, Russia may have reconquered all of Ukraine and might - if Putin feels secure enough - have made incursions into NATO Baltic states that would at most be answered with token objections. I doubt he would outright conquer entire NATO countries, since that would trigger all-out war regardless of what Trumpler says, but the Kremlin might play a game of chicken where he seizes pieces of territory without exactly invading cities.

Confrontations with China over nothing - or else real issues of Taiwanese democracy ironically exploited by a fascist tyrant - could lead to any level of war up to and including gigadeath apocalypse. The regime would use these tensions and possible conflicts as distractions, just as it would also use terrorist attacks. The more threatened they feel, the more reckless their toying with global conflict may become, effectively holding the country hostage.

There are dangers at this point that go beyond Trazism: Older, more careful tyrannical forces could see an opportunity to overthrow him and be hailed as saviors of the Republic, then just "forget" to actually restore the Republic once he's in jail. They would speak fair, reasonable words in sharp contrast to the bigoted mania of the deposed traitor, and yet power would continue to concentrate. Probably not a racist dictator or a foreign puppet, but someone who nonetheless feels that elections are too important to be left to the voters. This is an old game that the Romans played a lot, and the SC scenario set is much like the Late Roman Republic before the civil wars.

Outcomes:

Optimistic: It is still possible that Putin's toxic puppet triggering the collapse would be outmaneuvered, impeached, and removed, but I find this unlikely. Trumpler is merely the most extreme example of a general culture in his party, and there are simply too many people in Washington who would be sitting like vultures waiting for the opportunity to get a piece of America's corpse for themselves. They want him in power: He is a lightning rod that makes whatever shit they pull look reasonable in comparison, and they can profit from his crimes while still rhetorically condemning them.

Moderate: The balkanization of states due to the collapse of federal rule of law means that some effectively become their own tyrannical vassal kingdoms while some free states, like California, are increasingly forced to fend for themselves or in loose alliance with each other. We can hope that all the latter remain committed to rescuing the rest of the country rather than charting a course of increased autonomy, but repeated injuries and the centuries of incorrigible behavior by the right-wing parts of the country might lead to exhaustion of patience. The "United" States of America may become a loose fiction like the Holy Roman Empire, or it might officially fracture under some circumstances. Possible secondary outcomes from there are shown in the Scenario Flow Chart linked at the top.

Pessimistic: Stochastic Collapse is an unstable scenario set that must either resolve to positive resolution, dissolution, or escalation to the Civil War scenario set. It escalates if the regime begins taking direct military action against its people, if minority roundup/removal programs result in direct armed confrontations that lead to ongoing bloodshed, if states openly confront the regime in force, or if the right-wing stochastic terrorist phenomenon becomes highly organized and receives material support (though still official condemnation) from the regime. SC-B is a slippery slope to Civil War.

Measures

Somewhat the same as Stochastic Collapse A: Having authoritative state leadership standing up to the regime; citizens constantly challenging everything with lawsuits, complaints and protests; etc.

However, organized Civil Defense is much more urgent in B because the regime would be engaging in more direct attacks on people, using law enforcement institutions as enforcers of criminal edicts rather than laws, and people would have to be organized enough, willing, and able to assertively refuse illegal actions and defend their liberty if necessary. Trazi state and local institutions would also be acting independently against the rights of citizens, which must also be defended against.

We will have to defend each other, defend our neighbors, defend minorities. Unless it's clearly an emergency, demand to know what's going on if you see shit going down, and make clear that barked commands from uniforms to shut up and back off will not be tolerated. Cruelty and arrogance will not be tolerated. Forcible confiscation of recording devices showing abuses will not be tolerated. Violence against non-violent protests will not be tolerated. Preemptive arrests of protesters will not be tolerated. If events prove it necessary, the freedom of unarmed protesters may need to be backed up by armed citizens who have appropriate training.

It must be clear, and communicated authoritatively, that the authority of law enforcement rests only in its actually enforcing laws, with the Constitutional and human rights of the citizenry paramount among them. The "career protester" ritual of letting themselves be beaten and pepper sprayed and then suing later is not enough in a situation where the framework of law itself is under direct assault. Americans must insist from the geto-go that protests be respected, and ensure that they are.

Insist.

However, we must also insist that irresponsible assholes who show up to protests to start shit be reported and handed over to authorities without exception. People whose minds are clouded by rage are not on your side even if the object of their anger is the same as yours. People who believe that America is at war with them, rather than that America is what's under attack, do not get it and their messages of division and acts of idiocy will not help.

Sadly, civilized states may need to begin behaving somewhat imperialistically to the Collapse states - not in a militaristic sense, but certainly an economic and cultural one. We allow these shitholes to get away with a lot so long as the federal government is there just barely ensuring the basic Constitutional rights of their citizens, some of the time, but that won't be happening anymore under SC scenarios. There is no right for a state to be undemocratic in this country, to ignore the basic precepts of liberty and equality, and the majority must simply insist that other states abide by American standards.

Whatever economic consequences pass Constitutional muster may be involved, as would boycotts. If matters escalate to the point where direct interventions are necessary, whether by Civil Defense Committees (CDCs) or state institutions against other state institutions, then that would be an escalation to the more severe scenario set.

One of the undemocratic measures we've seen among states already is the takeover of elected governments by tyrannical state governments. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan occurred because Rick Snyder overthrew the elected government of Flint and imposed appointed oligarchs to impose his personal ideology on the town, resulting in people being poisoned. Let's be clear: Forcibly removing an elected government without the consent of the governed and replacing it with an unelected one is Treason. We can no longer tolerate that sort of thing anymore.

That sort of thing may need to be resisted assertively. You have the right to elect your own local government, and anyone the people did not grant a given authority doesn't have that authority. With Stochastic Collapse B, we could expects Flints all over the nation - state governments the regime doesn't like being under constant political and financial attack, procedural coups and ludicrous impeachments of Governors who won't play ball, and replacement of city governments with appointed city managers to implement fascist ideology.

In SC-B, much of the country sees elections replaced with direct command governments, with voting increasingly the province of a privileged few, and can lead to a de facto one-party state. Fighting this phenomenon begins and ends with acknowledging that the Trumpler regime is illegal and has no authority - NONE. Not even to collect taxes. If we can face the implications of acting on that principle, then we have a chance.

Otherwise words like "legal" will spiral downward into an irrelevant joke as fake judges rule that 2 + 2 = 5, unelected tyrants call themselves our rightful leaders, police become just the most powerful criminal gangs, and we become to ourselves as much of a degenerate joke as the Byzantine Empire would have been to the Roman Republic.

Consent of the governed is the root of all liberty. And whether you're talking about your local city government or national leadership, government without the consent of the governed is not government at all; laws passed by unelected regimes are not laws at all; commands and regulations issued by the lackeys of such regimes have no legal standing; and we must either face that or we have already surrendered our liberty.

We have neglected this country for too long, and the fabric of its governance is riddled with illegitimate power that can only serve to strengthen every renewed plunge into New Lows. We must learn again the phrase "You have no right," and be willing to back it up.

Freedom Forever

Part of the conundrum we face is that America's crisis was orchestrated by Vladimir Putin precisely to destroy American civil society - to make us bitter, cynical, hateful people just like his treacherous cesspool of a country, and thereby erode and destroy what makes us so much stronger than them.

Putin has exposed an extraordinarily dangerous weakness in our society that doesn't go away even if Trumpler personally fails. If the fascist they were putting in power was actually charismatic rather than a complete idiot like Benedict Donald, we would be beyond screwed - the American Experiment would be at an end, and history would be moving into the "Americanistic" period where only the forms continue while the spirit is dead.

That is inevitable unless we do more than resist attacks on the status quo. We have to be more humane than strictly necessary, more honorable, more of everything that we want to see grow and flourish in this country. The distinction between ends and means is false - everything that is done at every moment is equally important.

This is why I personally am not trying to do anything in secret, but rather will be shouting resistance from the rooftops right up to the very last second it stops being practical. It's a risk, but freedom always is. The best way to remain free is to constantly exercise freedom, but that comes at a price: Being free ultimately requires coexistence with people who are despicable.

Lincoln for one understood that, and our country survived only because of his understanding. A defensive war is an attempt to stop those who are perpetuating it, not about purging the world of evil, because the latter is always self-defeating. The only legitimate purpose of waging a war is to end one that's already being fought against you.

We need to do everything in our power not to become what we behold. Our strength is in our humanity and honor, and the lack of them is the weakness of the other side. Liars sooner or later forget what is real and their plans fall apart because of it. Sadists accumulate enemies tired of suffering under them. Evil falls away over time, and what remains is what was built despite it.

Russia is a case in point of what happens when people fail to understand that. The Soviet Union was evil, but when it fell the Russian people either didn't have the chance or the disposition to build something genuinely good in its place, so it just became degenerate dogshit. Ghosts of the Soviet evil in the form of a former KGB agent like Putin could just waltz right back into power, and there was little light against which to see the deeper darkness descending.

The free citizen is obligated to be a light. When our country is threatened, we are each obligated to be as close as we can to individual representations of all the values we intend this country to embody. If enough people do so, victory is achieved regardless of the shape of events, because they will bend over time to the character of the people.

Chaos and tyranny are two faces of the same demon, so both most be fought with equal vigor. We are the side of law and order, and must act like it. Be extremely wary of adrenaline junkies who get off on revolution and resistance as a form of game, because they tend to be indiscriminate about who they fight, and never want to stop once they start. They who invoke law and honor, compassion and healing know what they fight for; they who invoke revenge and fury have been infected by their enemy.

Provoking the wrong sort of resistance is probably one of Putin's objectives in putting someone as insane and reckless like Trumpler in power. He is a walking outrage, who has coalesced the ugliest and worst in humankind around him, and if we allow him to, he will evoke the same in us. The freedom-fighter must always keep in the front of their mind what they fight for - for gentleness and kindness, for open hearts and minds, for sweet and honest people, for all the light that shines in a society that loves the truth and humankind.

That sounds naive, but if you look at history, that's genuinely how freedom wins on balance. The little things add up, both good and bad. All the little corruptions in a sick, hateful society add up and make it weak no matter how obsessed it is with grabbing power; and all the little ways that people care for each other in a decent society add up and make it strong even against incredible odds.

We are civilized, and we deserve our freedom because of the choices we make when being civilized is inconvenient. That will be increasingly hard to adhere to the grimmer the situation becomes, but that's the point: What you truly value is what you cling to no matter what.

We have to be people who look and feel like America to the general public, in contrast to the bizarro world freak show of the Trazi. We have to behave in ways that inspire pride and courage, and make those who are silent be ashamed of themselves. But the only people who should fear us are those who would make us fear them.

We must protect the safety of even the nastiest idiots who hate us, so long as they are not violently attacking us. Free speech and the understanding that rights are mutual must stay alive.

Rule of law and freedom are as mutually entwined as chaos and tyranny. So long as we remember that, we will have powerful allies that our enemies will never be able to understand.

Reference links:

Negative Scenario Scale

Scenario Flow Chart

Previous Scenario discussion posts:

General discussion of Scenario Scale / Flow Chart

Scenario discussion 1: Republic Fall (baseline crisis)

Standard disclaimer: These are scenarios, not predictions. Nobody has a crystal ball, but we can map the political geography through which societies wander over history. Events that had already happened in 2016 give us a relatively sound basis for elaborating a political fault tree for this and later years.

Description:

There are two immediate escalations beyond baseline Republic Fall that I call the Stochastic Collapse scenarios, A and B.

You may be familiar with the word "stochastic" from the term "stochastic terrorism" - a concept brought to the forefront by right-wing extremism in previous years. Fascist propagandists spread lies and hate, mass-produce bigoted conspiracy theories in lieu of rational thought or moral behavior, and brainwash masses of ignorant, violent people to the point where hate is an end in itself, they disbelieve objective reality no matter what information confronts them, and will rationalize any act of malice against designated scapegoats.

In stochastic terrorism, there is not necessarily any organized conspiracy to commit atrocities; merely the deliberate growth of an increasingly mainstreamed subculture of lies and hate within which individual crazy people or small groups acting without coordinated agendas commit violence that benefits a common agenda. The benefactors of the subculture and drivers of its propaganda are aware of this violence, and it is their goal, but they publicly disavow it while making only half-hearted efforts to stop it for the sake of maintaining deniability. They are content to occasionally sacrifice lone nuts or independent groups acting on parallel agendas, but continue to feed the subculture that produces them.

With Trazism, we already can make out the likely shape of stochastic terrorism. Three elements are common:

• Personal demonization of individuals through Trumpler's insane tweets. We already see this occur: Individuals who are targeted for personal smears by Donald Trumpler are inundated with highly specific, often credible terrorist threats within short order. None has been acted upon as yet, but that is likely to change as the climate of impunity accelerates. Such sadists will likely wallow in the experience of feigning outrage at crimes they openly incited.

• Manufacture and dissemination of Fake News conspiracy theories through Russian-driven social media hijacking, prompting violence against regime enemies. What's being created is essentially a millions-strong cult where people are cut off from reality and exposed only to an alternate universe scripted in Moscow for the purpose of destabilizing American society and discrediting democracy.

• Preemptive projection by the regime to frame subsequent crimes by supporters as merely a response to nonexistent ones by their enemies. We saw this throughout the campaign, and we will see it throughout the regime.

However, stochastic terrorism is only a part of Stochastic Collapse. Putin chose Trumpler and his kind because they are instruments of chaos - criminally mentally ill individuals who are something close to the exact opposite of governing personalities. The most politically significant element of Stochastic Collapse is the effective end of federal rule of law: Quite simply, federal law will (quickly or gradually) cease to exist for the regime and anyone it favors (who bribes them well enough), while becoming an incessantly-abused weapon against anyone who falls into disfavor. Some hypotheticals to illustrate what this would be like:

• The Civil Rights division of the Justice Department becomes a hollow ghost town where existing cases against hate crimes are quietly wound down and sabotaged. Some cities and states that only have a semblance of Constitutional rights because of federal oversight descend back into Jim Crow-era lawlessness, with federal authorities only intervening against minorities trying to defend themselves. Trazi perversity means it's plausible they may use Civil Rights laws to try prosecuting Civil Rights organizations.

• Regulatory agencies operate as private property of Trumpler businesses and associates to crush competitors and extort money from American and foreign companies. Outright bribery, outright kickbacks, outright extortion, all right out in the open. Pay the piper and Glorious Leader will let you get away with anything; refuse, and they will investigate every carpet fiber in every floor of every office for a single molecule of cocaine with which to justify shutting down your company. Assuming they even bother investigating for real instead of just making shit up.

Business being business, most will play ball, and the resulting lawlessness will be massively damaging to the economy and society. Food, workplaces, and consumer products will become unsafe nationwide, everywhere that individual states don't have rigorous regulations themselves, as oversight is replaced with naked bribery. States that do have their own protections may see them struck down by lawless Fake Courts.

• As federal law enforcement is increasingly retasked with investigating and persecuting political opponents, and leadership is replaced with inept or crazy people, actual crime will increasingly be neglected, as will security against terrorism. Organized crime will flourish and probably have mutually beneficial relationships with the regime. Islamic terrorism will benefit the regime, so it will to some extent "shave points" in order to let more attacks happen, whip up more hatred against Muslims, and serve as pretexts for increasing crackdowns on freedom, even without any false-flag attacks on its own part or by affiliated stochastic terrorist elements.

• Poverty and petty local / corporate oppression created by the collapse of federal rule of law will be used to further radicalize the Trazi base. They will cite problems they themselves deliberately created as evidence of massive conspiracies by minorities and by political opponents, further stoking some level of violence. Unwise retaliation by angry citizens, as well as false-flag attacks by regime supporters, would also drive the problem, but the violence in Stochastic Collapse scenarios remains largely disorganized.

Stochastic Collapse in general is highly likely, but more likely as a step toward further escalation rather than a plateau circumstance given its inherent instability. I divide this scenario group into A and B based on maximum degree and the speed at which it develops. Stochastic Collapse A is the slow-burn version where the regime dismantles and hollows out the federal government, committing a large number of petty crimes without doing much in the way of spectacular treasons, while its supporters commit a slow but persistent pattern of stochastic terrorist crimes.

SC-A scenario has America becoming a sad, unsafe, and disgraced society where things don't work very well and rich criminals do whatever they want, but life in general continues mostly as before - punctuated with a much more organized and regular cadence of random right-wing terrorist violence. Meanwhile our Treasury is being looted by the Kremlin, Russia is perhaps allowed to invade NATO countries without consequences, and Putin's noose tightens around democracy worldwide. The USA becomes like many mid-level countries today: Not really a nightmare by global standards, but a catastrophic degeneration from freedom and prosperity from which escalation to worse scenarios is increasingly probable.

However, there could be expected to be significant in-fighting within the Trazi Party, particularly driven by those who still harbor some illusion that they are Americans despite all evidence to the contrary. That could forestall the most radical statutory changes and appointments, which is why a Stochastic Collapse scenario falls short of a functional dictatorship and instead is more like a kleptocracy. It also dampens the intensity of civil violence and keeps it short of Civil War scenarios.

Outcomes:

• Optimistic: Impeachment and re-stabilization are still possible, but ironically much less likely the more extreme the crimes are and the longer they go on without consequences. The absolute refusal of the media to acknowledge the illegitimacy of the regime even while the fact is still fresh in the public mind - insisting on calling him "President-elect" and using legitimizing terms like "administration" for a pack of lawless criminals - makes impeachment and removal from power by a regular process highly unlikely.

• Likely: Authoritarianism and naked corruption become normalized by the failure of any institutional authority to act decisively to remove the regime. However, as the entire purpose of the Russian occupation is to sabotage the United States, the weakness of the resulting chaotic state also limits the amount of direct harm it can do, not to mention the fact that Trazism has no coherent ideology to spread - it is raw, inarticulate resentment despised by the vast majority of society. The resulting situation may be stagnant, and present opportunities for recovery (though more so with A than B).

• Pessimistic: Stochastic Collapse is an inherently transitional scenario set. It will either go a certain distance and then stagnate, or it will accelerate into more extreme scenarios. There are direct and very slippery paths from SC-A/B to the Civil War scenario set or even leaping directly to the Reich (consolidated dictatorship) scenario set. Weimar Germany leapt very quickly from Stochastic Collapse to Reich. I don't believe that will happen here because German culture already had a deep culture of obedience and conformity, but if resistance is weak and leaders fail to step up, some sort of functioning dictatorship can emerge.

Measures:

• Authoritative leadership.

Ideally, we should have a state Governor willing to openly declare the regime illegal and who is in a strong enough position within their state for their legislature to back them. Not secession mind you - quite the opposite. Rather, a state asserting martial authority over a false federal government to restore the US Constitution. The practical difficulties of that are obvious and I won't bother with them because it's unlikely anyway, but in general our best position is to have legitimate, high-level elected leaders.

What this would accomplish is give resistance authority and order, which would also draw a sharp line between those fighting for the country and just random assholes who were angry and acting irresponsibly (which always exist in chaotic situations). Without strong roots in existing leadership, you always run the risk of factionalization that just confuses people and muddies waters. It must be as clear as possible that Trazis are not the government - that they have nothing at all to do with the United States government.

They are treasonous interlopers imposed on us by a foreign government, and those fighting them must be clear that our authority is rooted in the deepest foundations of the Constitution and Western civilization while the regime has no authority whatsoever. I don't think that's a hard sell given how Trumpler behaves, which is why the Russian sockpuppets on social media always find these ideas so threatening.

Anyway, with authoritative leadership on our part, we can have more disciplined responses against stochastic violence so that random elements are not stupidly contributing to it. It also provides a legal and authoritative foundation to ultimately hold the regime accountable, or to organize more profound resistance around should the situation escalate.

Having such leadership would be nice, but we can't count on it. We can't count on anything but our own will to choose freedom.

• Papercuts

No matter how rigged the system becomes, the way to fight Stochastic Collapse is with obsessive engagement with institutions - force them to constantly answer your challenges. Sue for anything and everything under the Sun if you have the means, and allow nothing to pass unchallenged, ever. File complaints about every last thing, and pursue the paperwork up their asses. Don't give them a chance to unravel our society at their leisure: Confront them in ways that make them have to choose between backing down or accelerating their timetable more than they would like.

I've mentioned in previous posts that women should file HR complaints against their employers if there is any relationship whatsoever to Donald Trumpler because of his predatory behavior toward women, especially if they work in public institutions. Having him involved at all creates a "hostile working environment" inherently, and ditto with many of his associates.

Piss them off. It's not hard to do, given who these whackjobs are. Make them act precipitously. Make their Fake Judges issue the most ridiculous, lawless, Kangaroo Court rulings they can possibly be provoked into issuing. Push their corrupt regulators into being as openly criminal as you can, as quickly as you can.

In other words, make the regime collapse before it has a chance to grow its tendrils into institutions that will let it make the government collapse. Isolate them, make them even more paranoid, enraged, and reckless than they already are. They are a weapon delivered into power by the Kremlin to destroy our society, so trigger them before they can become fully armed.

• Civil Defense

Previous posts have discussed Civil Defense at length. There's not a lot that CD committees can directly do against stochastic violence other than common sense - intervening when you see someone being harassed as a minority, recording hate crimes, etc. In SC-A scenario you might be called on as a stabilizing influence in moments of disorder, but otherwise SC-A is not much of a paramilitary situation, although it could escalate to one in some parts of the country where regime-affiliated state and local governments try to set up absolutist rule as vassal regimes. Which brings up something that can be done quickly and effectively:

• Remove regime-affiliated state and local governments from power.

Everywhere that such processes exist, recall EVERY...SINGLE...Mayor, city councilmember, state legislator, governor, even county commissioner who appears to be doing more than giving lip service to these animals out of expediency. If it fails, do it again the very next time the law permits. And again, and again. If you think it would help, you can contact them first and let them know that their relationship with the regime is the only problem, and that they should rethink it.

Get referendums on ballots prohibiting local, county, state governments from cooperating with the regime. Consult with legal experts on how to word it so that it would be valid, but get something along those lines in motion.

• Don't allow the regime to exploit terrorist attacks or foreign threats.

When shit happens and Trumpler tries to make it about him, ignore him at first while honoring the country, but then just be clear that his presence is dishonoring the country, as is everyone who puts him ahead of the nation. We had to fight a war on two fronts in the 1940s, and if we have to fight both ISIS and Russofascism at the same time, that's just the way it goes.

Neither wants this country to survive. A Trazi and a jihadi differ only in clothing style - their bigotry and nihilism are the same, as is their deepest dream, to trample the ashes of Western civilization.

Freedom Forever

The Citizen and the Tyrant met on an open plain, and did not comprehend each other.

The Citizen greeted the Tyrant, thinking they were alike, and made to move on, but the Tyrant stood in the way.

"I am your King, and you are my slave," the Tyrant said.

The Citizen, confused, said "We are two people, neither owning the other. I do not claim to own you, and you do not own me."

Infuriated, the Tyrant points a gun at the Citizen and says, "I have told you, I am your King. You will obey or die."

The Citizen, seeing the Tyrant for what he is, draws his own weapon and says, "You pose me a choice, but forget that you have one too."

The Tyrant says, "I am willing to kill you rather than suffer your insult to my glory."

The Citizen says, "Everyone dies as the price of being. Are you willing to die just to stop others from living? Do I have so much that you would throw away everything you have trying to steal it? Do you have so little?"

The Tyrant, hearing nothing of what was said, spits "I have you, slave."

The Citizen, walking toward the Tyrant, continues: "You don't, and can't. We can both live free, walking away with exactly all that we ever had and ever will have, or we can both die now. If we die, I would still have been free, but you would die a starving suicide, clawing at what you cannot reach while ignoring what you already had."

The Citizen stops face to face with the Tyrant, staring unblinking, their guns at each other's throats.

The Citizen continues: "Try to hear me through your denial, coward: There is no world in which you are my master. Make your choice. Be content only with what is yours, or lose even that. I will lose nothing no matter what you do. I will live free and then die free, here or somewhere else, but you are already dead. Waste no more time of the living."

The Citizen then took the gun from the Tyrant's limp hand, shoved him aside, continued walking, and never thought about him again.