"TERMINATE" THE CONSTITUTION: YOU AND WHAT ARMY?

I should say something about this:



Of course it's appalling that someone who wants to "terminate" the Constitution, or at least the parts that prevent him from being escorted back into the Oval Office in the middle of the rightful president's term, might actually be elected president again, which will require him to swear to defend the same Constitution that he's ready to toss on the garbage heap. But there doesn't seem to be a plan behind this, or an army of people ready to help Trump get what he wants. The post-election period in 2020 and January 2021 was much worse, because talk like this was backed with action, some of it violent. This just seems sad. It doesn't seem dangerous. Trump's assertion that he's the rightful president looks to me like an act of brand management -- he keeps telling the base that he won because his brand is being a winner, and because grievance sells on the right. His plan for returning to the White House is ... running in a regularly scheduled election. So really, he's just bellyaching.

But isn't this stochastic terrorism? Isn't he putting out the idea that he's the rightful president in the hope that violence will restore him to power?

If he is, it isn't likely to work -- and not for a good reason.

Even before the 2020 election, the right-wing media was channeling Republican rage into fights that had nothing to do with Trump. Armed protesters demanded an end to pandemic public health measures. Individuals routinely attacked store employees and flight attendants who tried to enforce mask mandates.

And since then, Fox News hosts and other stochastic terrorists have encouraged violence in response to the teaching of America's real racial history, and to prevent LGBTQ people from living as full citizens. Trump had an army on January 6, 2021. But that army is fighting on different fronts now.

Trump's old army is dangerous, but is also distracted. I think Trump knows that. If he has a plan, it's to assert that he's the rightful president as a means of becoming president again through legitimate means. No one's taking up arms or planting bombs to restore him to the White House. They have drag queens to terrorize.