Our concern about Donald Trump in the campaign of 2016 was not about his personal morals.  The ultimate choice to vote for him was made easier by the manifest political criminality of Hillary Clinton.  And his emergence as an America First, America-loving president was a welcome relief after the apology tour presidency of Barack Obama. 

The concern about Donald Trump was that he had no ideological core.  His public political persona was that of a fairly standard liberal Democrat from New York, but one smart enough over his career to shift around and play both sides of the political aisle as necessary to support his business interests and ambitions.

The problem with a leader with no ideological core surfaces in a time of crisis.  He will display who he really is.  This may include a lot of good parts — i.e., he may have the street smarts of a New York real estate developer, and he may have an insightful and creative mind for addressing big challenges.  But with no governing philosophy developed over years of deeper thinking, he may not have that "true north" of wisdom that filters and shapes the right steps to take to protect America.

That surely sounds like heresy to the mainstream Trump-supporter, especially on the surface of evaluating his performance in handling the CCP Virus crisis.  Because on that surface, Trump appears masterful: facing the cameras every day, demonstrating a president in command, offering confidence that America will prevail, and exercising the far-reaching powers of the presidency to "care" for Americans on a scale that no one would confuse with a philosophy of limited government.  His use of unprecedented wartime powers is winning praise from CNN's Dana Bash, from New York governor Andrew Cuomo, and from Squad member Ilhan Omar.  That ought to tell you something about the non-ideological nature of how he is behaving.

But here's the rub: America has never been brought to her knees to the level happening right now, on Trump's watch.  Not in the Civil War.  Not in WWI or WWII, and certainly not at any time during the Cold War.  Forty million Californians sheltered in place — by order of an American government official?  Schools closed from coast to coast and restaurants closed in every major state...by order of American government officials?  And movements toward gun control and limited rights to gather — by order of American government officials?  And nationalized health care achieved in important practical respects without the inconvenience of having to pass laws?

All of this to fight a pandemic of still unclear comparative seriousness that originated in anti-American communist China and is being cheered on, magnified, and roiled relentlessly by the anti-American left, including especially the MSM. 

If this isn't a deliberate plot to take down America and every safeguard of American freedom, how would it look different if it were?

It feels increasingly like Americans are watching execution of a plan to take down America as a constitutional republic, and Trump as president, fed by a CIA-type psychological assessment of Trump that bet on his 'go big' instincts that are untethered by a deep ideological understanding and appreciation for what truly makes America exceptional and great.

One can almost picture the idea popping up in a John Brennan type's head: Pandemic!  That's the ticket.  There are a couple of generations of Americans who've dismissed God and faith; they can be counted on to be "frightenable" out of their minds by the prospect of a runaway disease and won't raise a peep of dissent against any action government might take in the name of caring for them.  And Trump can be counted on to throw restraint to the winds.  There will be no real nod to the idea of trusting Americans and trusting American freedom to cope, adapt, and overcome.  Trump could be counted on to embrace all-powerful nanny-state government on steroids.  By doing so as a so-called Republican with populist support, Trump could be maneuvered to deliver all necessary precedents for an eventual leftist president to overthrow the Constitution in the name of dealing with a "public health crisis." 

Whether Trump wins re-election in 2020 matters less and less to the left.  The pieces are in place; the "pandemic play" has done the trick that Nazism, communism, and socialism could not do from the outside.

So if it is a plot — who are the plotters?  Deep State intelligence holdovers in cahoots with the CCP?  Is George Soros in the mix?  Or is this just another conspiracy theory in the age of conspiracy theories?

We'd prefer to believe that it is a conspiracy theory with no merit. 

But we would also have preferred to believe that America's DOJ and FBI were not capable of the manifestly criminal behavior that they engaged in the run-up to and aftermath of Trump's election—all with the purpose of overthrowing the duly elected American president. 

We would have preferred to believe that no American Congressman would have been capable of the tyrannical abuse of the rule of law that Adam Schiff transparently engaged in to promote an impeachment and removal of the duly elected American president. 

And we would prefer to believe that we would never see America in the condition it is in right now—paralyzed by fear and ordered into passive submission by actions of the American government. 

And so we, along with millions of other Americans, are not sure what to believe about what is happening to this country in March 2020.  It feels like we are being played.

Eric Georgatos and wife Debbie operate the America, Can We Talk? media platform, with 4 day a week video podcasting by Debbie, and weekly written commentary, all centered around the importance and value of preserving America as founded.

Image credit: Pixabay, public domain.