“There are two ways to be fooled.  One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”  — Kierkegaard

Democrats know so much that isn’t so:

Has there ever been a more disastrous beginning to an American presidency?  I think not.

Democrat enclaves throughout the country are still using the pretext of the China virus to keep businesses, schools, and churches closed.  There’s a humanitarian and national security crisis at the southern border created by Democrats’ malevolent wink-wink-nod-nod policy of promising citizenship in exchange for votes.  The Silicon Valley enforcement arm of the federal government continues to actively censor and financially punish Americans for their points of view.  The real economy — not the imaginary one constructed by fraudulent central bank currency manipulation and investment bank derivative speculation — is hanging by a thread.  

China is so confident that it has the U.S. over a barrel that it engages in genocide without fear of international backlash and openly prepares to invade Taiwan before clamping down on Southeast Asia and Pacific shipping lanes.  The U.S. military is so busy intimidating Americans, empowering BLM’s Marxist agenda, and celebrating diversity for diversity’s sake that it has made itself an international laughingstock almost overnight.  President Popsicle (because he’s kept in the dark and out of reach of children) is intentionally pursuing an energy policy that raises gas prices and, thus, the costs of all commodities and manufactured goods — compounding the Fed’s money-printing problems by enabling the growth of inflation and the reduction of household wealth.  

All the while, Congress primarily dedicates itself to figuring out how best to gut punch ordinary Americans while paying off its partners in crime, largely succeeding by passing a two trillion dollar blue state bailout and moving forward with legislation that punishes the religious faithful (H.R.5), gun owners (H.R.8), and dissident conservatives who refuse to shut up (H.R.1).

That’s a mouthful.  And only the tip of the iceberg.  For every monstrosity the Democrats drag forth before the public, they are pursuing another hundred out of the spotlight within the labyrinthine administrative state that makes law while no-one is looking.  This administration is relentless in pursuing bad policies that hurt Americans and erode further the few constitutional bonds that keep the nation intact. 

Which leads to a painful possibility:

I find myself asking the same questions millions of Americans now ask themselves: given this campaign of outright hostility toward the American people and general dereliction of duty to protect and defend the states, is the American government intentionally trying to provoke civil conflict?  Are all these horrendous policies leading to armed confrontation against red state holdouts?  Has D.C. transformed the Iraq War’s “Preemptive War” Doctrine into a plan of action against its own citizens?

The estimable Sundance at Conservative Treehouse thinks so and recently posted a blunt warning that the Democrats’ overt politicization of the U.S. military (its staged Capitol encampment, ideological purge of Trump voters, and shameful public battles with conservative news pundits and Republican lawmakers) should be seen as part of a larger strategy by the centralized government in D.C. to prepare for the use of military force against individual states and regions of the country that may choose to push back against unconstitutional federal power grabs in the future.  Now that the pretext of using troops to put down MAGA “insurrectionists” has been established, it will be ignominiously used to justify military support for confiscating guns, enforcing extended pandemic lockdowns, and identifying Americans too attached to the Bill of Rights.  (The fact that Sundance chose the Ides of March to outline the likelihood of such an intimate betrayal by the military against the states is, I suspect, no coincidence for a meticulous writer who enjoys reaching readers on an emotional, as well as an intellectual, level.) 

What really caught my eye, though, was the way commenters responded to the article: they almost universally agreed that the U.S. military could no longer be trusted and that it should instead be viewed as yet another institution successfully co-opted by the Democrats to push “woke” socialism, enforce commie cancel culture, and punish conservatives.  Just as James Comey’s spying on the Trump campaign and Robert Mueller’s Democrat-led Russia collusion investigation destroyed the reputations of the FBI and DOJ, and just as John Brennan’s public disinformation and propaganda leaks designed to take down President Trump forever politicized the CIA, now Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to go after and eliminate Trump voters in the military’s ranks has dramatically weakened the public’s trust in the military.

If these questions don’t haunt the men and women now holding the reins of government in D.C., then they are monumental fools on at least two levels: (1) they have deceived themselves into believing that some chimerical international government will provide global peace and security in the years to come; and (2) they have forgotten so much of American history that they actually believe American patriots can be subdued and brought to heel without causing much of a stir. 

The first failure reflects profound ignorance; the second failure reflects profound hubris. 

And taken together, these Democrat delusions will deliver a profound American tragedy.

Photo credit: YouTube screengrab (cropped)

Hat tip to Halley.