It's time to get real people

The posts I (still) see dismissing Trump as an idiot who doesn't understand what he is doing, a puppet of X person/group who has no agenda/power of his own, or any other dismissive attitude scares me more than Trump and everything he has done so far.

This is not Bush 2.0. Not even close. This is an event that has never occurred before in our nation's history (but has occurred in many other nations in the past.) Our founder's, who were students of past failures of democracies, attempted to guard against this scenario by removing the ability to choose a president from the hands of the people with the electoral college. That power was shortly afterward turned over to the people when states decided to award their electoral votes based on the state's popular vote. This worked out, until now, when a demagogue was able to capture enough of the hatred enough American's had for others to rise to power.

To make matters worse, the system of checks and balances has completely failed. The founders designed a clever system in which power was intended to both exist everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As was written in the Federalist Papers, "ambition will be made to counteract ambition." Make no mistake, this system has now failed. Trump controls the executive, the congress, and soon to be the SCOTUS. Those who will do his bidding, likewise, control many of the state governorships as well as the state legislatures. Of those states he does not control, he is already taking actions to compel compliance. (See the recent actions on "sanctuary cities" and lack of compliance with ICE.)

We heard that Trump would never really run for office. We heard back in the primaries that Trump would never win the primary. We heard that Trump would never win the election. We heard that he would never actually implement his policies. For god sakes, when are we going to stop underestimating him and living in denial about what is going on?

Trump is not an idiot. He is not Bush. He is a different animal that is supremely clever. Make no mistake, he has an agenda. It is a fascist one, and he is going full speed ahead to implement it. He knows what he is doing. Those around him know what he is doing. He and his minions have malicious intent. Yes, they are going to work towards doing the worst of what they claimed they would do and likely more.

Are some of his appointees idiots/puppets? Absolutely. This makes him more dangerous - not less. Anyone who has studied foreign affairs will recognize this arrangement. It is often the case that would be dictators surround themselves with useful idiots. Why? They are the type that will do his bidding, yet lack the ambition and intelligence to ever challenge him.

Are some of his appointees of different ideas when it comes to agenda? Absolutely. Again, this is tyranny 101 material. Would be dictators often issue conflicting orders to those below them and appoint high level officials who don't like each other or have different ideas. This creates conflict among the lower ranks, who are then in turn unlikely to unite against him.

The stakes are high. People are going to die. Make no mistake, he will start a major military campaign (likely more than one) that will see large numbers of our troops and civilians getting killed. He will likely create widespread domestic instability and will turn us into a police state domestically. These authoritarians that he will deploy to our cities will kill Americans on the streets.

In turn, he will create a trade war that will likely cause another great depression.

The democratic party has utterly failed to provide any checks and stops to any of this, and this will likely continue. Telling people that Trump is an "idiot", not "going to do" what he says he will do, or otherwise continuing to dismiss him will only further enable him to carry out this agenda. It's time to stop doing that. It's time to stop saying he won't/can't/is too stupid/etc. The last two years have made it abundantly clear that he is anything but stupid. He is incredibly dangerous and he IS implementing the most extreme of his policies. It's time to get real about all of this. The sooner we do, the sooner we can get real about stopping it.