All this enthused Joe Biden, who threw subtlety to the winds. The former United States Senator (for 26 years) and Vice President (for eight) has not once, not twice, but thrice confidently asserted<\/a> that the military will \u201cescort [Trump] from the White House with great dispatch\u201d should the president refuse to leave. Another former Vice President, Al Gore, publicly agreed.<\/p>\n One might dismiss such comments as the ravings of a dementia patient and a has-been who never got over his own electoral loss. But before you do, consider also this. Over the summer a story was deliberately leaked to the press of a meeting at which 100 Democratic grandees, anti-Trump former Republicans, and other ruling class apparatchiks got together<\/a> (on George Soros\u2019s dime) to \u201cgame out\u201d various outcomes of the 2020 election. One such outcome was a clear Trump win. In that eventuality, former Bill Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, playing Biden, refused to concede<\/a>, pressured states that Trump won to send Democrats to the formal Electoral College vote, and trusted that the military would take care of the rest.<\/p>\n The leaked report<\/a> from the exercise darkly concluded that \u201ctechnocratic solutions, courts, and reliance on elites observing norms are not the answer here,\u201d promising that what would follow the November election would be \u201ca street fight, not a legal battle.\u201d<\/p>\n Two more data points (among several that could be provided). Over the summer, two former Army officers, both prominent in the Democrat-aligned \u201cnational security\u201d think tank world, wrote an open letter<\/a> to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in which they urged him to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division to drag President Trump from the Oval Office at precisely 12:01 PM, January 20, 2021.<\/p>\n About a month later, Hillary Clinton declared<\/a> publicly that Joe Biden should not concede the election \u201cunder any circumstances.\u201d The old English major in me interprets the word \u201cany\u201d to mean \u201cno,\u201d \u201cnone,\u201d \u201cnada,\u201d \u201cniente,\u201d \u201czero,\u201d \u201czilch\u201d \u201cbupkis\u201d\u2026you get the idea.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t sound like the rhetoric of a political party confident it will win an upcoming election.<\/p>\n The Cover-Up in Plain Sight<\/strong><\/p>\n These items are, to repeat, merely a short but representative list of what Byron York recently labeled<\/a> \u201ccoup porn.\u201d York seems to think this is just harmless fantasizing on the part of the ruling class and its Democratic servants. For some of them, no doubt that\u2019s true. But for all<\/em> of them? I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n In his famously exhaustive discussion of conspiracies, Machiavelli goes out of his way to emphasize the indispensability of \u201coperational security\u201d\u2014i.e., silence\u2014to success. The first rule of conspiracy is, you do not talk about the conspiracy. The second rule of conspiracy is, you do not talk about the conspiracy<\/em>.<\/p>\n So why are the Democrats\u2014publicly\u2014talking about the conspiracy?<\/p>\n Because they know that, for it to succeed, it must not look like a conspiracy<\/em>. They need to plant the idea in the public mind, now<\/em>, that their unlawful and illegitimate removal of President Trump from office will somehow be his fault.<\/p>\n Never mind the pesky detail that the president would refuse to leave only if he were convinced he legitimately won. Remember: Biden should not concede under<\/em> any<\/em>circumstances<\/em>.<\/p>\n The second part of the plan is either to produce enough harvested ballots<\/a>\u2014lawfully or not\u2014to tip close states, or else dispute the results in close states and insist, no matter what the tally says, that Biden won them. The worst-case scenario (for the country, but not for the ruling class) would be results in a handful of states that are so ambiguous and hotly disputed that no one can rightly say who won. Of course, that will not stop the Democrats from insisting that they won.<\/p>\n The public preparation for that has also already begun: streams of stories and social media posts \u201cexplaining\u201d how, while on election night it might look as if Trump won, close states will tip to Biden as all the mail-in ballots are \u201ccounted.\u201d<\/p>\n The third piece is to get the vast and loud Dem-Left propaganda machine ready for war. That leaked report exhorted Democrats to identify \u201ckey influencers in the media and among local activists who can affect political perceptions and mobilize political action\u2026[who could] establish pre-commitments to playing a constructive role in event of a contested election.\u201d I.e., in blaring from every rooftop that \u201cTrump lost.\u201d<\/p>\n At this point, it\u2019s safe to assume that unless Trump wins in a blowout that can\u2019t be overcome by cheating and\/or denied via the ruling class\u2019s massive propaganda operation, that\u2019s exactly what every Democratic politician and media organ will shout.<\/p>\n Stop the Presses<\/strong><\/p>\n What then? The Podesta assumption is that the military will side with the Dems. There are reasons to fear they might. The Obama administration spent a great deal of political capital purging the officer corps of anyone not down with the program and promoting only those who are.<\/p>\n Still and all, determining the outcome of an election would be the most open political interference possible from our allegedly apolitical military, and it\u2019s plausible that the brass won\u2019t want to make its quiet support of the ruling class agenda that overt. The aforementioned Chairman has already stated that the military will play \u201cno role<\/a>\u201d in the outcome of the election. That\u2019s probably not a feint, but one wonders if it will hold given the obvious attempt to influence military thinking by people like Jeffrey Goldberg in his recent Atlantic<\/em> essay.<\/p>\n Can the Dems rely on the Secret Service to drag Trump out? I have my doubts on this one. I\u2019ve seen the Service up close; it really is (or strongly appears to be) apolitical. It has a job to do: protect the president, whoever that is. Officers take that job very seriously. If they don\u2019t believe Trump lost, I don\u2019t think they can be counted on to oust him. On the other hand, were they to believe he did<\/em> lose and was refusing to leave\u2014a scenario I find impossible to imagine but the Democrats insist is just around the corner\u2014it\u2019s possible the Service might act.<\/p>\n Barring all that, what\u2019s left? Remember that phrase from the Dem war game: \u201cstreet fight.\u201d In other words, a repeat of this summer, only much, much bigger. Crank the propaganda to ear-drum shattering decibels and fill the streets of every major city with \u201cprotesters.\u201d Shut down the country and allow only one message to be heard: \u201cTrump must go.\u201d<\/p>\n I.e., what\u2019s come to be known as a \u201ccolor revolution,\u201d<\/strong> [a George Soros invention] <\/em>the exact same playbook the American deep state runs in other countries whose leadership they don\u2019t like and is currently running in Belarus. Oust a leader\u2014even an elected one\u2014through agitation and call it \u201cdemocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n The events of the last few months may be interpreted as an attempted color revolution that failed to gain enough steam, or as a trial run for the fall. Is the Trump Administration prepared?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s one thing they could do: play their own \u201cwar game\u201d scenario so as to game out possibilities and minimize surprises. They should also be talking to people inside and outside of government whom they absolutely trust to get a clearer sense of who on the inside won\u2019t go along with a coup and who might.<\/p>\n They also need to set up or shore up\u2014now\u2014communication channels that don\u2019t rely on the media or Big Tech. Once the ruling class gives word that the narrative is \u201cTrump lost,\u201d all the president\u2019s social media accounts will be suspended. The T.V. channels, with the likely exception of Fox News, will refuse to cover anything he says. Count on it. He\u2019s going to need a way to talk to the American people and he has to find the means, now.<\/p>\n For the rest of us, the most important thing we can do is raise awareness. If there is<\/em> a conspiracy to remove President Trump from office even if he wins, they\u2019re telling you about it precisely to get you ready for it, so that when it happens you won\u2019t think it was a conspiracy; you\u2019ll blame the president.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t be fooled.<\/p>\n \u2013 Michael Anton<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael Anton\u2019s new article \u201cThe Coming Coup?<\/a>\u201d went viral almost as soon as we posted it a week ago today. This is not simply because figures like Lara Logan<\/a>, Mollie Hemingway<\/a>, Newt Gingrich<\/a>, Dan Bongino<\/a>, and the editors of the New York Post<\/em><\/a> took note. It spread because concerned citizens began sharing it throughout the nation. We could tell it was especially effective because so many in the mainstream media maintained studious radio silence.<\/p>\n But hyperventilating ruling-class supporters of the Biden\/BLM\/Antifa coalition did predictably lash out. The epitome of these reactions is an article<\/a> in New York <\/em>magazine\u2019s Intelligencer<\/em>, by political columnist Ed Kilgore, entitled \u201cTrump Backers Make Case for Stealing Election, Before Biden Gets the Chance.\u201d<\/p>\n The title itself reveals the stubborn simplicity of the Democratic Party\u2019s coup narrative. Their elites have worked themselves and their base into a frothing lather of existential fright. In article after article, liberal intellectuals and activists have been talking for months about how Trump could<\/em> steal the election or refuse to leave the White House even if he loses. But if the Right dares to point out that Democrats are actually<\/em> changing the rules of the electoral process and actually<\/em> speaking publicly about refusing to concede even if they lose,<\/em> well, this only proves that the Right<\/em> is going to steal the election and refuse to concede if they lose<\/em>!<\/p>\n In reality, of course, Anton and others are simply trying to shine a light on what Democrats are now openly declaring in public.<\/p>\n Kilgore frames Anton\u2019s essay as part of an effort among conservatives to spread the craaaazy idea that Democrats\u2019 obsessive focus on mail-in voting is part of a panicky effort to throw the election, not a good-faith scheme to protect people from coronavirus. Let\u2019s leave aside the fact that no less an establishment authority than the Atlantic <\/em>admits<\/a> the voting booth is as safe as the grocery store. In fact, says Kilgore, echoing the new establishment narrative, so many legitimate <\/em>Biden votes may come flooding in by mail after the in-person voting is through that the election will turn around all on its own.<\/p>\n Every major media outlet is now full of supposed expert authorities\u2014even Mark Zuckerberg recently got into the act\u2014telling the American people that the rule changes Democrat apparatchiks are pushing throughout the nation are totally normal. But as elections expert Hans Von Spakovsky pointed out in these pages, \u201cwhat is clear from all of these lawsuits is that the Democrats and these organizations are trying to change the rules governing the administration of the November election\u201d midstream while Republicans are trying to \u201cpreserve the status quo.\u201d (If you want to understand what the Democrats are up to, give Spakovsky\u2019s \u201cDemocrats Versus the Vote<\/a>\u201d a close read.)<\/p>\n Kilgore likes to present himself as a reasonable man. But how are voters supposed to respond when the message from the Democrat Party is \u201cour lawsuits to change the way we\u2019ve always voted in the middle of a tumultuous election season are not part of a partisan cheat. Oh, but one more thing: America needs to understand that while it might very well look<\/em>like Trump won on election night, due to our new rules votes will be counted for weeks afterward and then our candidate will probably win<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n More significantly, Kilgore sidesteps outrageous statements from leftist activists and Democrat Party royalty indicating they do not plan to concede even if Trump wins. There is no elephant in a corner here. There is a donkey in the middle of the room. So what if Kilgore thinks that ackshually<\/em> Democrats will concede the election if Trump wins? The problem is that this is not<\/em> what Democrats are<\/em> saying<\/em>.<\/p>\n As Anton and even Kilgore observe, Hillary Clinton<\/a> and company have already put Biden and Harris on notice\u2014along with the rest of us\u2014that the Democrat ticket must refuse to concede, no matter how lopsided the loss. Is this report from the Daily Beast<\/em><\/a> wrong? \u201cInside the coalition, there is dispute over whether Biden should even concede if he wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College\u2026. The Transition Integrity Project noted that there would be immense pressure on Biden to fight it out.\u201d You get that? Even if Trump wins the Electoral College and therefore the presidency, like every other President in American history, the Left is preparing to\u2014to what, exactly?<\/p>\n As TIP co-founder Rosa Brooks wrote<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em>, \u201cwith the exception of the \u2018big Biden win\u2019 scenario, each of our exercises reached the brink of catastrophe, with massive disinformation campaigns, violence in the streets and a constitutional impasse\u201d\u2014almost as if the party of chaos is the one whose powerful ideologues run the media, the mobs, and the deep state. We\u2019ve already seen what \u201cmostly peaceful\u201d unrest looks like. But the Daily Beast<\/em>article tells<\/a> us \u201cthe larger game plan is to apply pressure through mass mobilization.\u201d Given the long list the article provides, every left-leaning group in the nation is seemingly coordinating for \u201cmass public unrest.\u201d<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not all. There are also those on the Left who would threaten secession from the United State of America rather than live in an America in which President Trump won reelection. Granted, \u201cthere were mixed opinions over what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the hardest scenario,\u201d the source said. \u201cIt\u2019s 2016. But it\u2019s that plus all Trump has done on voter suppression. So I think there is a question but I think both sides are going to fight this till the very end.\u201d And what, we asked, was the very end? \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d the official replied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The left elite press has sure gotten the message: it\u2019s Trump<\/em> and his <\/em>followers who \u201cmay\u201d steal the election. Democracy dies in orangeness\u2014even if voters overwhelmingly agree that orange man is, in fact, good.<\/p>\n Ed Kilgore is not worried about any of this. His concern, he says, is that \u201cif conservative opinion leaders convince each other and a big segment of Trump voters that Biden won\u2019t accept a constitutionally legitimate loss, that\u2019s all it may take to rob the 2020 presidential election of legitimacy.\u201d Buddy. Pal. Robbing the presidency of legitimacy is the full-time job of your side since, er, before Trump took office. Do you remember your colleague Jonathan Chait\u2019s deranged essay<\/a> and its totally not insane conspiracy theory graphic about how the President of the United States was a Russian agent and Putin was his handler?<\/p>\n No matter. Kilgore is deeply concerned that if the Republicans mistakenly believe what the Democrats are saying and doing is real, the Republicans might refuse to concede the election and then \u201call hell really could break loose.\u201d You mean, like, riots and stuff<\/em>? Ed, your side is doing that already, and telling us<\/a> they plan more of it. Lots more<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, Kilgore has one good suggestion: \u201cJoe Biden could stop this toxic cycle of conspiracy theories justifying conspiracies by clearly announcing he will accept a clear Trump Electoral College win.\u201d To do so, Ed, he\u2019d have to speak specifically to the people in his own party who are saying they do not want him to do so. These are the \u201cDemocrats\u201d you acknowledge in your next sentence\u2014the Democrats for whom accepting the result of a legitimate election \u201coffends\u201d (your word, not ours).<\/p>\n Will Joe Biden and<\/em> Kamala Harris tell Clinton, Pelosi, and now General Mattis to stop speaking about what sounds an awful lot like orchestrated insurrection? Of course they won\u2019t. They won\u2019t even tell BLM and Antifa to stop burning down American cities.<\/p>\n Rest assured that if the American Right spoke like this, the feds would start investigating. Then again, if the politics was reversed, BLM and Antifa would be considered domestic terror groups.<\/p>\n What is to be done? Republicans need to directly address and denounce the problem, and everyone must press Democratic leaders to do the same.<\/p>\n There is no way out of the coming cataclysm without Republican leaders closing ranks against the coup\u2014and making clear that all Americans who join them will be well-supported in doing so.<\/p>\n As Andy Busch writes in \u201cSleepwalking into Secession<\/a>,\u201d<\/p>\n Those who find the Podesta Gambit [in which John Podesta, playing Biden, refused to concede his loss in a TIP war game] troubling need to shine the brightest possible spotlight onto it. To the highest degree possible, Joe Biden must be pressed as soon as possible to disavow it, whether in the form of pushing for the appointment of alternative electors, holding the election hostage to drastic constitutional change, or (above all) using threats of secession as a weapon.<\/p>\n Likewise, the actual governors central to Podesta\u2019s hypothetical strategy (in California, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina) must be challenged to put on record a pledge to reject that path. Kamala Harris, as a Californian, should face the same questions. These are simple questions. Do you reject threats of secession to get your way electorally? Will you pledge not to appoint electors contrary to the vote of the people of your state?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As Busch warns, \u201cit is before votes are cast, not after, that maximum pressure will be on Biden and his co-partisans to behave in ways that do not repel swing voters. Once the votes are in, the party base will carry the most weight, and the pressure they will exert (as Podesta acknowledged in the simulation) will all be in the direction of driving out Trump by any means necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n Today\u2019s incessant scaremongering that a defeated Trump will barricade himself in the White House\u2014the Nation <\/em>devoted its latest cover story<\/a> to this phony fever dream\u2014is a smokescreen from party bigs scrambling to plan for just the opposite. Progressive radicals have spent years assembling a nationwide machine for legitimizing their switch-flip to autocratic rule. The full apparatus of that machinery\u2014the media, the mobs, the deep-staters\u2014is being leveraged to intimidate and disorient the people into accepting a Biden coup. Now is the time for Americans to make it known we won\u2019t let our country be treated this way.<\/p>\n Republican leaders who love America more than they fear the ruling class will do the same.<\/p>\n \u2014 Editors of The American Mind \/ The Claremont Institute<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hardnoxandfriends.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/WH-rioters.jpg?resize=801%2C533&ssl=1\")
9-12-20: It\u2019s time to unmask the Revolution.<\/h3>\n