The insanity you may be hearing/reading/watching from outside the US, is what a hostile autocratic takeover of a government looks like (an all out assault to seize and consolidate power by the 47th criminal commander in chief). The firing of independent inspector generals and attempt to payoff the Federal workforce until September 2025 if they resign by February 6th, are both exceeding his authority (unlawful abuse of power).
The attempt to freeze Federal funds (and the resulting backtracking)? That was a test to see how much pushback would occur (a test to see what they can get away with; there will be more of this). The freezing of already appropriated Federal funds by the US Congress is unconstitutional and against the law (#Felon47 has no such unilateral authority to not spend funds that have already been appropriated by Congress). But the rule of law no longer has any meaning (and the Constitution requires the rule of law to matter since that paper document cannot enforce itself).
Additionally, the checks and balance of the legislative branch (Congress) is compromised (the majority of GOP Republicans that are completely loyal to #Felon47 in both the House and Senate, aren’t going to push back against this executive power play). Many Democrats (the now minority opposition) are simply surrendering/rolling over versus using whatever power they do have to at least try to throw a monkey wrench into those gears (it’s sickening how gutless/rudderless the party “leadership” is; and they wonder why people just didn’t show up this time/voted against their own best interests). Thus things like this are only a short term reprieve (because this new Congress with a Republican majority, will be in lockstep with #Felon47 for the next budget when it comes to defunding many of the things they want to cut).
The US military brass in this environment with a criminal commander in chief, had better have game plan scenarios fleshed out for dealing with the new Secretary of Defense (an incompetent loyalist who will not push back) and the yet to be named nominees (who will also be loyalists) for the other military secretaries (that will also face Senate confirmation) that will report to him. When you have a criminal enterprise now in charge of the executive and legislative branches, falling in line (chain of command) with a compromised/criminal commander in chief is the worst thing our military leaders can do. It’s also not what many have been trained to do (given how important the chain of command is). While obeying illegal orders is also part of what is drilled into service members, that has been under the guise of the Constitution which is of course being rendered useless without the rule of law being applicable to the sitting commander in chief (who is a convicted felon that has defied the rule of law for decades).
Having talked to several veterans, it’s clear that when push comes to shove, there will be at least two camps in the military when the shit hits the fan; the ones who will follow illegal orders (to shoot Americans in the street) and the ones who won’t. And it’s going to be messy (history wise, the country is forgetting the past with the Revolutionary War; independence from the British Empire and its king). When push comes to shove, a good portion of this country will not resubmit to being ruled by a king/queen. The oligarchs who are looking at the civilian populace as their slave wage labor workforce, are going to find history repeating itself there as well (they’ve been mostly all overthrown by rebellion/revolt). Because the US was formed out of violence, it’s expected that it will happen against the oligarchy as well (see below).
Just like how we watched other countries tear themselves apart with civil conflict/warfare, no one should be surprised when that happens in the US (because we are talking about late stage capitalism/oligarchs having captured the US government, and you can only push good/reasonable citizens so far before they will fight back; that is why so many opined/hailed Luigi Mangione as a “hero” in him fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare (because of how the “for profit” healthcare system in the US is operated). I personally don’t condone such violence as the solution, but it is understandable why it happened (and why it should also serve as a wakeup call to the oligarchs who have every intent of dismantling the US government and privatizing everything so that they can profit off of it (while treating the population as their slaves).
The new DOJ, FBI Director and Director of National Intelligence confirmation hearings are up next for Pam Bondi, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard (in that respective order) which would complete the capture of those agencies if they are all confirmed. SCOTUS has long been captured (6 out of the 9 justices has given POTUS immunity for “official” acts while in office). With Hegseth in place as Secretary of Defense, the attempted capture of the US military will be on deck (because the dictator needs the military in their corner in order to have the absolute lock on the civilian population to pervent them from attempting these revolts/rebellions).
