Who Would Rule A Post-Constitutional America?

Right. I understand that we're pretty much in post-constitutional territory already, and actually have been for some time. Nevertheless, for most people the Constitution still matters--there's an idea that with a few tweaks of personnel, on the Court, in Congress and the White House, our fundamental constitutional institutions could resume functioning and governing as intended. That notion is increasingly delusional, in the very literal sense of being divorced from reality. We cling to the delusion because we're afraid of what a future ruled by those who openly call for the Constitution's definitive demise would mean.

If there's one cardinal rule of politics, it would have to be that Power abhors a vacuum. That means that, once exposed, the illusion of authority and legitimacy will eventually be replaced by the reality of power. As Glenn Greenwald recently wrote, The Threat of Authoritarianism In The U.S. Is Very Real, And Has Nothing To Do With Trump. The Lefty Greenwald points out that, in actual fact, Trump has struggled to preserve and restore our constitutional order, rather than attempting to establish authoritarian rule. Far from Trump being a threat to the rule of law, the last 4 years have exposed for all to see who the real enemies of our constitutional order are, who the people are who want to wield power in an America freed of its constitutional trammels.

One major group would be the people with lots of money and crazy ideas of transforming human nature. These are people who think their influence in politics should be commensurate with their wealth and their supposed genius. People who read their press clippings and are surrounded by sycophants who want their help, mostly in monetary form. Those sycophants, of course, include the elected representatives of We The People. These would be leaders of America are Globalist visionaries, but their focus is largely on what could be termed domestic policy--controlling the intimate details of day to day human life. Their great delusion is of extending that control to the entire world through 'soft power' means.

Another major group involved in the deliberations over America's future is the National Security State--the Keepers of what Alexander Vindman termed "the consensus views of the interagency." These are the people in the permanent bureaucracy who formulate the policies of the American Empire toward the rest of the world: DoS, CIA, DoD. It's been a long time since Presidents or Congress have been able to exert true control over the Interagency, and the Interagency wants to keep it that way. Other branches of the Executive--DoJ, the FBI, NSA--play largely subordinate and supporting roles to the key Interagency players. We can see that from the way the FBI was set up to take whatever minor fall will result from the failed initial coup attempt against Trump: the Russia Hoax. The FBI's wrongdoing is clear enough, but their major role can now be seen to be running interference for the main Interagency operatives, acting in concert with Globalist interests--both State and non-State.

But here's the problem. The Russia Hoax Coup having failed, the would be power brokers were driven to desperate measures. Using the Pandemic Control Hoax was used to shut down much of America, to subject its populace to extreme measures of social control and censorship--except for those elements who were encouraged to rampage in the street. All this was intended to bring down Trump, whose cardinal sin had been to assert a populist and nationalist agenda in opposition to the Globalist elite and the National Security State, whose policies largely reflect those of the Globalist elite. Those desperate measures failed, and so an even more desperate measure was undertaken: The Big Steal, the subversion and manipulation of a presidential election.

If Congress goes along with this desperate final coup against Trump, what will be the result? One thing we know for sure: The puppet administration installed is so lacking in legitimacy already that there will not even be a pretense of a traditional inauguration. The notion that one of the most corrupt politicians in US history, now unable to function on a true executive level due to advancing dementia, will actually fulfill the duties of the presidency is absurd on its face. Nor is the likelihood that his replacement by a chucklehead who has never established a credible constituency in the course of public life--except for those who wanted to bed her--is equally laughable. 

That lack of legitimacy is a result of two factors: the transparent fraud perpetrated in the hoax election, but very importantly the overwhelming popular vote total for Trump across broad swathes of America. The lack of legitimacy has been driven home by the constitutional wreckage we have already seen in the wake of the election. The refusal of intimidated courts to take any action, the corrupt manipulations of State politicians, the transparent machinations in Congress--including in a Dem House that was rejected by the voters. The law enforcement institutions of the federal government also abdicated. The Texas law suit, joined by much of the American federal union, was a marker of this illegitimacy.

Power abhors a vacuum. Who then will rule America? If we are now in a post-constitutional America, who will take control of the levers of power? It's a situation not entirely different from that of post-Soviet Russia. A public order lacking true authority or legitimacy will quickly devolve into arbitrary oligarchical rule--we've seen previews of that in the State lockdowns.

The fundamental difficulty as I see it is this. The two groups described above--the Globalist elite and the National Security "interagency"--are composed of people who want influence. They want to influence the great power of America for their chosen ends. But exercising influence is a very different thing from actually ruling a country--and especially not a country as vast and complicated as America. These influencers are used to operating more or less behind the scenes to direct those who, until recently, were able to maintain the illusion of authority and legitimacy. With that illusion largely discredited, the exercise of influence will become increasingly difficult to translate into actual rule. 

The American military, it's true, possesses unprecedented power. But to turn that power in the direction of taking actual effective control of America would present problems on a scale that would be so daunting that I doubt that the military would want to take such a task on. Their interest is in preserving a now increasingly dysfunctional status quo. Of course, the military could easily restore order on the streets of America, but there's a lot more to running a country than that--and the military is ill equipped to take that task on. Moreover it would involve turning their backs on exactly what they wish to preserve--the Empire enterprise of global power projection--in favor of a turning inward. The federal law enforcement bureaucracy, to include the FBI, is even more pitifully unprepared for such a role. Trump may well be smiling as he contemplates the conundrums facing his Deep State foes.

The fact of the matter, when it comes to the practical exercise of legitimate rule, of projecting power in public life with an aura of authority, is that the most credible institutions remaining may well be State governments. Corrupt as many are, they are better placed to take on the mantle of authority that the national military would lack. That may well be the real significance of the Texas lawsuit--a sign that the States of the federal union recognize their full constitutional role. Failing a credible resolution of the national government's crisis of legitimacy, an assertion of State authority--including through the medium of their national guard, state and local law enforcement--must remain a possibility. But, our current State boundaries are, to a great degree, arbitrary. Geographical realities, coupled with the realization that American power ultimately rests on its physical resources, could well play a role in reshaping America.

None of this is pleasant to contemplate--not for us, not for the future of our children and grandchildren. But don't kid yourselves. It can happen here. Events embody, express, ideas. And ideas have a way of working themselves out to their ineluctable conclusions.

Trump has refused to lie to the American people--he has refused to concede, has refused to say he lost an election that was patently stolen. The Establishment has attempted by rhetorical means to establish the legitimacy of a puppet regime, installed by moneyed interests with deeply held ideological agendas. Trump has refused to cooperate with the Big Lie. The Establishment's coup is certain to fail to achieve the legitimacy it requires to rule in the face of Trump's stand on the principle of Truth and constitutional order. Congress cannot lead--not as an institution, and especially not in defiance of fair elections. The presidency was set up as the constitutional institution for exerting the national government's executive power. A puppet regime, manipulated by Congress, a few large States and metro areas, moneyed interests, and the Interagency--will devolve into chaos sooner or later.

That's where things stand for now. This analysis is necessarily tentative. The next few weeks will tell the story of where the country is headed. We see the jockeying for power in DC. But power abhors a vacuum. The country may be able to muddle along for a while, but sooner or later it will have to yield to realities. A people craves an ordered life. They demand that the exercise of power and rule exhibit authority in the deeper sense of principle and legitimate connections to the needs of human nature. America stands dangerously on the brink.