The New Abnormal: Gen. Colin Powell and the Trump Insurrection

Gen. Colin Powell was on CNN saying we don’t need a 25th Amendment removal or impeachment, with only 13 days in Trump’s term he’s not going to come up with anything crazy to do.

Excuse me, Gen. Powell, but now you can’t see what is plainly there rather than seeing things that aren’t.

I would ask Gen. Powell what sort of crazy things could be done if the DOD had much of its top chain-of-command replaced with Trump loyalist puppets and Trump having a brand shiny new no-bid contract for Erik Prince’s mercenaries? Those moves came right after the election.

Last night just prior to Congress reconvening, Rudy Giuliani was urging legislators to delay the Electoral College vote count for 24 hours, by objecting to 10 states. This shows that even *after* the Trump Insurrection, Trump and Giuliani still thought they could finesse a win.

The notion that Trump is going to run out of crazy, to hit a crazy dry spell lasting two weeks, seems itself … crazy. And unevidenced. Do you remember news reports of Trump asking about means of attacking Iran? Of the military trying to de-escalate that, & Trump countermanding?

Trump has been signalling that military craziness is much on his mind for over two months. Convicted felon Mike Flynn openly discusses his advice for Trump: Invoke martial law & force military-run ‘elections’ in states where they did not like the outcomes. Surely that’s crazy?

I’m not imaginative enough to generate all the crazy ideas Trump might. I know my limitations.

Instead of thinking that you can’t think of crazy that can be done within thirteen days, how about considering this in a risk mitigation way? If you are right, Gen. Powell, we will have deprived Trump of a few days of his term. Given how bloody useless to to harmful he has been on pandemic response and relief, it doesn’t seem like his absence will make much difference. If, though, you are *wrong*, as wrong as you have been before — or worse, then having deferred taking action may make the damage done on Jan. 6th pale in comparison. Trump is, after all, a fellow who has been reported to need periodic reminders that while we do have nuclear weapons and he does have authority to use them, that he really, really should not use them. Some crazy notions, once acted upon, really can’t be taken back. Please consider that as a mere example of how some sort of crazy and harmful thing might just surprise us all, and how complacency is not the answer to all the world’s problems.

Wesley R. Elsberry

Falconer. Interdisciplinary researcher: biology and computer science. Data scientist in real estate and econometrics. Blogger. Speaker. Photographer. Husband. Christian. Activist.

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