The Mission Creep

     That was a meme I made on Facebook last winter. Once again, I was proven right.

     Since then, Trump's sent National Guard troops and Marines into LA, now he's taking over Washington DC. And he's making noises out of his maw that he intends on doing the same thing to Chicago and Baltimore. 

     Anyone who's been following Trump these past several days can see there's something terribly wrong with this country and with Trump's mind. He's picking childish fights with Governor Gavin Newsom of California, Governor JB Pritzker in Illinois, Governor Janet Mills in Maine and Governor Wes Moore in Maryland. It's hard to imagine a Democratic governor in this country who's not wondering, "Will I be next?" Kathie Hochul? Josh Shapiro? Katie Hobbs? Maura Healey?

      In military and intelligence terms, what Trump's doing is called "mission creep". You start out by doing something, then you apply it elsewhere. As has been suggested, Los Angeles and Washington DC were just dress rehearsals for what Trump intends on doing to Democratic-run cities and states and the facts be damned.

     Violent crime in the nation's Capitol is down by 26% since last year and is at a 30 year low. JB Pritzker held a press conference today and reminded us that out of the 20 cities with the highest crime rates, 13 are run by Republicans and Chicago is not one of them. Trump, the guy who sicced a violent mob on the Capitol and happily watched for 187 minutes while they attacked Metro DC police officers, isn't concerned about crime as he is in asserting his demented will over Democrats who won't heel to. 

     His ongoing and threatened violations of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is just the beginning of what Trump has in store for the rest of the country that won't bend to his will. He's already taken over the Kennedy Center and is flirting with renaming it the "Trump Kennedy Center". He's gone after law firms, media companies and universities and now he's threatening the Smithsonian, probably the most non partisan entity in DC.

     And today he said, “And they say we don't need them – ‘freedom, freedom, he's a dictator, he's a dictator. A lot of people are saying, maybe we'd like a dictator. I don't like a dictator, I'm not a dictator. I'm a man with great common sense and a smart person, and when I see what's happening to our cities, and then you send in troops instead of being praised, they're saying you're trying to take over the republic. These people are sick. But I'm really saying, and I say this to all of you in a certain way, we shouldn’t wait to be asked because they have cities that are so under control, you know, out of control, so we go in and fix it.” 

     Yes, he actually said that. The stable genius who's shamelessly sucked up to dictators as recently as the 15th in Anchorage. He denies being a dictator, doesn't like dictators. But, yeah, maybe people will like it if I was one.

     And, in between shaking his tiny, bruised fists at Democratic governors, Commander Bone Spurs is now floating the idea of renaming the Department of Defense "the Department of War", despite that it would be brazenly illegal to do so without Congressional approval and that it would cost the American taxpayer countless tens of millions of dollars to print new plaques, logos and stationary. Yeah, let's talk about government waste.

     Add to the mix him loading the Oval Office with tacky gold bling and building a $200,000,000 ballroom that alone would exceed the current square footage of the White House and you see the makings of a stereotypical banana republic dictator living large at the expense of others.

     There's such a thing as mission creep. But Donald Trump is the mission creep and yet, during the frightening transformation of this nation, there isn't a single person in Washington DC who's doing anything about this.