No Authority. Only Violence.
Going “door to door,” murdering soccer moms, and divvying up the spoils of regime change.
A word often used to describe Trump is authoritarian. But this is insufficient. Authority is the recognized right to control outcomes within a set of constraints accepted as binding—familial, religious, cultural, moral or legal.
The U.S. federal government is deliberately destroying the idea of any authority being legitimate except the ability to project coercive violence. We are living in the “might makes right” world of neo-Nazi ideology, a kratocracy.
William Montague defined kratocracy as: a government by those strong enough to seize control through violence or deceit.
Perhaps, however, there is no better advocate for this form of rule by no authority than Donald Trump himself. When asked about his legal authority to seize Venezuela’s president, kill 75 people in Caracas, and then take the oil, he told the New York Times:
“I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.”
Trump also said the only constraint on his presidential power is:
“my own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
This is not an erosion of norms, it is the elimination of law. It is a declaration, not of authority, but of capability and willingness to commit violence.
There are several examples of America’s kratocratic government this week that deserve notice.
“Door to door”
At least twice in the last 48 hours, the Vice President has said that ICE is going “door to door” to hunt for “illegal aliens.”
“I think we’re going to see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people. online, working for ice, going door to door and making sure that if you’re an illegal alien, you’ve got to get out of this country.“
“We were going door to door to try to find criminal illegal aliens and deport them from the United States of America because if you come to our country illegally in violation of our immigration laws, then we have the mandate and in fact we have the legal duty to enforce those immigration laws.”
Vance is a Yale Law School graduate who is knowingly asserting an authority that he does not have. Using federal power this way is unconstitutional and illegal in the most basic way. It is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment—bedrock of the rule of law in America. Without these protections, the legitimacy of the government to wield state power is reduced to its ability to use coercion and violence—as designed.
Amendment IV, Bill of Rights, US Constitution
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
But JD Vance, like Trump, is trying to replace constitutional authority with power, legal authority with violence, and truth with state propaganda.
“Domestic Terrorist”
Mother of three Renee Good, who had just dropped off her 6-year-old at school, was murdered by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a MAGA supporter and Iraq veteran with an immigrant wife, and a history of getting into violent confrontations with vehicles.
Here is part of the statement by Renee’s wife, Becca Good.
“This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.
Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.
Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole…
On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns…“
Despite the obvious fact that a federal agent carried out a murder in anger at an innocent civilian who was exercising her rights, JD Vance gave one of the most horrific appearances I have ever heard by a public official in the White House Briefing Room.
I’m including it here for reference, but be aware that not a single word of truth was uttered in this press conference. Vance said that that it was Renee Good’s fault that she was shot three times in the face, and told America to “send prayers” to the ICE agent—without a single word of sympathy to the victim.
His goal quite simply was to browbeat the press into telling the story that the violence was justified, not just on the false basis of self-defense, but because Renee Good was part of a “broader left-wing network,” which she was not.
“And that is the way that many people in the corporate media have put this attack over the last 24 hours. And I say attack very, very intentionally because this was an attack on federal law enforcement…
What that headline leaves out is that that woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation in the United States of America. What that headline leaves out is that that woman has is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job…
She was trying to ram this guy with his with her car. He shot back. He defended himself. He’s already been seriously wounded in law enforcement operations before. And everybody who’s been repeating the lie that this is some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Every single one of you.”
JD Vance’s goal was to normalize extrajudicial state murder—to replace legal authority with the raw capacity to project violence, and create an alternate reality to justify it.
This is essentially the same strategy as our foreign policy: Might makes right. The truth and the law don’t matter.
Right to Pillage
The Trump regime’s policy of violence-as-authority in America is being mirrored internationally. The murder of nearly a hundred people on “drug boats,” the invasion of Venezuela to exfiltrate its president—killing 75 people—and the strong-arming of the Venezuelan government are all illegal, but as Trump said: “I don’t need international law.”
Today, Trump is gathering the heads of 14 oil companies to divvy up the spoils of his illegal operation in Venezuela, to twist their arms into spending a decade and tens of billions to reanimate a crumbling infrastructure that experts say won’t work and will only produce 2% of the world’s oil if it does.
Nevertheless, Trump is using this opportunity to defy every law, charter, and agreement the world has operated under for eight decades.
Trump makes clear that he is achieving these concessions from Venezuela by threatening a “second Wave of Attacks, which looks like it will not be needed, however, all ships will stay in place for safety and security purposes.” In other words, he is deriving “authority” this way: Do what I say or I will commit violence against you.
Of course, Trump’s ambitions are not limited to Venezuela. He is claiming the entire “Western Hemisphere.” Trump has now dispatched JD Vance and Marco Rubio to try to strong-arm Denmark into giving up Greenland.
Trump said on Friday morning: “It may be a choice” between the United States staying in NATO, and Denmark handing over their sovereign territory—meaning that Trump will use military force, and destroy our most powerful alliance, if his demands aren’t met. Violence, not authority.
A few other brief examples of this policy in action.
The U.S. pulled out of 66 international organizations—including many that are part of our UN obligations, an extension of the abdication of moral authority and soft power when Elon Musk shut down USAID.
France will delay this year’s Group of 7 summit to avoid a conflict with a UFC event planned at the White House on Donald Trump’s birthday.
Germany’s president said the Trump regime is destroying world order:
“Then there is the breakdown of values by our most important partner, the USA, which helped build this world order… It is about preventing the world from turning into a den of robbers, where the most unscrupulous take whatever they want, where regions or entire countries are treated as the property of a few great powers…”
Of course, this is exactly the goal, to subordinate the rest of the world to Trump’s whims, to abdicate America’s responsibilities as a global power, and to destroy any constraint on the regime’s aggression.
More Than Authoritarianism
The goal of an “authoritarian” like Trump is not to gain authority through coercion and violence, but to replace authority with pure power—enforced by constant threat of violence. This is more totalitarian than authoritarian, something even more extreme than dictators like Putin and Orban, who try in superficial ways to pretend they have the legal right to abuse power.
The sheer speed of Trump’s rapid descent into a totalitarian, personalist dictatorship is inseparable from several factors, in my opinion:
Progressive dementia, exacerbated by age, stress, vascular problems
Narcissistic collapse over Epstein and his fading popularity
People around him weaponizing his decline—especially Miller and Vance, ideologues jockeying for power in a post-Trump regime
Paranoia about the midterms and what it means for the regime’s ability to continue its crackdown
All of these factors are accelerating Trump’s devolution into a kind of tinpot warlord with nukes, a man who revels in his own obscenity and transgression—and truly believes the only authority is “my own morality.”
This weekend, if you are able, find a protest and make clear that while he may threaten us, and he may kill some of us, he has no authority—only violence.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
Frederick Douglass, 1857
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Bluesky 🦋: jim-stewartson
Threads: jimstewartson
Yes, I've been thinking about the insufficient term 'authoritarian'. They are fascists. They are predators. They are criminals who will never be brought to justice because, for that to happen, the United States would have to surrender to international authorities who will conduct Nuremberg style tribunals. Not going to happen. But make no mistake, many of them would be executed if the law could be applied. They are killers.
They want to create an apartheid country. They are willing to destroy the people and the country in their attempts to carry out their mission. They will only be stopped now by the people and our determination to assert and reinstate the rights given to us in 1789 in our U.S. Constitution. Those who stand up now and protect their rights are the patriots. We know that those who oppose us and oppress us are rogues, cowards, thugs, bullies, and worse. They went too fast and too far because of Miller's impatience. His whole countenance and manner of communicating reminds me of a very sick sociopathic predator - a rabid animal.
Now is our chance to take tactical advantage of his error, but we must keep the counter pressure going and growing from now on.
(Please watch or rewatch Youtube video "Battle at Kruger Park". Stephen Miller is dressed up as one of the lions at the watering hole. We are many. They are few. Also, please watch and repost 2003 clip of Stephen Miller on a bus talking with glee about torturing Iraqis because "torture is a celebration of life".
See you on the streets this weekend exercising my right to peacefully protest.