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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
This Is What Trump Does When His Revolution Sputters
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Revolutions have a logic. The revolutionaries start with a big, transformative, impossible goal. They want to remake society, smash existing institutions, replace them with something different. They know they will do damage on the road to their utopia, and they know people will object. Committed to their ideology, the revolutionaries pursue their goals anyway. Inevitably, a crisis appears. Perhaps many people, even most people, don't want regime change, or don't share the revolutionaries' utopian vision. Perhaps there are unplanned disasters. Smashing institutions can have unexpected, sometimes catastrophic, consequences, as the history of post-revolutionary famines shows very well. But whatever the nature of the crisis, it forces the revolutionaries to make a choice. Give up—or radicalize. Find compromises—or polarize society further. Slow down—or use violence. The bloodiest, most damaging revolutions have all been shaped by people making the most extreme choices. When the Bolsheviks ran into opposition in 1918, they unleashed the Red Terror. When the Chinese Communists encountered resistance, Mao sent teenage Red Guards to torment professors and civil servants. Sometimes the violence was mere theater, lecture halls full of people demanding that victims recant. Sometimes it was real. But it always served a purpose: to provoke, to divide, and then to allow the revolutionaries to suspend the law, create an emergency, and rule by decree. I doubt very much that Donald Trump knows a lot about the methods of Bolsheviks or Maoists, although I am certain that some of his entourage does. But he is now leading an assault on what some around him call the administrative state, which the rest of us call the U.S. government. This assault is revolutionary in nature. Trump's henchmen have a set of radical, sometimes competing goals, all of which require fundamental changes in the nature of the American state. The concentration of power in the hands of the president. The replacement of the federal civil service with loyalists. The transfer of resources from the poor to the rich, especially rich insiders with connections to Trump. The removal, to the extent possible, of brown-skinned people from America, and the return to an older American racial hierarchy. [Juliette Kayyem: Trump's gross misuse of the National Guard] Trump and his allies also have revolutionary methods. Elon Musk sent DOGE engineers, some the same age as Mao's Red Guards, into one government department after the next to capture computers, take data, and fire staff. Trump has launched targeted attacks on institutions that symbolize the power and prestige of the old regime: Harvard, the television networks, the National Institutes of Health. ICE has sent agents in military gear to conduct mass arrests of people who may or may not be undocumented immigrants, but whose arrests will frighten and silence whole communities. Trump's family and friends have rapidly destroyed a matrix of ethical checks and balances in order to enrich the president and themselves. But their revolutionary project is now running into reality. More than 200 times, courts have questioned the legality of Trump's decisions, including the arbitrary tariffs and the deportations of people without due process. Judges have ordered the administration to rehire people who were illegally fired. DOGE is slowly being revealed as a failure, maybe even a hoax: Not only has it not saved much money, but the damage done by Musk's engineers might prove even more expensive to fix, once the costs of lawsuits, broken contracts, and the loss of government capacity are calculated. The president's signature legislation, his budget bill, has met resistance from senior Republicans and Wall Street CEOs who fear that it will destroy the U.S. government's credibility, and even resistance from Musk himself. Now Trump faces the same choice as his revolutionary predecessors: Give up—or radicalize. Find compromises—or polarize society further. Slow down—or use violence. Like his revolutionary predecessors, Trump has chosen radicalization and polarization, and he is openly seeking to provoke violence. For the moment, the administration's demonstration of force is mostly performative, a made-for-TV show designed to pit the United States military against protesters in a big Democratic city. The choice of venue for sweeping, indiscriminate raids—Home Depot stores around Los Angeles, and not, say, a golf club in Florida—seems orchestrated to appeal to Trump voters. The deployment of the U.S. military is designed to create frightening images, not to fulfill an actual need. The governor of California did not ask for U.S. troops; the mayor of Los Angeles did not ask for U.S. troops; even the L.A. police made clear that there was no emergency, and that they did not require U.S. troops. [David Frum: For Trump, this is a dress rehearsal] But this is not the final stage of the revolution. The Marines in Los Angeles may provoke more violence, and that may indeed be the true purpose of their mission; after all, the Marines are primarily trained not to do civilian crowd control, but to kill the enemies of the United States. In an ominous speech at Fort Bragg yesterday, Trump reverted to the dehumanizing rhetoric he used during the election campaign, calling protesters 'animals' and 'a foreign enemy,' language that seems to give permission to the Marines to kill people. Even if this confrontation ends without violence, the presence of the military in Los Angeles breaks another set of norms and prepares the way for another escalation, another set of emergency decrees, another opportunity to discard the rule of law later on. The logic of revolution often traps revolutionaries: They start out thinking that the task will be swift and easy. The people will support them. Their cause is just. But as their project falters, their vision narrows. At each obstacle, after each catastrophe, the turn to violence becomes that much swifter, the harsh decisions that much easier. If not stopped, by Congress or the courts, the Trump revolution will follow that logic too. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
2 days ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
Trump's Revolutionary Logic Meets the California Protests
Revolutions have a logic. The revolutionaries start with a big, transformative, impossible goal. They want to remake society, smash existing institutions, replace them with something different. They know they will do damage on the road to their utopia, and they know people will object. Committed to their ideology, the revolutionaries pursue their goals anyway. Inevitably, a crisis appears. Perhaps many people, even most people, don't want regime change, or don't share the revolutionaries' utopian vision. Perhaps there are unplanned disasters. Smashing institutions can have unexpected, sometimes catastrophic, consequences, as the history of post-revolutionary famines shows very well. But whatever the nature of the crisis, it forces the revolutionaries to make a choice. Give up—or radicalize. Find compromises—or polarize society further. Slow down—or use violence. The bloodiest, most damaging revolutions have all been shaped by people making the most extreme choices. When the Bolsheviks ran into opposition in 1918, they unleashed the Red Terror. When the Chinese Communists encountered resistance, Mao sent teenage Red Guards to torment professors and civil servants. Sometimes the violence was mere theater, lecture halls full of people demanding that victims recant. Sometimes it was real. But it always served a purpose: to provoke, to divide, and then to allow the revolutionaries to suspend the law, create an emergency, and rule by decree. I doubt very much that Donald Trump knows much about the methods of Bolsheviks or Maoists, although I am certain that some of his entourage do. But he is now leading an assault on what some around him call the administrative state, which the rest of us call the U.S. government. This assault is revolutionary in nature. Trump's henchmen have a set of radical, sometimes competing goals, all which require fundamental changes in the nature of the American state. The concentration of power in the hands of the president. The replacement of the federal civil service with loyalists. The transfer of resources from the poor to the rich, especially rich insiders with connections to Trump. The removal, to the extent possible, of brown-skinned people from America, and the return to an older American racial hierarchy. Juliette Kayyem: Trump's gross misuse of the National Guard Trump and his allies also have revolutionary methods. Elon Musk sent DOGE engineers, some the same age as Mao's Red Guards, into one government department after the next to capture computers, take data, and fire staff. Trump has launched targeted attacks on institutions that symbolize the power and prestige of the old regime: Harvard, the television networks, the National Institutes of Health. ICE has sent agents in military gear to conduct mass arrests of people who may or may not be undocumented immigrants, but whose arrests will frighten and silence whole communities. Trump's family and friends have rapidly destroyed a matrix of ethical checks and balances in order to enrich the president and themselves. But their revolutionary project is now running into reality. More than 200 times, courts have questioned the legality of Trump's decisions, including the arbitrary tariffs and the deportations of people without due process. Judges have ordered the administration to rehire people who were illegally fired. DOGE is slowly being revealed as a failure, maybe even a hoax: Not only has it not saved much money, but the damage done by Musk's engineers might prove even more expensive to fix, once the costs of lawsuits, broken contracts, and the loss of government capacity are calculated. The president's signature legislation, his budget bill, has met resistance from senior Republicans and Wall Street CEOs who fear that it will destroy the U.S. government's credibility, and even resistance from Musk himself. Now Trump faces the same choice as his revolutionary predecessors: Give up—or radicalize. Find compromises—or polarize society further. Slow down—or use violence. Like his revolutionary predecessors, Trump has chosen radicalization and polarization, and he is openly seeking to provoke violence. For the moment, the administration's demonstration of force is mostly performative, a made-for-TV show designed to pit the United States military against protesters in a big Democratic city. The choice of venue for sweeping, indiscriminate raids— Home Depot stores around Los Angeles, and not, say, a golf club in Florida—seems orchestrated to appeal to Trump voters. The deployment of the U.S. military is designed to create frightening images, not to fulfill an actual need. The governor of California did not ask for U.S. troops; the mayor of Los Angeles did not ask for U.S. troops; even the L.A. police made clear that there was no emergency, and that they did not require U.S. troops. David Frum: For Trump, this is a dress rehearsal But this is not the final stage of the revolution. The Marines in Los Angeles may provoke more violence, and that may indeed be the true purpose of their mission; after all, the Marines are primarily trained not to do civilian crowd control, but to kill the enemies of the United States. In an ominous speech at Fort Bragg yesterday, Trump reverted to the dehumanizing rhetoric he used during the election campaign, calling protesters 'animals' and 'a foreign enemy,' language that seems to give permission to the Marines to kill people. Even if this confrontation ends without violence, the presence of the military in Los Angeles breaks another set of norms and prepares the way for another escalation, another set of emergency decrees, another opportunity to discard the rule of law later on. The logic of revolution often traps revolutionaries: They start out thinking that the task will be swift and easy. The people will support them. Their cause is just. But as their project falters, their vision narrows. At each obstacle, after each catastrophe, the turn to violence becomes that much swifter, the harsh decisions that much easier. If not stopped, by Congress or the courts, the Trump revolution will follow that logic too.
India Gazette
21-05-2025
- Politics
- India Gazette
"Huge accomplishment": Chhattisgarh Dy CM after security forces killed 27 Maoists, including top Maoist leader Basavaraju
Kawardha (Chhattisgarh) [India], May 21 (ANI): Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma on Wednesday called it a huge accomplishment following the killing of 27 Naxals, including top CPI-Maoist leader and General Secretary Basavaraju, in an ongoing operation in the Narayanpur-Abujmarh region. Sharma added that the people of Bastar want the 'Red Terror' to end and that 80 per cent of Naxal-related issues in the region have already been resolved. Speaking to reporters, Chhattisgarh Deputy CM Vijay Sharma said, 'An encounter broke out in an over 50-hour-long search operation in the area between Bijapur-Narayanpur, near Abujhmad and Indravati National Park. Our jawans retaliated upon being fired at by Naxals. Bodies of 27 naxals have been recovered. A large cache of arms and ammunition has been is a huge jawan was injured, but he is out of danger. People of Bastar want the 'Red Terror' to end in Bastar...80% of these issues have ended in Bastar...' Earlier, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai reaffirmed the Centre's commitment to ending Naxalism by March 31, 2026, as pledged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Following the 27 Naxals, including top CPI-Maoist leader and General Secretary Basavaraju, were killed in an ongoing operation in the Narayanpur-Abujmarh region. Speaking to the mediapersons, Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said, 'Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have pledged to bring an end to naxalism by 31 March 2026... An operation is currently underway in the Narayanpur-Abujmarh area. 27 naxals have been killed. Many of those killed have a bounty on them. One big name, a General Secretary, Basava Raju Rao, has also been killed by our jawans.' Earlier today, an encounter broke out between security forces and Naxals in the forest area of Abujhmad in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district. Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Arun Sao has asserted that security forces are working 'diligently' to make Bastar Naxal-free by March 2026. 'After the formation of our government in the state, a programme is running to make Bastar Naxal-free. In Narayanpur, more than two dozen Naxalites have been killed in an encounter. Our security forces are working diligently so that by March 2026, Bastar becomes Naxal-free,' Arun Sao told ANI. Deputy CM confirmed that one soldier was injured during the encounter. Security forces conducted 'Operation Black Forest' to break the backbone of Naxals near Karreguttalu Hill (KGH) at the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border. (ANI)
News18
21-05-2025
- Politics
- News18
Over 20 Naxals Killed in Chhattisgarh Operation Major Blow to Red Terror Naxalism
Over 20 Naxals killed in a major anti-Maoist operation by security forces in Chhattisgarh, marking a significant blow to Red Terror in the region. n18oc_india
