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Remember that the post-2020 US election Time article "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election"? Somewhere between a victory lap and credit-claiming at a time it was generally thought Trump's political prospects were dead, it was a rare look behind the scenes of retroactively-admitted coordinated political obstruction and shaping efforts.
It was also the article with the memorable distinction of-
Well, the New York Times on Sunday published a more pre-emptive form of democratic fortification: The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started.
The article in short is a look at different wings of the Democratic Party apparatus, and steps they are taking in anticipation of a Trump victory to foil the predicted efforts of the 2025 Project. Some of these fears seem a good deal less grounded than others- Trump has been an abortion moderate such that it's hard to see why a Democratic governor would need to stock years of abortion supplies in a state warehouse beyond political theater- but then the article is quite likely a form of political theater. As far as election-year advertising goes, it's both a 'here are all the horrible things that could happen' fear campaign-
-with the ACLU specifically focusing on four areas of potential lawfare-
-but all with a back-edge 'but we thwarted him before and can do it again' of tribal-protection promise.
Not necessarily optimistic, but a 'we will fight for you' solidarity / call for support framing.
While there is the occasional (potentially deliberate) amusing word choice in ways that anyone who has used the term the Cathedral might appreciate-
The core strategies include the following, none of which are particularly surprising but which are good to see identified clearly in advance:
-Passing executive actions in the Biden administration before certain timelines so that Trump can't immediately revert them
-Litigation waves to tie things in court, with recruitment of sympathetic plaintiffs with likely standing already occuring
-Implicitly by virtue of the acknowledged past strategies and current participants, more protests
-More explicitly legal preparations to prevent/limit federal intervention in protests
-A national-scale counter-ICE network to disrupt immigration raids
-Pre-emptively doing self-auditing of activist group finances in preparation of politically motivated IRS scrutiny
-Various state-based nullification theory application (such as 'inter-state commerce doesn't apply to FDA if I already have the goods in-state')
-Use of Never-Trump 'ex-Republicans' groups as part of the Democratic network, especially the Principles First organization.
(Principles First was a Never Trump wing of the Republican Party associated with Liz Cheney that started in 2022 during the anti-Trump former Republican establishment's efforts to reassert control / torpedo Trump's post-presidential prospects by cooperating with the Democrat-led impeachment trial. Since then, and her fall from the Republican Party, it's been casting itself as an alternative to CPAC. Interestingly it also works in concert with Ranked Choice voting lobbying. (In the US, ranked choice voting is often, but not always, associated with the Democratic Party, at least in the sense of pushing for it in Red / Purple, but not Blue, states.)
None of this is unique, unusual, or dangerous. Leftist NGOs and Democratic governors/AGs preparing for a potential second term of Trump. Sinister-sounding quotes like "controlling the flow of information" and "democracy-proofing our institutions" but nothing actually out of the ordinary in terms of real actions. I'll remind you that the vast majority of the actual escalation has come from Republicans. Remember J6? Remember "the election was stolen!!!" 70% of Republicans still believe that crap.
Trump will try some hamfisted executive orders, which will get massacred in the courts like much of his EO's did in his first term. He'll declare victory anyways, and the base will love him because they desire the appearance of "owning the libs" more than any actual substantive policy changes.
This is extremely incorrect - the vast majority of the actual escalation has come from the intelligence community. It wasn't the Republicans who set up crossfire hurricane or ginned up the fraudulent Carter Page warrant. Those were the actual attempts at "democracy-proofing our institutions" and they began before Trump even took office.
EDIT:
To avoid duplicating reply chains, I saw you make this comment later on.
No, it wasn't! There was no real or serious attempts by the Russians to get Manchurian candidate Trump into office. The only role played by the Russians in that election (apart from posting a few BLM memes on facebook) was to provide the HRC campaign with a bunch of fake dirt they could use (via the Steele dossier) to have the Trump campaign spied on.
The Russians were trying, as are the Chinese and Indians and Mexicans and whatever other foreign agent out there. It just so happened that the Russians found a receptive party in Trump who is uniquely predisposed to liking Russia because of Trumps stupidity, admiration for Strong Daddy, and predilection for blonde fuckdolls that look like his daughter. Trumps 2016 election success on his own was assisted by Russia as much as it was by disgruntled DC czars with a bone to pick with Hilary or Berniebros pivoting away.
The success of Russias objectives through Trump is a sign of Trumps own policies happening to dovetail with Russia, not Russian success in subverting Trump. Nevertheless, as Ben points out below, it remains true that Russia was constantly trying to find ways to subvert the USA and its election processes. The commies actively funded the Black Panthers, the Internet Research Agency blackpills bodybuilding.com on St Floyd.
Not a single part of this is true. "Blonde fuckdolls that look like his daughter"? Trump was not some "receptive party" to Russia -- after one joke about wanting Russia to release Hillary's emails, years of investigations could find no collusion between Russia and Trump. The amount of Russian interference into the 2016 election was near-zero.
This is a lazy cliche. How did Russia actualy benefit from Trump's presidency?
Trump's campaign chair was literally convicted of acting on behalf of a foreign government which he received millions of dollars from. Granted, it was the Putin flunky Yanokovych rather than Putin himself, but still.
The natural conclusion of this is that Trump was a victim of the Russian government's actions. Just like how when Pelosi's driver turned out to be a Chinese spy, she was a victim of the Chinese government's actions.
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