There seems to be a much more widespread understanding that there may be a Deep State coup under way to either control the incoming Trump regime or to prevent his ascension to the presidency should control prove impractical or unpossible.
Some observers have gone into hysterics over it, calling it "unprecedented" interference and such-like. Horseshit.
I've pointed out that this is what the Permanent Government does. I won't use a term like Deep State most of the time because it's not really hidden, and its ways ought to be pretty well known by now. It isn't just Trump. They try to undermine or control every president. And if that proves to be to be too difficult or the president goes rogue, they have other solutions at their disposal. Those of us who are old enough have witnessed some of those solutions.
After all, presidents. serve for 4 or 8 years, if that. The Permanent Government is there always. And some of the individuals who hold the power of that Government would like to be there in perpetuity. Immortals, they are or would be if they could be.
Some Trump supporters/defenders seem to be relying on the institutions of government, the constitution, the congress, the courts and such like to protect Trump from the machinations of the Deep State. I'd say that trust is misplaced. The institutions themselves are rotten to the core, long ago compromised and corrupted. They can't effectively protect anyone, not even themselves, and they have that institutional knowledge. They might serve as a buffer if things go completely haywire, but beyond that, I can't see them serving any positive function at all.
If the coup is successful, they'll go along. If it isn't, they'll go along. From appearances, they seem to be on the side of their own perpetuation. Thus, they are instinctively golpistas, but they are unlikely to participate directly in the program.
The institutional defense is the constitution. Whereas the incoming Trump regime seems to be intent on circumventing the constitution and ignoring the rule of law -- among other things -- in order to install direct rule by the oligarchs and kleptocrats, the institutions of the permanent government rely on their devotion to the constitution and the rule of law to prop up their shaky legitimacy. In other words, they may be corrupt and compromised, decadent and generally useless on behalf of the People, BUT they follow the process of government as delineated in the constitution and practiced through the ages. It may not work very well, but that doesn't matter, they do it as they have done it for centuries, and this Trump regime is not going to be allowed to operate outside those parameters.
The institutions will not protect Trump and his cronies if they continue to try to operate outside them.
On the other hand, some of the Trump loyalists and defenders seem to think that if this coup-business goes much further, Trump can rely on a faction of the military to protect him and the incoming regime. That may be the case, I don't know. His determination to strategically seed generals in his cabinet and among his close advisors is certainly indicative of an interest in using the military as a shield, and I'm sure that the golpistas are factoring that into their calculations.
Trump supporters seem to think he's popular and that the public wants him to rule. This does not seem to be the case at all. He was never generally popular, and what popularity he had is cratering as the public witnesses more and more of the chaos that ensues from his wild, unpredictable and childish behavior. Even the military is shaken by it. This man isn't capable of governing a global imperial state like the United States of America, and he apparently refuses to learn how to do it.
That's not to say that direct rule by the oligarchs and kleptocrats is something the military and governing institutions instinctively reject. They don't. Not at all. But a faction of them do reject such rule by Trump simply because he demonstrates every day he is incapable of handling the "awesome responsibility" of the office. He's too scattered, too unpredictable, too resistant to control. He wishes to be an emperor, dictator, and god, against which there can be no opposition.
His supporters largely want him to be that too: an emperor, dictator and god.
How far we have fallen from the ideal of a self-governing republic.
Maybe that was a pipedream all along.
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