Trump's Ministry of Revenge and Retribution

Republicans Are Planning to Hunt and Kill Americans. Believe them.

Oathkeeper Militia stalked the streets of Furguson, Missouri in 2015 (Photo: Scott Olsen/Getty)

Steve Bannon’s War Room Podcast has been the think tank behind the most radical and dangerous of Donald Trump’s fantasies about punishing liberalism and engaging in Civil War. So it’s no surprise that Kevin D. Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, went on to the war room to outline his plans for Project 2025. Even though Bannon was in prison and couldn’t be on this episode, his acolytes let their freak flags fly. Roberts summarized his plans to radically destroy the American civil service and staff it with tens of thousands of Trump loyalists.  But his mind was not on the details. It was on the strategic template of the ideological struggle. He believed there is a war about to break out between democracy and Trumpism. He said, “… we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

For all the hubbub about this comment, I am seeing the exact signs that led me to write my last book, “They Want to Kill Americans,” just before the 2020 election. Throughout that tumultuous summer, I monitored right-wing extremist websites and forums. Most were extremely giddy at the prospect of Trump’s re-election. However, within these discussions was always an element of paramilitary planning. Many Trump supporters were the guys with guns who had fantasies taken straight out of the 1980s movie “Red Dawn.”  They dreamed of fighting special forces-like gun battles and raids on their “Communist” enemies.  All that summer, I felt an armed revolution was being planned. People were encouraged to go to “tactical training schools” and get the “skills” they needed for what was coming.

As an intelligence professional, I knew trouble when I saw it. I had said on MSNBC that if Trump won in 2020, these armed self-appointed militia would act as his armed Brown Shirt-like street enforcers. On the other hand, if Trump lost, then we were in for a period of turmoil. I am seeing all of those signs again.