Trump’s Nero’s Decree: How He Is Planning a Scorched Earth Policy for America

In the dwindling days of WWII, as Russian artillery battered Berlin, Adolf Hitler hunkered in his bunker and pouted over how the German people failed him. Believing the deutsche Leute had betrayed the Thousand Year Reich by being too weak, he determined they no longer deserved the Fatherland. If he were going down, Hitler would make sure all of Germany went down with him.

Der Fuhrer turned to his armaments minister, Albert Speer, who had just reported that the German economy could not hold out for more than two months and said, “it is not necessary to worry about their [the German people’s] needs for elemental survival.” Hitler issued an order to destroy Germany’s entire infrastructure, including transportation facilities, docks, public utilities, factories, and mines. Leave nothing was to rebuild Germany after the war.

Fortunately, Speer and the German generals refused to follow such orders, which became known as Hitler’s Nero Decree.

The order was named after the Roman dictator who, according to legend, fiddled while ancient Rome burned. While historians dismiss the idea Nero set Rome ablaze or played music while it burned, they do agree the disaster fit nicely into his political agenda. He used it as an excuse to clamp down on Christians whom he blamed for the fire, and tortured and killed hundreds.

Such “scorched earth policies” are often the last resort failing dictators reach for before the end. Libya’s long-time dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, invoked a scorched earth policy in 2011 as his regime started disintegrating amid the Libyan Civil War. Gaddafi ordered the nation’s oil fields set ablaze, pummeled entire towns to dust with artillery fire, and ordered his army to “shoot anything that moves.”

Hoping to maintain his regime, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad repeatedly has used chemical weapons against his own people, laying toxic waste to large parts of his country.

For the past four months, Donald Trump appeared to be executing his own Nero’s Decree. Since emerging from his White House bunker—to which he fled on May 31 when confronted by unarmed, peaceful demonstrators—and as he trailed his presidential campaign opponent, Joe Biden, by double digits, Trump’s actions reflected those of a tyrant facing his demise and demanding revenge.

Now that Biden has been proclaimed the president-elect, Trump will have two more months to promote his scorched earth policy.

Now before anyone flames me for calling Trump a tyrant, I am not using that word lightly nor am I the only person who believes that’s what he wants to be. There are definite attributes for fascism and tyrants. In February 2020, Stephen M. Walt wrote in Foreign Policy that Trump has nearly check off each of those attributes. And Trump’s persistent extreme right-wing rhetoric itself has been described by pundits as a “scorched earth policy.”

Besides checking off the dictator’s do-to list, Trump’s decisions—or the lack of decisions—appear intended to do the greatest harm to the U.S.

Weaponizing Covid-19

Trump’s failure to lead during the current Covid-19 crisis goes beyond mere incompetence; it borders

Donald Trump rips off his mask after arriving 
back at the White House despite being contagious.

on premeditated mass murder. Even the dumbest, vain man—seeing the pandemic turn into, as one health expert called it, “a wildfire”—should be able to admit defeat and turn to his science advisors for guidance. Trump’s repeated refusal to listen to the experts or implement even the simplest means of slowing the spread of the virus looks more like active sabotage. Does he hope the virus will continue to ravage American citizens after they vote him out of office?

Apparently, that is exactly what he is hoping. After contracting the Covid-19 virus in October, Trump continued to attend a political debate, a campaign rally, and a celebration party for his latest U.S. Supreme Court candidate—all without masks or social distancing. Hospitalized for treatment, Trump insisted his Secret Service security detail drive him around the block in a sealed presidential limo so he could wave to his followers, thus exposing his own bodyguards to the virus. After three days in the hospital, Trump checked himself out and returned to the White House where—still refusing to wear a mask or remain in isolation—he continues to spread the virus. 

As of this writing, Trump's arrogance and ignorance has resulted in several members of his own staff down sick with the virus as well as several senior senators and many of his security detail. The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff who control our national defense are now isolated because of their exposure to the virus through Trump and his associates. His recklessness has essentially decapitated our government.

And yet Trump continued holding campaign rallies, exposing more of his mask-less supporters and more of his Secret Service detail, and more of his staff to the virus. He even tweeted to his followers there was nothing to fear about the coronavirus, a disease that has killed more than 200,000 Americans so far.

We can expected Trump to further endanger the country to the Covid virus. He promised to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the election, leading the country war again the virus without its most competent leader. He will encourage more super-spreader events such as protests and rallies, all designed to sicken more Americans.

Militarizing American Streets

In May, Trump ordered federal troops to attack and disperse peaceful protesters outside the White House. Shortly after leaving his bunker, Trump threatened to unleash federal troops and law enforcement on the American people.

At the time I wrote that Trump was making the same mistake President Herbert Hoover made in 1932 when he unleased federal troops on the Bonus Marchers, WWI veterans demanding money Congress had promised them. Hoover’s disastrous actions cost him his reelection.

I didn’t expect Trump to listen and he didn’t.

Supposed federal officer photographed as they
snatched a Portland protester and shoved him
into an unmarked van. Source: Wikipedia

In July, Trump sent heavily armed federal officers in combat gear to Portland to confront peaceful protesters demonstrating in front of the federal courthouse. He did so without conferring with state or local offices. The administration said Trump sent the officers to protect federal property.

Shortly after their arrival, the feds started kidnapping protesters off city streets and shoving them into unmarked vans. The demonstrations became violent, largely due to the federal forces’ own heavy-handed and unnecessary tactics. Both local and state officials say those actions are exacerbating the protests. Despite their mission to protect federal property, local officials now say those federal forces are patrolling far beyond the courthouse and are trying to enforce local laws over which they have no jurisdiction.

The actual identity of many of those federal forces remained unknown for weeks. The military garbed officers wore no patches or badges identifying their agencies other than a small patch saying “police.” That raised questions whether they are actual law enforcement officers or private security contractors or even right-wing "militia." Indeed, a group of armed pretend soldiers did make an appearance, but it now appears most of the military-garbed troops were from the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump’s dispatching federal officers to Portland set that city ablaze and put Trump’s poll numbers into free fall. Even with their eventual withdrawal, the city has yet to find peace. Trump threatened to send more federal agents to other cities. No city has requested such "help" and some threatened to meet the agents with their own law enforcement forces. Trump is very likely to make good on his threats for the next two months.

As he loses the power over the federal law enforcement apparatus, expect Trump to turn to his personal armed militias, those right-wing, white supremacist terrorist cells he once described as "some good people." During one of the debates, he told these latter day Nazi Brown Shirts to "stand by," presumably meaning to prepare for violence at his command.

Trump's refusal to acknowledge the accuracy of the vote, coupled with numerous meritless lawsuits he filed to stop the vote, is designed to create mistrust of the election process among his so-long misled followers. Trump hopes to propel his followers, particularly the militias, into the streets to commit acts of violence. Even as the vote was continuing, Trump stirred up unrest in his supporters, causing them to gather in angry protests around vote-counting centers, even threatening voting officials and counters. Two Trump supporters armed with rifles drove from Virginia to Pennsylvania intending to stop the vote with blood shed.

No Peaceful Transition

Trump says he will not concede the election and will take his fight for continued power up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he has packed with ultra-conservative justices. Whether the court supports Trump or not, his legal shenanigans will further erode trust in our democracy and fill our streets with both anti-Trump protesters and pro-Trump protesters, the latter probably armed. Pro-Trump agents provocateurs will initiate violence, just as the FBI said they did in Portland and elsewhere. Make no mistake about it, if he can, Trump will start another civil war and leave the nation in flames.

If Trump continues his scorch earth decisions, the result will undoubtedly be more violence. Cities, like Portland, will burn. The coronavirus, fed by the violence, will spread. Americans will suffer and die.

And Trump will have his revenge.

Conservatives Snapping at the Hand that Feeds Them

A few years ago, the New York Times published two pieces shedding light on the most mysterious—and, to Democrats, the most frustrating—fact of American political life: that those conservative-voting “red” states consume far more federal government “entitlements” benefits than liberal-voting “blue” states.

This is both mysterious and frustrating to the Democrats because the Republican Party— including Donald Trump and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell—rails against what they call “the welfare state.”

According to the GOP, the so-called “welfare state” discourages Americans—in their view, blacks and Hispanics—from seeking honest work. But, as the Times article pointed out, most of the recipients of government benefits are white conservatives who are retired or disabled. What makes people such as these vote against their own interests?

Shortly after the first article appeared, Paul Krugman, the Times Nobel Prize-winning economist columnist, also explored that conundrum.

Krugman points to an Indiana University study showing that residents of the 10 states ranked by the Gallup Poll as being the “most conservative” received 21.2 percent of their income from government entitlements, compare to only 17.1 percent for the 10 states Gallup ranked as “most liberal.”

“Wasn’t Red America supposed to be the land of traditional values, where people don’t eat Thai food and don’t rely on handouts?” Krugman asks.