Dispatch From Political Prisoner #11400591
After Trump succeeded in his second coup plot, they came after critics like myself. Thoughts from an American political prisoner.
“A convict’s thoughts are no freer than he is: they come back to the same place, worry over the same thing continually.”
That quote from Ivan Denisovich rattles in my head each day I’m here. But what is time? Over this we also have no control.
“There was not even the ticking of a clock - prisoners were not allowed clocks. The big boys tell the time for them.”
I’ve been confined to the Roy Cohn Federal Penitentiary for Thought Violators for two years. Or is it three? Maybe five. Brain fog sets in not long after they slam the steel door shut. No books, no broadcasts, no internet. You are left alone with your thoughts - with no outlet for their release. Buried under a daily avalanche of MAGA propaganda recordings over the 24/7 loudspeakers. It even drives the guards batty. The weekly re-education sessions conducted by Sarah Huckabee’s agitprops provide the only break in monotony. I’m told that the prison’s tiny library, which is available only to inmates who publicly relent and sign the Trump Oath, is stocked only with “The Art of the Deal,” “Think Big,” “Great Again,” the drivel also ghost written for Don Jr. - now Secretary for American Greatness - along with assorted Evangelical tracts, QAnon rant-lit and anti-abortion screeds.
So, how am I getting this - samizdat, let’s call it - out? Well, the Trump Swamp is massive; corruption permeates even the vast prison archipelago. I’ll leave it there.
How I got here is more interesting. And once you read this, please disseminate it through the samizdat underground. The flame of Resistance, feeble as it is, must be kept alive.
Like most people, I breathed a sigh of relief when Trump’s 1/6/21 putsch failed. Ah! America’s democracy holds! It can’t happen here. Can it?
Wrong.
Yes, the MSM outed Trump’s Peronista-style shenanigans: putting the squeeze on state election officials, leaning on Mike Pence not to certify the election, instigating sham “audits,” goosing the Quisling Caucus to vote not to certify, persuading a Trump stooge at DOJ to try to issue a letter calling “fraud.” And then came the revelations of the Russian agent network that fed him instructions and talking points. Who knew Melania was the linchpin? The GRU’s suborning the NRA. And the Saudi millions that fed the MAGA machine. Not to mention the Koch’s, Mercers’ and Ricketts’ ultra-dark money largely to manipulate media markets. Thank you SCOTUS!
Some Congressional committees launched belated and desultory investigations and the January 6 Select Committee huffed and puffed in reaction to more “shocking” revelations of Trump corruption and abuse of power. Chuck Schumer robotically read staff-written denunciations through his perma-perched reading specs, while Nancy Pelosi galumphed in uffish thought through her botoxed tissues before the manxome bandersnatch confronting her.
But the Weimar-Democrats were toothless and spineless and feckless, stymied by GOP brass-knuckle counter-punches and overwhelmed in the court of public opinion by Tucker, Sean, Laura and the other barking MAGAphones at Fox.
Meanwhile, the coup rolled on.
Petty, but effective, voter suppression laws, including removal of handicap access. Outrageous gerrymandering. Alternate electors. Jim Crow 3.0.
And then came the militias. The bombings were few and scattered at first. State and county Democratic Party offices, voting stations in minority areas, alleged pedo-pizza parlors, abortion clinics. Then bigger sabotage - against Facebook, Twitter and other Big Tech facilities. Then seizure of radio and TV stations (Sinclair and Fox readily joined the effort). When the Proud Boys and Three Percenters took over state houses, planted the Stars & Bars and beheaded governors, the momentum really picked up. Soros and other prominent Jewish philanthropists and business people were rounded up. They finally hanged you-know-who.
After the August 2021 Restoration of the Trump Dynasty failed to happen, Q-crazed Trump-troopers took to the streets. Their hero-god called out the MAGA-mob once again, only this time it was a tsunami of AR-15-bearing beer belly putschists out in the streets of scores of cities to “Take Back the Steal” and “Return Trump to the White House.” Tens of thousands of “Antifa members” were slaughtered. Law enforcement everywhere were not only overwhelmed, many came out of the closet and actually participated in and led the violence.
The 2022 mid-terms went 92 percent for the GOP, according to the officially sanctioned Cyber-Ninja Election Commission. Republicans took over 410 House and 89 Senate seats. Their first emergency legislation after the Capitol burned down was to suspend the Constitution. Their second was to require all federal workers to take the Trump Oath. With his trademark Cheshire grin, the Orange Fuhrer declared martial law from the South Portico, putting newly re-commissioned General Mike Flynn in charge as Generalissimo for National Security and Domestic Tranquility. Many of the 235 Trumpist retired flag officers who signed a letter backing Trump in 2020 assumed subordinate roles, including as District Leaders of 20 military districts managing the nation; these have replaced the state governors.
They abolished the CDC. Arrested Dr. Fauci. Made “Dr.” Scott Atlas “Health Czar,” appointed the exonerated Tom Barrack as National Commissioner for Government-Business Relations, installed George Papadopoulos as Secretary of State and Erik Prince as secretary of the re-re-named Department of War, made Roger Stone RNC chairman, Steve Bannon Secretary for Trump Thought and Enlightenment, and Allen Weisselberg as Secretary of the Treasury. Ivanka is Director of the CIA. Reportedly in the presidential dog house, Jared remains Covid coordinator. Pharmaceuticals have doubled in price since he reassumed that role as well as that of Special Envoy to the Gulf States. Miraculously, 666 Fifth Avenue is now debt-free. And only 11 million Americans have succumbed to 20-odd Covid variants.
Attorney General Paul Manafort quickly established Special Courts to expedite legal processes against “traitors.” FBI Director Corey Lewandowsky, coordinating closely with Manafort, is whipping the bureau into shape. Trump abolished the Secret Service after Kim Jong Il gifted him an elite North Korean bodyguard detachment. Kellyanne Conway is in charge of Global Broadcasting. Kayleigh McEnany is Secretary for Religion and the Apostle’s Creed. Kimberly Guilfoyle was named Special Envoy for Family Values. Finally, Hope Hicks is back as Special Advisor for American Femininity. All ambassadorships are for sale to the highest bidder. The EPA has been abolished. Abortion is banned. Climate change is, again, a Chinese hoax.
Tom Barrack is overseeing the Statist Economy Program, focusing on eliminating all regulations, consumer protections and diversity measures and re-inventing government to make it virtually seamless with Big Business.
The Russian Embassy now has a branch office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House.
Through an Executive Order, Trump decreed that all news media must pass a “Patriot Loyalty Review.” Within a month, the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN and, well, just about all national and regional news media were shut down. (So, by the way, was Saturday Night Live.)
That’s when they came for me. Like a crazed sorcerer, I banged out one article after another decrying the loss of freedom and end of American democracy. Then the Department of Trump Thought and Enlightenment cracked down on “fake news.” Twitter is now called Trumpter. Mark Zuckerberg and the other social media chiefs are now breaking rocks on chain gangs in the High Sierras. When they shut down my blog and newsletter, I knew it was but a matter of time before I’d be hauled away. The knock on the door came at 5am. I was charged the next day, followed by a 20-minute trial before a revamped FISA court, convicted of “deep state” crimes, spreading false information and “actions injurious to the well-being of the American people.” A 26-year old judge/ex-campaign worker, with a J.D. from Liberty University School of Biblical Law, sentenced me to 30 years of hard labor and re-education (overseen, naturally, by Betsy DeVos).
The prison warden repeated an admonition from Henri Charrière’s novel Papillon: “Make the best of what we offer you, and you will suffer less than you deserve.”
Jim Acosta, Jorge Ramos, Philip Rucker, Andy Cooper, Don Lemon and I communicate via wall-tap Morse code. We hear that Rachel Maddow, Maggie Haberman, Carol Leonnig and Maureen Dowd are incarcerated in a satellite camp for women.
My many anti-Trump articles were cited as evidence to convict. But it was my just-completed book manuscript that really sank me. My book agent-turned-informer turned me in to the Press Police.
Title: “While America Slept.”
Scary. Beautifully written and imaginatively thought out. Knowing you it was written as a satire to urge readers to be vigilant in protecting our Democratic systems and values. It is unfortunate how obvious satire may be taken as a blueprint giving Trumpsters hopes. Perhaps it is too well written and offers too much hope to Trump's followers.
You have touched every possible ridiculous outcome of such a coup.
The words of Thoreau to Emerson who was visiting Thoreau in prison come to mind: "Why are you not here?" If your satire is a prophesy then I hope to earn the right to the cell next to yours.