Once upon a time and for the first 148 years of the American Presidency, the Inauguration of a newly elected President of the United States took place on March 4, a full five months after Election Day. This seemed reasonable in 1789 when the Constitution was framed, in an era when (as since time immemorial) news, goods, and people could travel no faster than a horse could run or a ship could sail. Allowing for an orderly transition of power to a new administration, with attendant relocation of new officials, certainly needed this interval. By the time of the Secession Crisis of 1860, however (with a Civil War looming), when telegraph poles spanned the country from the East Coast to the Mississippi, and railroads carried goods and people at the undreamed of speed of 60 miles per hour, the length of the interregnum (literally "between reigns") began to present serious risks - risks which have now reemerged in light of the refusal of Donald Trump to acknowledge the victory of Joseph Biden.
In 1860, as now, the crisis sprang from the refusal of a section of the electorate to accept the results of the election. The fact of Abraham Lincoln's victory was not questioned: the secession of the states that would soon call themselves the Confederacy was, as we know, ignited by the election of a candidate who held that slavery was a moral evil and that it should not be allowed to spread to states newly admitted to the Union (though Lincoln held that the "peculiar institution" should be left alone in the South, where it was protected by the Constitution). Under the vacillating and spineless leadership of outgoing President James Buchanan, Southern members of his Cabinet took advantage of the five month interval between administrations to undertake clearly treasonous actions in preparation for Civil War, including the transfer of cannons and munitions to Southern states.
Again in the Great Depression Crisis of 1932, the lengthy interval paralyzed the government during a time of great suffering, preventing incoming President Franklin D. Roosevelt from taking the drastic actions needed, while Herbert Hoover's moribund administration struggled with the unprecedented economic disaster. This led to the passage of the so-called "Lame Duck" 20th Amendment to the Constitution, changing the Inauguration to the present date of January 20th.
President Trump is now undertaking actions which are unavoidably reminiscent of the actions of treasonous Southerners during the Buchanan/Lincoln interregnum: violating a sacred principle of American government in a wholesale replacement of non-partisan senior military officials (who are loyal by oath the the Commander-in-Chief, regardless of party) with Trump loyalists, in a move which senior Pentagon officials are calling "dictatorial" in nature. With only 70 days remaining of his term, the question naturally arises as to what purpose these loyalists would be put, if not for Trump to cement his control of the military in order to overturn the results of an election which even high-level GOP officials are calling conclusive and legitimate.
There is no other name for such a course of action but a coup d'etat - a once unthinkable development in American democracy. And now the shortened three month interregnum is looming as a time of grave anxiety.
We have certainly had behind-the-scenes "coups" in our history. The assassination of John F. Kennedy was one such coup, orchestrated by CIA and Mafia elements with the backing of the corrupt elite banking cabal . The halting of the vote count in Florida by a GOP-dominated Supreme Court in 2000 was another. But both had a fig leaf covering: a "lone gunman" theory approved by the Warren Commission in 1963, and a Constitutionally-sanctioned "judicial coup" in 2000.
The looming Trump scenario has no such fig leaf. It would be a naked defiance of the Constitution, necessitating a violation of the oath of office by the President and numerous other civil and military officials.
If this scenario develops further, expect the House of Representatives to move toward impeachment by December, with likely support from enough of the remaining moderate GOP Senators to ensure conviction in the Senate, in order to remove a traitorous President before he overthrows the Constitution.
I keep in mind the bigger picture, of course. I regard Joseph Biden an obedient puppet of the corrupt elite, who is likely to push their agenda of mandatory vaccinations, leading to mass resistance. I regard Donald Trump as an extremely dangerous narcissistic demagogue, perfectly capable of attempting to destroy our most cherished traditions, instigating turmoil on a scale we have not seen since 1968 - or possibly 1861. I observe that the Old Order is on the brink of a natural collapse and rebirth - which can either proceed with comparative calmness, or amidst bloody upheaval.
All of this takes place against the backdrop of a vibrational and energetic Great Awakening and Shift of Consciousness, which many now refer to as "the Ascension."
I perceive that the graver danger waits for us along the timeline of a successful Trump coup. We need always to be aware of the agenda of the "Puppeteers." They are not monolithic. They are divided against each other. Biden is backed by the Old Guard - a network of aging elites in the Wall Street/European banking families, who are implicated in the pedophilia rings and the rigging of financial markets for several centuries. Trump is backed by a breakaway faction of the Cabal which intends to seduce the people with a Magic Rescue Pill of a global currency reset and pretended take-down of the corrupt elite, at the price of the most basic human rights, destruction of the family unit, and the requirement to accept irreversible altering of human genetics via fear-induced mandatory vaccination as the price of Universal Basic Income and illusory security. This is ultimate slavery and the final end of human freedom.
This agenda will be pursued regardless of who is inaugurated on January 20th and we will need to vigorously oppose it. But if we rise up in this moment to maintain our democratic traditions, if we defend the Constitution, we will have a fighting chance. If we allow these traditions to be trampled in this crucial interval, we will have sacrificed the privileges for which millions fought and died in the face of tyranny.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson.
Michael Henry Dunn