Trump’s “Shock and awe” plan is intended to scare you into silence—Don’t obey!

Trump will Crash and Burn

“Shock and awe” from Iraq War

“Shock and Awe.”

That phrase has been frequently repeated by Donald Trump’s allies in the past two weeks to describe his plan to sign a vast swath of Executive Orders on Day One. We’ve heard this warning from incoming Trump officials to Fox News hosts to GOP Senators. And of course, corporate media was only to happy to amplify this strategy with headlines ranging from “Trump Plans a Day One ‘Shock and Awe’ Campaign” to “Get Ready for ‘Shock and Awe’ on Day One.”

I’m sure many of you recognize the phrase “Shock and Awe” from the run up to our war against Iraq in 2003. President George W. Bush bragged that the war would begin with the US launching a “Shock and Awe” attack on Iraq—which is a military strategy more formally known as “rapid dominance.” The idea behind “shock and awe” is that the attack is “so massive and sudden that the enemy would be stunned, confused, overwhelmed, and paralyzed.”

Yes, the stated goal of “Shock and Awe” is to “paralyze the enemy” and “destroy their will to fight.” That is exactly why Trump and his allies are using that term. But this time it’s not against a foreign nation, but us. Their Day One goal is for Trump to unleash a massive number of Executive Orders in the hopes this will paralyze us with fear so we don’t fight back.

That is why Trump is now claiming he may sign one hundred Executive Orders on his first day—or by the end of first week. (For context, President Biden signed nine his first day and that was far more than most Presidents--while Trump signed a total of four his first week in 2017.) And Trump’s expected buffet of Executive orders seek to impose the far right MAGA agenda from pardoning Jan. 6 terrorists to authorizing mass deportations to implementing tariffs to rolling back Biden climate change regulations to rewarding his wealthy oligarchs. There will likely be some unexpected ones as well that will be just as vile and despicable as Trump himself.

Trump’s “Shock and Awe” strategy is because he wants you to feel outnumbered and overwhelmed. He wants you to be paralyzed with fear. And overall, he wants you and I to give up resisting him.

Trump didn’t invent this idea—it comes right from the autocrat playbook. As Yale Professor Timothy Snyder wrote in his best-selling book, “On Tyranny”, history offers us warnings about the strategies aspiring autocrats have followed to achieve power. Trump’s “Shock and Awe” is one of them.

As Snyder explains, for tyrants “one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission.” It’s not a coincidence that Snyder used the word “shock” when writing his book seven years ago. Trump’s use of “Shock” (and Awe”) is not unique. Nothing about Trump or most fascists is original—they simply copy the playbook from past dictators.

That is why Snyder explains, we need to prepare for what Trump will throw at us. He writes: “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.” It’s also why I repeatedly tell people that Trump’s coming term will be darker than we want to imagine. My goal is not to scare you, but to prepare you.

The Yale professor added in his recent Substack article about how people like Trump will use “emergencies” to grab more power, writing “authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power.” Adding, “The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.”

This again conjures up Snyder’s book, “On Tyranny” where his very first chapter is titled, “Do not obey in advance.” As the professor explains, “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. Individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want and then offer themselves without being asked.”

Trump’s ability to scare people into submission has been on display since he won the election. We have especially seen that with corporate media figures from ABC News paying Trump $15 million to settle a defamation case to Joe Scarborough to people like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Some of these people submitted to Trump out fear—while most did it simply to make more profits. Throughout American history, the wealthy oligarchs are never satisfied with the level of wealthy they have. Bluntly, their appetite to make more money is insatiable. As a result, they will do just about anything to acquire more wealth—include sell out our democratic Republic. (The German industrialists during Hitler’s rise to power did the same.)

To me, Monday is not about swearing in Trump, but about honoring the legacy of one of my heroes, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. There are many quotes I have found inspiring from the late Dr. King. But as we are faced with Trump’s return to power, two seem especially fitting.

The first is about persevering: "If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

As we all know, MLK—as well the activists who fought for civil rights, the women’s right to vote and all progressive movements—were confronted with great setbacks. But they never gave up.

The second quote is about us being there for each other. Dr. King powerfully articulated this in his “Letter from Birmingham, Alabama jail” in April 1963. That is when he wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

It’s true—all of us opposing Trump are in this together. So when Trump signs his executive orders or engages in other attacks, it does affect all of us in one way or another. That is why we must pledge to be there for each other.

In reality--as we saw with Trump’s first term—the likely conclusion of his executive orders on Day One will not be “shock and awe.” Rather it will be “crash and burn.” Let’s do all we can to make sure that happens!

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