...the Trumpians must first eliminate the competition from their own party before they can engage their ideological opponents. He must command personal loyalty above and beyond loyalty to an ideology, nation or group. I'm surprised we haven't been presented with a mandatory oath yet; like Hitler forced the Wehrmacht to swear. Not to Germany, or the Constitution, or even to the Party, but to the Fuhrer himself.

Trump knew he would get opposition from the Republicans, his RINO-baiting was just his way of waving a magic wand and turning them all into Liberal fellow travelers. Now that he has managed to "primary out" his GOP opposition, he has succeeded in bringing the entire Republican Party and Conservative movement under his control. He used the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus to get his foot in the door, but now you don't hear a peep out of them any more, do you? The TV show "Frontline" gave a detailed account and timeline of how he did this. It was the the Night of the Long Knives without bloodshed. His big-ticket bankrollers, like the Koch Bros, have finally realized (like the German industrialists in the Weimar Republic), that they backed the wrong guy, but they are in too deep to back out now.

This is 1930s Germany all over again, but without the fighting in the streets. I suspect we'll get that soon enough.

Trump is not smart enough to have done this by himself. I suspect he got help from Russian experts, probably channeled through someone on the inside. Some likely suspects are Bannon, Gingrich, Miller or someone like them. Maybe Manafort. He actually spent a long time working with and advising pro_Putin elements in the Ukraine. He reeks of satellite country treachery and sellout.

The USA used to be really good at this, the CIA did it in Chile (Allende), Central America (Somoza), Viet Nam and Iran (when they overthrew Mossadegh and installed the Shah). But the Russians have learned how to play this game now, and they are doing it to us. Trump probably doesn't even realized he is being used by them.

Putin isn't trying to turn us into Soviet Socialist Republic, his goal is to turn us into an oligarchy, a gangster state, just like Russia is today. We are getting a glimpse into the inheritor of the nation-state:
the International Plutocracy, A corporate oligarchy.

We were already well on our way, only law and the constitution stood in its way. But that is now being dismantled. It won't be long before the USA and China and Russia will be essentially indistinguishable.

I have seen the future, and it works too well.