That is what I imagine Steve Bannon is thinking in his head as he watches the establishment start to crumble down around him. He’s no fool. He is a smart, strategic person who – unfortunately for us – does not represent the most positive aspects of America. And, as a double whammy, he’s basically in charge of the whole country. Trump is his fool and he knows it. Bannon’s playing him like … some kind of ancient instrument that you breathe into and out comes a lot of hot air and loud, unpleasant noise.

Anyway, here are my predictions for the future.

These are only rough thoughts because I am currently involved with unrelated classwork for the next few weeks. Bannon knows that he only has 4 years in which to assure his next 4 years as the power behind the Office. His erosion of the foundation of American Democracy starts with the discrediting of the free press. I imagine this is something like how an abusive spouse works? Fortunately I have no first-hand knowledge.

I’m not sure of all the details yet, but I’ll bet real money you can look at Adolph’s playbook for more in-depth strategy. Sooner or later the Reichstag will be burned down. In our context, this more than likely means a “terror attack” on U.S. soil. Whether it will be sanctioned, orchestrated, allowed, or enabled by the administration has yet to be determined. But this is for certain: people will go nuts with fear, be whipped up into a frenzy, and Trump will be there to save the day (being fed lines by his Cyranoesque Minister of Propaganda, SKB). This will be a distraction from what they’re really doing: making a power play to accelerate the erosion of the American institutions that have thus far barely managed to hold them in check. This will be the tipping point and the impetus for winning reelection.

Then Bannon will spend his second term in office removing the two-term restriction, whatever form that takes. Once that is done, the Constitution is officially dead and the regular rules no longer apply. He will be able to install himself as the Grand Puppetmaster and rule for the rest of his days. After this happens, anything goes. Make sure you have your own exit strategy firmly in place before then, and don’t count on anything to work anymore. You won’t just be able to buy a ticket out of town or cross as the border anymore.

There is hope yet, but so far it has not been promising. These evil people need to be removed from office. But I’m afraid it will not happen, because people have not yet been truly shocked into the realization of what it is they actually elected. Real growth takes pain. In the long term, I am optimistic that we will emerge as a stronger, better America; take Germany as an example: they are now a world leader and a shining example. But in the short term, we will all suffer. If you are not a white, Christian person, you should seriously consider a backup plan of finding another country in which to live for the next few decades or so (or longer – we have the largest military the world has ever seen by far).

On the other hand, whether the world will ever recover from the disaster that Trump voters have inflicted upon us all remains to be seen. Their flat-out denial of the global climate’s rapidly changing patterns will eventually effect even the most well-constructed regime. This political chaos may deny any meaningful action on the climate so that as sea levels rise and mass migrations happen, the entire global system is thrown into chaos, war, death, and destruction.

In the meantime, I think I’ll take advantage of the previous era’s solar and EV tax credits while they’re still around and try to live in the moment a bit more. It may be all we have left.