“Blitzkrieg” first exploded into the global lexicon in 1939/40 as Nazi Germany’s forces stormed across western Europe with all the violent impact of a military thunderstorm. Loosely translated as “lightning war,” blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower in unexpected locations. Using tanks, aircraft, and motorized trucks as force multipliers facilitating traditional operational tactics, the aim of German military planners in both the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich was to achieve quick and decisive victory by rapidly enveloping enemy armies, threatening their lines of supply and communications, and forcing them to fight where they were least prepared. The modern equivalent would be the US military’s “shock and awe,” though the Pentagon would with some justification bristle at the comparison.
Like all ambitious and influential presidential advisors, Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (he of Breibart fame) has paid close attention to those parts of history that best resonate with his personality and worldview. Whether through influence or outright intervention, he has steered Donald Trump’s administration into a veritable storm of activity that’s virtually unprecedented.
The flood of executive orders and bellicose talk in the first two weeks of the Trump regime, coloured by occasionally purple prose, while entirely in keeping with the President's campaign promises (message: look! Someone who actually does what he promised!), have left Americans of many political leanings feeling overwhelmed and entirely uncertain as to what comes next. International governments and their observers find the blizzard of executive orders from the White House astonishing, especially when compared to the generally sclerotic pace of change in most other democracies.
The vexation and organizational chaos generated at the bureaucratic and individual level by Trump's most high-profile executive order -- his recent barring of individuals from certain Muslim countries from entering the United States -- came in part from its sudden announcement. From law enforcement to the public at large, many, if not all, were thrown off guard.
Welcome to government by blitzkrieg -- the shock event, designed precisely to jar both the current state political system (i.e. the 'Establishment' and its elites) and those elements of society that did not vote for the GOP ticket (i.e. 50% of the public who supported Hillary Clinton), causing sufficient disorientation and disruption to provide enough time for the Trump faction to consolidate its power. It’s a lesson Trump did not have to learn too deeply – his Republican nomination debates provide ample evidence of both his peremptory style (i.e hitting out at others before you risk being hit yourself) and his love of dramatic, reality tv-inspired theatrical acts.
There are still those in the media and political class who resist taking Trump seriously as a force to be reckoned with, constantly citing his incompetence for what they perceive to be his rough start in office. They are sorely mistaken. This was no amateur night performance. This blitzkrieg was intentional, meant to distract, obfuscate, and confuse.
As presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway implied in a Tweet enjoining the public to “Get used to it,” these initial actions could be considered prologue to a bigger second act, and one that reflects the thinking of Trump and Bannon alike, that is not only an intention to retain mastery of the administration’s “message,” but also to exercise their preference for strongman governance.
The United States is not a banana republic. It is a superpower with a proud history and a nation of checks and balances inherent in its constitution, promulgated in its laws. Using violence to gain power has no place in its polity. What seems clearly possible though is that while Trump attained power legally his inner circle has displayed a propensity for shocking or striking at the system, using the resulting vortex of chaos and flux to create a kind of government within the government: one beholden only to the president.
It’s happened before, albeit in a far more dangerous manner, with the aggressive, cliquish politics that surrounded Richard Nixon. Watergate was only the logical outcome of a long history of attempts to subvert governing institutions which would have had vastly negative consequences had Nixon either escaped responsibility or did not resign.
It is an axiom of military strategy for successful leaders to attack the enemy at a place and time of one’s own choosing, at which one’s foe is unprepared. Yet it is eminence grise Bannon is who has masterfully employed this strategy in the civilian domestic scene. Well-versed in military tactics and the history of “movement politics” encompassing the radical left and right, he has repeatedly talked about "destroying the state" in the name of securing power for "an insurgent, center-right populist movement that is virulently anti-establishment."
Knocking both foe and neutrals off their centre off balance -- giving them no time to absorb or recover from attacks -- is a time-tested strategy in the history of war and authoritarian takeovers. Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Philippines under Rodrigo Dutarte, are but recebt illustrations of this principle. That both espouse the ‘man on horseback’ theory and form of leadership is no surprise.
It's now arguable that this approach is being employed at the apex of American political power. It's particularly useful in situations where the leader is vulnerable due to circumstances that negate a traditional gradualist approach to agenda implementation. Donald Trump has had a long history in the public eye, and as the presidential campaign evidenced, he has a checkered past with more than its own share of unanswered questions and personal controversies -- some of which could become distracting issues that could sap vital energy from his presidential agenda. With all the sound and fury, who is bothered at the moment about those Trump tax returns, his ties to Russia and the so-called dossier of “dirt” the Putin regime is said to have accumulated for later use to weaken the president’s credibility at a time of the Kremlin’s choosing? Beyond any salacious issues, by seizing control of the "message," what Trump and Bannon have done is to forestall detailed questions about the President's programs, details of which have proven scarce at best,
For such a governmental style to work a small group of loyal insiders is needed, who take orders directly from the leader's innermost advisory circle and who are tasked with creating chains of authority that bypass those of the existing federal government and party bureaucracies. This in and of itself is nothing new. Hillary Clinton maintained such a tight knit group within her husband’s White House, which allowed her substantial input in his decision-making; George W. Bush allowed trusted avatars like Condi Rice and Karen Hughes, to circumvent the State, Defense, and Treasury department’s chains of command, not to mention the personal powerbase that Vice President Dick Cheney built up that essentially allowed him to become essentially Bush’s prime minister.
The trouble with this kind of governing model is that it is predicated on division, rather than inclusion. It is also very hard to maintain over a four-year period, as it can potentially weary everyone involved with its constant drama and aura of perpetual firefighting. Furthermore, as Trump has discovered, governing “out front” by executive order may have dramatic televised effect, as well as the collateral benefit of making one’s base believe that their man of action is busy at work for the causes in which they invested their votes for him, but such imperial declarations have limited impact when contravened by the judiciary and without the teeth of full detailed legislation to entrench them as law.
In the final analysis it may not matter what actually gets done when. This blizzard of activity has ensured that Trump’s foes are disorientated and unsure, his erstwhile fair weather friends in Congress (like Speaker Paul Ryan) are too busy tied up trying to figure out how to implement these dizzying fiats, and the same Republican base/discontented independents that brought him to power, remain satisfied that their guy is fighting for them.
There is one more element to this blitzkrieg. It not only throws everyone off centre but compels people to take sides. Am I with Trump or against him? Do I work for his government or leave? Does the company in which I hold stock approve or disapprove of the travel ban? Does its executives even speak out for and against it? This is government by division,utilizing wedge issues that result in stark choices. And why not? 50% of the people who vote is all Trump needs in 2020 to win again.
So vigilance, then, is the key for the next four years. Michael Moore, the occasionally histrionic gadfly of the Left, may be exaggerating when he alleges that the US is lurching towards the abyss of a constitutional coup, but it never hurts to sleep with one eye open.