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| White House East Wing, Before and Obliterated |
Chaos the Destroyer: Nothing illustrates the hubris and direction of the Chaos administration like the sudden obliteration of a deeply historic East Wing of the White House, the demolition not coincidentally beginning 48 hours after seven million people registered their protests against its actions, all across America.
There is no comparison in American history to what Chaos did--not even the British torching the White House in the early 19th century. Even when Harry Truman was forced to essentially scoop out the innards of the White House to build a steel foundation under the badly wobbling structure, the outer walls were carefully preserved, so as not to alarm the public or threaten the historical integrity of "the people's house."
This destruction may have been essentially capricious, but its boldness more than symbolizes both tyrannical intent and confidence in wreaking more havoc with totalitarian aims. The nature of those aims were reinforced in other ways, like the end of all refugees except white South Africans--nothing screams racism and white supremacy better than privileging the architects of apartheid.
But especially at this point it would be a mistake to think of Chaos as one man--as the face that appears daily on every screen and front page. Other power centers are becoming clearer--notably Psycho Stephen Miller (and his war on "immigrants") in the White House, and budget-master Russell Vought, who has used the government shutdown to unilaterally make more cuts to federal departments and especially to any programs funded during the Biden administration, and most especially benefitting blue states.
Behind them is the less visible jockeying for power--VP Vance and Marco Rubio for example--as their official leader loses touch with reality to an ever-increasing extent. So today the term Chaos represents more--more even that the White House and the cabinet. It also includes the Supreme Court majority and Congressional Republicans, as well as those think tanks and supporting institutions that do their work in the shadows, if not the absolute darkness. Increasingly it spreads to encompass huge chunks of corporate media. Consider just the Washington Post editorial defending the obliteration of the East Wing and the promised building of a huge ballroom, allegedly financed by ultra-wealthy private contributors that includes the billionaire owner of the Washington Post.
Chaos on the Move: Slowed by court decisions and other resistance, Chaos is nevertheless making progress on nearly all fronts, with one big exception: public opinion. The people seem to be self-selecting themselves as the enemy within. But pieces are moving to at least be ready to apply military force to that little problem.
At the beginning of her twice-weekly politics chat last Thursday (Oct. 30), Heather Cox Richardson put together three separate news stories that indeed suggest an ominous pattern.
The biggest story has been very underreported in the US. According to an internal Pentagon memo revealed by the UK's Guardian newspaper, Major General Ronald Burkett, appointed director of national guard operations in 2024, ordered most states to devote 500 National Guard troops each for training in quick response to quell "civil disturbances." The total number of these troops is 23,500. They are to be ready for deployment in 2026.
How far are we from Chaos declaring No Kings protests as civil disturbances? But there are other possible applications. So Richardson's second story first appeared in the Washington Examiner: The Chaos administration quietly removed top ICE leaders in five cities and replace them with Border Patrol officials. The Border Patrol, Richardson notes, is the more aggressive agency with the broader mandate--applied to immigrants. According to an anonymous official quoted in the story, this is just the beginning of this change, expected to spread to perhaps 24 cities in all.
It is the Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino that has become the face of the Chaos operations because of his aggressive style, according to the Examiner. Notably in Chicago, where a judge admonished him for capricious use of tear gas against citizens and other acts that the judge had ordered to be ended. (Not that ICE alone isn't bad enough. Both have been shooting unarmed civilians and otherwise attacking people, then claiming they were attacked first. Juries don't believe them because everyone knows they always lie, but they still capture people, typically in very tight handcuffs that itself leads to pain and lasting injury, and keep them in jail for awhile until judges and juries free them. But they don't really care about convictions. It's the terroristic bullying that's the point.)
Psycho Steve has been relentless in expanding the street war on immigrants, aiming to triple the current pace of arrests. Richardson theorizes that such escalation could create greater resistance in communities, that could then be interpreted as social unrest. This could push Chaos to its long threatened declaration under the Insurrection Act--and a cascade of consequences that could include cancelling the 2026 congressional elections, or at least surrounding polling places with armed stormtroopers.
The third story, appearing in the Atlantic, is about the trend among top Chaos officials to move their residence onto military bases, supplanting the actual military officers designated to live in those houses. The latest is Psycho Steve. But both State Dept.'s Rubio and Defense Dept. Hegseth will live on "Generals Row" at Fort McNair (at least after a $137,000 renovation to Hegseth's home), while Homeland's Kristi Gnome moved to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling.
The Atlantic story and others interpret these movies as cowardly responses to public indignation and opposition to their racism and cruelty. But if civil unrest is expected or at least feared, and a military response in the works, they'd need to live behind the castle walls.
(There's also a certain niece of King Chaos who claims that her uncle's destruction of the East Wing is a cover for upgrading the bunker known to exist under it, because he was "rattled" by No Kings.)
And immigration is hardly the only sensitive area. In other parts of the world, civil unrest seems to occur most often over the issue of food. Scarcity, high prices and access to food taken away often lead to food riots. Literally today, more than 40 million Americans who depend on federal food assistance are without it. They are mostly children, women and seniors, and they are mostly white. You wouldn't get that impression from the MAGA mouths, including congressional and state officials as well as social media ranters. Entire communites will be affected, especially those that depend on small grocery stores that themselves depend on these funds for their narrow profit margin.
Already long lines are reported at food banks, and in Texas and California, stadium parking lots became mass food distribution sites. Even if this particular cruel outrage doesn't continue long, how unrealistic is it to imagine that Chaos officials are watching those parking lots closely. Even though nobody pays it any attention anymore, nevertheless millions of children and others elsewhere in the world are still starving and dying of preventable diseases and injuries because US aid was summarily ended. Those millions are invisible to us (thanks in part to an increasingly hapless, compromised and poor news media). But what happens if they are a lot closer?
