Est. 1802 ·
  • Here’s One October Surprise, Anyway

    By James Kunstler
    October 23, 2026
    1

    “The Left has always preferred the ashes of its own making to the inheritance of better men.” —Celina101 on X

    Erica Chenoweth of Harvard (They / Them?) Master Color Revolutionary

    Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Originally on Kunstler.com

    By now, everybody and his uncle interested in public matters has probably read that a claque of current-and-former agency officials, ex-USAID busybodies, military officers, activist academics, Democratic Party paladins, and freelance communist jihadis has been exposed plotting the overthrow of the US government. The plot was reported by the diligent “X” blogger Jennica Pounds under her nom-de-plume “Data Republican,” who lately received an enormous document-and-recording dump courtesy of careless color revolutionaries who recorded themselves and saved doc files against orders, the dumb bunnies.

    Ms. Pounds, an experienced software engineer turned political detective, came to public attention early in 2025 when she assisted Elon Musk’s DOGE operation in building a database of NGO money trails emanating from the colossal USAID grant matrix — after which her identity was “doxed” by Rolling Stone and she underwent a harassment campaign.

    Of course, USAID was abolished early in the Trump 2.0 admin, and a lot of the “activists” defenestrated from it moved into scores of NGOs, with their salaries switched from taxpayer funding to the bank accounts of George Soros-connected orgs and sundry other shady characters like Shanghai-based Neville Roy Singham. These are the NGOs forever puling about “our democracy,” meaning their drive to punish, persecute, and push around Americans who demur from a communist future. Data Republican says her reporting so far is “only the beginning” of much more detailed and alarming disclosures.

    Coincidentally this week, their cover was also blown by Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI and former CIA analyst), who told an audience at the U. of Chicago that the Democrats intend to go after and wreck any young person who might think about working in the current administration. Ms. Slotkin, you might recall, was in that video put out a year ago — with five other US lawmakers — telling military officers they should-and-must refuse “illegal” orders. Sedition-lite, it looked like at the time.

    Before we get into the meat of their playbook for us, and what might happen in response, let’s just dox a few of the characters involved. You should know who they are (and maybe the DOJ should, too). They are not necessarily the usual suspects you’ve read about before like the omnipresent lawfare ninjas, Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, Mary McCord, et al., so busy filing frivolous lawsuits in the federal courts.

    For instance (as reported by one Eric Schwalm on “X”), there’s Erica Chenoweth, the transvestite professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of government who acts as chief strategist and hub for the “color revolution” planned by the United Democracy Alliance cabal she is associated with. Ms. (or Mr.?) Chenoweth’s big contribution to Jacobin thought is “the 3.5 rule” which says that if you can get that percentage of people out on the streets making a ruckus, you can successfully overthrow a government.

    Then there’s Danielle Reiff, former USAID, now co-founder of the Democracy Renewal Group, Renew American Democracy, and Renew to Thrive orgs. . . very verbal on video laying out the exact procedures for the US color revolution. And there’s Rear Admiral Michael E. Smith (Ret.) who runs a network of over a thousand retired military officers called National Security Leaders for America. He’s in charge of “role-playing” exercises in preparation for post-election hijinks. Then there’s Julia Roig, founder of the Horizons Project who is responsible for “building relational infrastructure so that disparate groups can act in concert without a single hierarchical command.” Then there’s Maria Stephan, co-author, with Erica Chenoweth, of the sedition tract Why Civil Resistance Works. Then there’s Brenden Halloran, former USAID, now with the Renew to Thrive org, responsible for “accountability ecosystems, overcoming fragmentation among groups, and long-term sequencing of reforms.” Then there’s Walt Roberts, also on the Renew to Thrive team, plus the Mediators Foundation and the Inter-Movement Impact Project. Then there’s Laura Adams, also former USAID, now in Renew to Thrive and PACT, whose mission is to turn strategy papers into operational plans. Then there’s Zoe Marks, also in Harvard’s Kennedy School, a “scenario-planner” for Horizons and United Democracy Alliance. Then there’s “cohesion” strategist Paul Zeitz, co-founder of UnifyUSA, partner with Danielle Reiff on Renew to Thrive, and active in NGOs Renew to Thrive and National Security Leaders for America. There’s the bunch. Now you know.

    Top row: Reiff, Smith, Roig; Center row: Roberts, Halloran, Adams; Bottom Row: Stephan, Slotkin, Chenoweth

    As to the coup playbook, here goes: The idea is to turn out massive street actions (protests and riots) in the blue cities, based on rumors that President Trump has somehow “interfered” in the election, and create enough chaos so that Mr. Trump would be tempted to invoke the Insurrection Act or some-such national emergency measure. The coupsters mentioned above, and their cohorts and underlings, have been quietly confabbing with blue state attorneys general and governors. These officials would unite to declare that Mr. Trump’s actions make him illegitimate, and would set in-motion procedures for said governors to declare the president a tyrant and an outlaw and themselves as the “new governing authority.” They would move from that to a new constitutional convention and bring about all the heralded revolutionary changes chattered about for months such as abolishing the electoral college and Senate, changing-up the Supreme Court, etc. Voila! Trump and his government are out! The Democratic Party (and their new DSA commissars) would take over and the punishments would begin. . . .

    But. . . what if President Trump doesn’t play along? What if he insists that the blue state governors must ask (or beg) for federal troops to be sent in to control the street violence in their cities before he commits to anything? Then the onus would be theirs, wouldn’t it? They will have asked for help? Mr. Trump will have obliged. How does that make him a tyrant? (It doesn’t, of course.) Or. . . the blue state governors might not ask for federal help and Mr. Trump could just watch their cities burn down. That would kind of be on the blue governors, too, wouldn’t it — hey, they didn’t ask for federal troops and their own feckless police couldn’t get the job done because: previous “de-funding” and all that nonsense.

    Then, how about Mr. Trump moves to arrest said blue state governors for sedition and treason (especially if they entertained any collusion with foreign operators, such as CCP-connected Neville Roy Singham’s NGO network or any of Soros’s overseas outfits)? And how about arresting and likewise charging many of those aforementioned NGO strategists, along with the governors? (And while you’re at it, throw in the lawfare ninjas who have assisted in all this mischief.) And how about after accomplishing that, the president then and only then declares the Insurrection Act, sends in federal troops to quell the street chaos, and moves to indict and try said seditionists and traitors in the military tribunal apparatus? There it is! Just some suggestions. . . .

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    David A. Santacroce

    William Shirer reported, post WW2, the allies found over 60 tons of incriminating documents concerning Nazi atrocities. They always keep records to prove what good nazis and goons they are.

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