This is where we are. Read the whole thing:
Silverman on Security @silvermansecurity.bsky.social
[October 24, 2026]
Here is where I want to focus in. The Biden administration tried to return to normal, to reset back to historic norms under the belief/assumption that Trump 1 was some sort of historical aberration. 1/
1/26
Turns out the Biden admin was the aberration. A brief interregnum where an admin fiddled as the US smoldered before it was reignited into a conflagration that is burning everything to the ground. None of the actual leaders & planners for the events of 6 January 2021 were held accountable. 2/
2/26
BG (ret) Perry’s electronic devices were never examined because he claimed Speech & Debate clause protection & DOJ proceeded to go through w/the litigation on that. The Speech & Debate clause DOES NOT cover plotting an autogolpe & revolt against the constitution in various locales around DC!!!! 3/
3/26
Everyone may remember Marjorie Taylor Green & other Republican reps & senators leaving the White House after a planning session for the events of 6 January, going to the press set up, & making statements &/or taking questions. NOT COVERED BY THE SPEECH & DEBATE CLAUSE!!! 4/
4/26
Taylor Green had NOT even been sworn in yet!!!! And, yet, nothing, nada, crickets!!!! Just allowed to go on as if she hadn’t done anything, let alone tried to overthrow the constitution, constitutional order, & the Republic. Same w/all the other co-conspirators. 5/
5/26
Sure, about 600 or so schmucks & a couple of dozen hard core Proud Boys and Oathkeepers were prosecuted, but they didn’t plan the events of January 6, 2021. The people who did – Trump, Meadows, Perry, Taylor Green, Stone, Patel, & dozens & dozens of other elite & notable Republicans – walked. 6/
6/26
The attempt to prosecute Trump himself came way too late & was basically an afterthought partially forced by the congressional investigation that made it untenable for Garland & his team to keep keeping their heads down in the search for a return to historic norms for DOJ. 7/
7/26
And so an American Rubicon was crossed. The revolt against the constitution & constitutional order never ended. It was rolled into the GOP’s 2022 midterm campaigns & Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. And it eventually paid out w/his reelection & GOP majority control of Congress. 8/
8/26
But this was the crossing of an American Rubicon, not THE American Rubicon, because we’d already had several previous crossings of an American Rubicon. In 2000 the “Brooks Brothers” rioters, including Kavanaugh & Schlapp, shut down recounting activities in Florida. 9/
9/26
Which contributed to the Supreme Court selecting W as the 43rd president rather than let the legally authorized Florida recount continue. Every Republican official, operative, consultant, & lawyer involved in that was rewarded. An American Rubicon was crossed. 10/
10/26
This too was the crossing of an American Rubicon, but not THE American Rubicon. Because in 1980 an American Rubicon was crossed when Reagan’s campaign conspired w/the Iranian revolutionaries to NOT release the hostages in order to damage Carter & increase Reagan’s chance of being elected. 11/
11/26
Yet, this was also the crossing of an American Rubicon, but not the American Rubicon because in 1968 Kissinger, working for Nixon despite being employed as a peace negotiator by the Johnson admin, conspired w/the North Vietnamese to NOT agree to the peace deal on the table. 12/
12/26
This successfully increased Nixon’s chance of election, which in turn would see Kissinger elevated to Secretary of State, & prolonged the war for six more years killing thousands of additional Americans & Vietnamese. Here too AN American Rubicon was crossed, but not THE American Rubicon. 13/
13/26
Because in the early 1930s a group of hyper-wealthy elites, including such GOP stalwarts as George Herbert Walker & Prescott Bush, conspired to overthrow the constitution & constitutional order by manipulating the Bonus Army remnants thereby forcing an unelected fascist co-president on FDR. 14/
14/26
That plot failed thanks to Maj Gen (ret) Smedley Darlington Butler, but it was ultimately swept under the carpet by both Congress & the news media. 15/
15/26
In NOT a single one of these examples, in not a single one of these crossings of an American Rubicon, was anyone who planned, oversaw, or profited from these attempts to subvert &/or overthrow the constitution or constitutional order held accountable. 16/
16/26
The simple fact is that everyone who planned, oversaw, & profited from their actions got away scot free! There were either perfunctory, at best, investigations that were allowed to fizzle or everyone was told to move on, look forward not back. or trust in the strength of American institutions. 17/
17/26
What Trump, his aides, surrogates, & enablers are doing now, did from November 2020 through January 2021, & from January 2021 to January 2025 were at least the third, fourth, and fifth crossings of an American Rubicon in my lifetime. 18/
18/26
This 🧵 isn’t meant to demoralize, it’s not meant to critize Andy’s point, which is the only correct one. Accountability must come & it must be swift, severe, transparent, & final! 19/
19/26
The problem is the history of the US, just for the past 93 years or so, is that there is no accountability for attempts by Republican elites & notables to overthrow &/or subvert the constitution & constitutional order. Just more rewards & profits for doing so. 20/
20/26
We are where we are because there hasn’t been accountability. Even when our institutions were more or less intact, rather than completely subverted & now run by the people engaged in overthrowing the constitution & constitutional order. 21/
21/26
We’ve run out of American Rubicons. There’s no constitutional order to shore up, repair, & augment to prevent a next time because the constitution is what the GOP has revealed it to be: some nice sounding words on old parchment preserved under glass. 22/
22/26
That’s why the lively, & usually good faith discussion on here, about we have to reestablish fidelity to the constitution, constitutional order, & rule of law when trying to clean up this mess versus we need to be ruthless & not worry about it the way Trump & team have done misses the point. 23/
23/26
There’s no going back to what was normal. That’s broken. And not just broken, Trump, his team, his supporters have pulverized it. Something completely new will have to be established rather than the reestablishment of what was w/some renovations & reinvigorations. 24/
24/26
I don’t know what that new thing is or should be. I have some thoughts about it, but that’s for another day. 25/
25/26
What I do know is the reactionary revanchist revolutionary Trump/MAGA movement & its captured GOP have made sure that if we get through this, which is a big if, the rubble will have to be thoroughly cleared before we can begin to attempt to build something new & more capable of enduring. 26 & end/
26/26
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Adam Silverman is a national security professional who writes at Balloon Juice.
