It may be remembered as America’s real life “7 Days in June,” referencing the 1964 nail biter film about a coup takeover of the nation, “7 Days in May.”

The centerpiece event we’ll all remember was on June 1, the infamous walk that President Trump and his entourage took from the White House across Lafayette Square to the historic St. John’s Church in order for Trump to pull off an awkward photo opportunity holding a Bible while not saying a word as cameras clicked away.

The real photo op, of course, was the police riot that preceded it when, on cue, on an order given by Trump’s sycophant Attorney General William Barr, an array of heavily armed security forces used tear gas and pepper gas against a large throng of protesters to clear the path for Trump’s walk.

It was a stunning display of police state tactics to violently scatter lawfully assembled citizens for no other purpose than to elevate the image of a grimacing tin-horn dictator.

The optics of the event mark it as a memorable turning point in U.S. history, the moment which, if the national sentiment was there for it, the U.S. officially descended from a democracy into a military dictatorship.

Certainly there were those in that entourage who hoped it would be that way, Trump included.

But alas, the scene was so ugly that its net effect was the opposite. It turned the stomach of countless patriotic U.S. military and other leaders to the point that over the course of the next week, very critical signals were issued from military leaders the likes of Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John F. Kelly, former White House chief of staff and Gen. James N. Mattis, former Secretary of Defense.

They and others all made it crystal clear that there will be no military coups, even in the event that Trump is crushed which appears to be more and more evident will happen in the November election. If anything, should Trump resist, it will be the military that will march in to forcibly escort this man out of the White House into the waiting arms of authorities who can be expected to swiftly arrest and indict him.

There will be no resistance. Trump’s legions of civilian supporters packing their assault weapons, those not sick with Covid-19, will be far too cowardly to lift a finger to protect their man against the full armed force of U.S. law.
After the seminal events of the first week of June, Trump and his team are being forced to come to grips with this reality, including the polls showing him falling further and further behind his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

It’s time for Trump to start plea bargaining right now. Any credible backing he might have had, as a tool of profoundly immoral financial interests willing to prop him up to enhance their rape of the nation, has already turned to walk slowly at first, but stepping up their pace for an eventual sprint as best they can, those not sick with Covid-19, for cover.

The damage has already been done. Through the rank stupidity of their efforts, their party will relinquish control of the entire U.S. government this fall. The U.S. Senate will join the House in turning as blue as the deep blue sea.

Part of the 7 Days of June was to include the launch of a domestic shooting war pitting Trump rightwing militias uniting with police and military forces against the marauding so-called Antifa hordes trashing and looting inner cities. Barr tried to set the table for this by falsely identifying Antifa as a domestic terror organization responsible for the violence and looting that characterized late night activity following peaceful protests of the death of George Floyd.

That sham turned out to be very short-lived, too, as intelligence agencies were quick to expose the real source of violent rhetoric and violence to be Trumpian rightwing white nationalist groups like Identity Evropa and others disguising themselves as leftists.

The result was the violence and looting stopped on a dime, the coup scenario busted.

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.