Author | Lightnews

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

They didn’t overthrow the government — they made Americans march for them.
Fascism went quiet.
The long coup had succeeded.

Read more at Ordinary People Loud Ideas: open.substack.com/pub/ordinary...

The Long Coup, Part II: The Patience of Power — From America First to John Birch

When the Business Plot fizzled in 1933, America congratulated itself for being too stable, too democratic, too “exceptional” for fascism to ever take root.

open.substack.com

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

By the 1960s, the long coup had matured. Courts, media, schools, and think tanks ensured democracy served capital, not citizens. Violence was unnecessary; influence and ideology did the work.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

The Red Scare was the ultimate corporate counterrevolution. Unions, teachers, activists, and artists were blacklisted. Social democracy was stigmatized. Fear replaced ballots as the elite’s tool.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

The JBS perfected the paranoid style: anyone advocating for equality or worker power was a communist. Government was always the enemy. Corporate rule always the solution.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

By the late 1950s, Robert Welch founded the John Birch Society. Its mission? Fight communism, suppress unions, attack civil rights — all while training ordinary Americans to defend corporate privilege as “freedom.”

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

The America First Committee (1940) lobbied against U.S. involvement in WWII — not for peace, but to protect corporate interests. Corporate power masqueraded as civic virtue.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

The slogan “America First” was their first move. It wrapped elite self-interest in the flag, turning opposition to FDR’s New Deal into “patriotism” while quietly dismantling social democracy.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 1d

After the Business Plot failed in 1933, the ruling class learned a lesson: violent coups are messy. Influence is permanent. How corporate elites rebranded fascism as patriotism and built a long-term strategy. 🧵

#LongCoup #JohnBirchSociety #AmericaFirst #CorporatePower #RedScare #ColdWarAmerica

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 2d

The cameras are up. The mics are on.
But the people being watched haven’t been asked.

📍 Full story on Ordinary People Loud Ideas: 🔗 open.substack.com/pub/ordinary...

#Kentucky #SurveillanceState #FlockSafety #ShotSpotter #DHS #PrivacyMatters

The Kentucky Surveillance Web

How local cops, private tech, and federal databases built a statewide spying network

open.substack.com

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 2d

This isn’t conspiracy. It’s policy.
Funded by DHS grants.
Brokered by “public safety tech” startups.
Rubber-stamped by city councils that never read the fine print.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 2d

The fusion centers — like Kentucky’s Intelligence Fusion Center in Frankfort — are the nervous system of the surveillance web.
Local feeds in → Federal oversight out.
It’s the soft infrastructure of a domestic spying network.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 2d

ShotSpotter/Raven microphones are next: audio triangulation systems sold as gunshot detectors.
In reality? They record neighborhood soundscapes — and feed into the same “fusion” data hubs.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 2d

Flock cameras don’t just snap your plate — they log your route, time, and patterns.
That data goes to cloud servers, then to law enforcement networks linked to federal databases.
They call it “community policing.” It’s actually mass movement mapping.

1 1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 2d

From Pikeville to Paducah, local cops are signing secret contracts with tech firms.
They’re sold “public safety.” What they get: 24/7 license plate tracking and real-time location data shared with federal agencies like DHS and ICE.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 2d

NEW: Kentucky’s being wired into a national surveillance web.
Flock cameras. ShotSpotter mics. Fusion centers.
All feeding federal databases — and nobody voted for it.

🧵 A map of how the Commonwealth got caught in the net ↓

1 1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 4d

The Business Plot failed on paper—but the plot itself succeeded. The question isn’t if democracy can fail. It’s whether we’ll let it finish.

#BusinessPlot #LongCoup #FDR #CorporateAmerica #DemocracyUnderThreat #SmedleyButler #HistoryRepeats

open.substack.com/pub/ordinary...

The Long Coup: How America’s Rich Stole Back the 20th Century; Part I: The Coup That Failed on Paper

In 1933, while America was clawing its way out of the Great Depression, a group of rich men decided democracy was just too damn inefficient. They called it the Business Plot.

open.substack.com

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 4d

Today, Trump is the impatient heir to that same century-long strategy: accelerating a process built over decades to consolidate wealth and power at the top.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 4d

From courts to media to think tanks, the elite learned patience. Democracy could be bent without tanks in the streets. Every deregulation, tax cut, and anti-union law became part of the slow-motion takeover.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 4d

Congress called the plot “credible,” then buried it. No arrests. No trials. The men behind it walked free. The lesson was clear: coups are messy; influence is permanent.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 4d

They recruited a Marine general, Smedley Butler, thinking he could be bought. Butler didn’t just say no—he went to Congress and exposed them.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 4d

The plotters: DuPont, J.P. Morgan, Remington, GM, Goodyear, Chase Bank. The mission? March on Washington with 500,000 veterans to crush the New Deal.

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 4d

1933. America in the depths of the Great Depression. Wall Street billionaires hatch a plan: a private army to overthrow FDR. It almost worked—and no one went to jail. Here’s the story of the Business Plot, and why it matters today. 🧵

#LongCoup #FDR #CorporateAmerica #DemocracyUnderThreat

1

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 5d

Peter Thiel doesn’t need to run for office. His people already run the government.

Here’s how the billionaire who hates democracy quietly built a shadow state from Silicon Valley to D.C. 👇
open.substack.com/pub/ordinary...

The Thiel State: How One Tech Billionaire Wired Himself Into the Government

Peter Thiel doesn’t need to run for office. His people already run the government. Here’s how the billionaire who hates democracy quietly built a shadow state from Silicon Valley to D.C.

open.substack.com

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 7d

Bulldozers are chewing into the East Wing.

Trump’s building a 90,000-sq-ft ballroom onto the White House — privately funded by donors and totally unreviewed by preservation boards.

The People’s House is becoming a wedding venue.

🧱 Read: open.substack.com/pub/ordinary...

The Trump Ballroom: Turning the People’s House into a Wedding Venue

If that sounds absurd, it’s because it is. The White House was designed to be a working home, not a billionaire’s showroom. Every previous renovation, from Truman’s post-war overhaul to Obama’s quiet

open.substack.com

The Flannel Fist @theflannelfist.bsky.social · 7d

Every time power investigates itself, the truth comes out blacked-out.
And the rest of us are expected to pretend that’s justice.

✍️ Read the full piece:
“No Evidence — After They Erased It”
🔗 open.substack.com/pub/ordinary...

The Investigation That Never Was

You don’t party with a predator, praise his “taste in women,” and then play dumb when the spotlight turns on.

open.substack.com

1