Last night I had the privilege of being included in a Zoom call with Steve Bannon, former investment banker and media executive, host of the “War Room” show and chief political strategist during the first seven months of Donald Trump‘s first term in office. Much of what Bannon presented wasn’t surprising, but what seemed significant was that he confirmed that Trump and his team will go on the offensive from day one in office. “The days of thunder begin on Monday,” he said, and the world will not be the same again. Bannon wasn’t talking about Trump going on the offensive against the Chinese, Iranians or the Russians. Trump and his team are preparing to take on the “they.”

“They,” in Bannon’s words, are the people who control the world’s most powerful empire and, elections or no elections, democracy or no democracy, they will not voluntarily relinquish their privileges and the control over their empire: there will be a fight. In a few recent podcasts, I discussed what this likely implies, simply on the basis of what the nature of this power struggle entails.

Namely, taking on the imperial cabal is a fight to the death. “They,” are vicious, unscrupulous and extremely vindictive. If Trump and his team falter in this struggle, the cabal will not content themselves with merely defeating Trump politically. I believe they would not relent until they entirely destroyed him, his fortune, his collaborators and his family.

The price of defying the Empire

When the United States declared independence from the British Empire, the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were not just a bunch of belligerent rebels with nothing to lose. In many ways, they were similar to the people flanking Donald Trump today. They were all educated men of means and privileged members of society.

Of the 56 signatories, twenty four were lawyers and jurists; eleven were wealthy merchants; nine were farmers and large plantation owners. In signing the Declaration of Independence they provoked the wrath of the empire, knowing for sure that if they were captured their penalty would be death. Five of them were in fact captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons and another two had their sons captured and imprisoned.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships in the revolutionary war. Carter Braxton, a wealthy planter and trader saw all his ships sunk by the British Navy. To pay his debts he was forced to sell his home and his properties. He died a poor man. To avoid capture, Thomas McKeam had to move his family around the country almost constantly. He served in Congress without pay and his family was kept in hiding. Ultimately, his possessions were taken from him and he too, died in poverty. The home and properties of Francis Lewis were destroyed and his wife was jailed. She died within a few months.

The properties of Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton were vandalized and destroyed by British troops or their proxy terror squads. British General Cornwallis took over Thomas Nelson‘s home for his headquarters. It was destroyed during the battle of Yorktown and Nelson died bankrupt. John Hart had to flee his homestead after his fields and gristmill were destroyed. For over a year he hid, living in forests and caves. When he returned home, his wife was dead and their 13 children all vanished. The grief and distress killed him within a few weeks. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

When the imperial cabal decided to break up the United States, which precipitated the Civil War, they were confronted by President Abraham Lincoln. In 1863, Russian Czar Alexander II came to Lincoln’s aid by dispatching his Baltic fleet to New York and his Pacific fleet to San Francisco. The move blocked the Empire’s intervention on the side of the Confederation, which was planned by the British with the support of France and the Vatican. The U.S. – Russian alliance ultimately prevailed and the United States was preserved.

But to exact their revenge, the cabal dispatched assassins. Abraham Lincoln was killed in 1865, shortly after the end of the Civil War, and Alexander II was assassinated in St. Petersburg in 1881. In 1917 the whole family of the Czar Nicholas II was killed by the Bolsheviks on the orders of the New York banker Jacob Schiff. Arguably, the low life expectancy among the Kennedy family men is also likely due to their propensity to irritate the imperial cabal.

I do believe that Donald Trump and at least some of the people around him are probably well aware of all this and understand the stakes in the struggle they took on. During our call last night Steve Bannon confirmed that this is indeed the case. The nature of this conflict dictates that “they” can’t be left standing and whoever comes into the White House after four years of Trump will be tasked with continuing the struggle until the imperial cabal is entirely uprooted and disenfranchised.

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The clash is global and it’s between two systems of governance

Just like in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere, what we’ll witness is another front in the struggle between two systems of governance. In that sense, the geopolitical conflicts around the world will likely be subordinated to the civil war shaping up in the United States, which could prove the central battle in the whole conflict. That civil war might not resemble the civil wars of the past with large armies fighting one another in fields and insurrections in cities. Instead, we’ll likely see chaos, sabotage, assassinations and terrorism in the U.S. – but also in Europe and the U.K.

One of the participants in yesterday’s call was also Christine Anderson, member of the German AfD party and the European Parliament. She reported that the authorities in Germany, as in France, UK and other European nations, are “berserk,” and that the Trump election has pushed them over the edge of overt authoritarianism which they no longer even bother to conceal.

As a result, there’s open talk about cancelling the upcoming 23 February elections in Germany, and more aggressive censorship of social media. Elon Musk‘s recent interview of AfD leader Alice Weidel only added to the hysteria and now German authorities want to prosecute Musk as they construed his interview of Weidel as an illegal campaign donation.

Participants from the UK reported perhaps the most distressing news, agreeing that the situation in the nation is simply awful, that they do not even recognize their country. One doctor said that he sees that people are increasingly giving up and many are “losing the will to live.” One concrete piece of news, which was confirmed to be true, is that for some months now, elected politicians no longer appoint judges in Britain. I did not understand who does appoint them as our call ran overtime before I had the chance to ask, but I’m sure it’s probably some really nice people.

Another distressing development in the UK is the upcoming Climate and Nature Bill which, if passed, will legally enshrine Britain’s commitment to net zero policies, which could prove devastating to its economy including the energy market, farming and industrial output. I elaborated what net zero entails for the British economy in this article.

In all, it seems that the days of thunder begin next week. These are the times to be brave. Maybe Trump and the people around him just want a bigger slice of the pie and there’s nothing more to it than that. But perhaps the struggle is bigger than that. Steve Bannon recently spent four months in prison – not a country club, as he said, but a real prison. Trump had two, perhaps more attempts at his life. The struggle is very real.

However, Trump’s adversaries are in a panic, according to Bannon. Most of them really didn’t think Trump would win the elections last November. Bannon said that Trump is a “blunt force instrument,” and that the cabal sustained a “blunt force trauma.” Hundreds, perhaps thousands of their minions, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, are jockeying to obtain pardons from the Biden team, even on a pre-emptive basis. Well, we’ll find out – it won’t be boring.