Since January 20th, 2025, when Trump pardoned the January 6th, 2021 coup participants, it has been clear that he was not doing it so much for what they had done, but for what he still needed them to do. Now, as he prepares to give over $1 million in cash to each and every insurrectionist, we need to know what that will be.

Since the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Callais decision just three weeks ago, the former Confederate states have been in overdrive, using the decision as cover to eliminate any remaining representation for the country’s black population. It is an obvious and total power grab and a constant reminder that the Americans never fully resolved the question that caused their civil war more than 160 years ago.

Trump is what the president of the United States would look like if the Confederate States had comprehensively won that war. He is, in essence, the first Confederate president of the entire union. Everything he does is about enriching himself and his fellow slave-owners, suppressing minorities and those he considers beneath him, and consolidating his own power and wealth.

With the American population turning on him, but his fellow pedophiles, billionaires, and white supremacists wanting to hold on to power, the situation is vastly more dangerous than we allow ourselves to believe.

The MAGA Republicans are openly stealing Congress. Their Supreme Court is enabling them in every way they can, while some of the nation’s top jurists are facing serious allegations of corruption in their own right. And yet, in spite of the plain evidence of all three branches of their government being rotten to the core, there is enough of a subset of the population that still supports them to enable it all.

Just enough.

The Trump administration wants to keep that fervently loyal crowd on board with the promise to these poor uneducated racist folk propping up this fetid government that they, too, can become rich if they are sufficiently loyal to the mad king.

And thus comes his latest project, the details of which started leaking on Friday.

The Treasury department has a slush fund called the Judgment Fund, intended to settle “actual or imminent litigation against the government.”

As you may have heard, Trump has been pursuing a lawsuit against the United States Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion, accusing the government of unauthorised release of his tax information during his first mandate. Of course, he controls the department that has to respond to that suit, and he has no qualms about conflicts of interest. The settlement he is offering is to drop the lawsuit, and use this Judgement Fund instead to pay $1.7 billion out to anyone deemed to have been oppressed by the Biden administration — such as participants the January 6th coup.

They are even calling it a “weaponisation fund.”

January 6th had approximately 1,500 identified participants. $1.7 billion is over $1.1 million per person of government money being prepared to pay directly to those who attempted to seize the federal government.

There is an election this fall that the MAGA Republicans cannot win fairly, and might not even win unfairly. Holding on to power may require violence, if graft and cheating are not sufficient. And the message from the Confederate administration is clear: if you participate on our side, we will protect you and we will reward you. We will even make you rich. So get ready, we’re going to need you.

None of this is by accident. The election this fall will not be normal. Do not expect the United States to restore itself to anything resembling a functional democracy through action limited to electronic ballot boxes that do not even keep proper records. They are preparing to hold on to power by force, and are preparing the brownshirt army to help, in plain sight for all to see.