We cannot afford to be complacent.
That's the message Philip Bobbitt, a former senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, delivered in the New York Times on 10 September.
In an essay headlined, "The Next Terrorist Attack Is Predictable" (gift link), Bobbitt wrote:
America faces another set of predictable attacks from two looming perils. Both stem from the emergence of artificial intelligence and its widespread availability to those who would harm the country. The first is an A.I.-designed cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure that could imperil the financial and health care systems, or any other internet-connected network on which we rely for our national well-being. The second is a biological attack mounted by small groups or even nihilistic individuals using A.I. to design and deploy a deadly and highly contagious pathogen.
As someone who wrote a memo in 1999 warning that "the United States would be struck on the American homeland by Al Qaeda within two years," Bobbitt clearly understands the external threats of terrorist networks and rogue states better than me.
But it's now more than a quarter of a century since the attacks of September 11.
A third of the country is too young to remember that day.
As 9/11 recedes into history, a much more recent trauma — January 6, 2021 —now ranks as the most significant attack against America to occur on U.S. soil in the last 25 years.
Most would agree that the "predictable attacks" Bobbitt foresees are, indeed, perils for which we must prepare.
But Bobbitt's essay in the Times completely ignores an even more immediate threat — and a major difference between 9/11 and 1/6: Donald Trump, the mastermind of January 6, is still at large. And he's now more powerful and more dangerous than ever.
Plus, as Trump reminds us on virtually a daily basis, he fully intends to keep attacking America.
How and Where Trump Might Attack Next
We're 50 days away from the midterms. Trump's approval ratings are in the toilet. Republicans are on the ropes.
In a normal ("free and fair") election, it would be a shock if Democrats didn't retake the House this November. And, though the odds were initially stacked against them, polls show that Democrats have a real chance of retaking the Senate, too.
Despite all the dirty Trump tricks and Supreme Court shenanigans we've already seen, YouTube influencers and prominent Substackers are now oozing with confidence that this year's Blue Wave simply cannot be stopped.
But we cannot afford to be complacent.
As I first warned in March 2025:
Everything is now in place if a psychopathic president, in league with power-hungry oligarchs, ever wanted to trigger a national crisis, crash the dollar, declare martial law, and cancel all future elections.
Back then, people told me I was worrying unnecessarily. "States, not the president, run elections," said some. "He's not allowed to do that," said others.
He's also not allowed to knock down the East Wing of the White House. Or end birthright citizenship. Or start a war. Or bribe people to vote. But that doesn't mean the January 6 ringleader won't do the thing he's not supposed to do.
Given Trump's hardwired psychopathy, increasing dementia, and rapacious corruption, we should prepare for three dangerous possibilities:
- Trump Attacks the Midterms
- Trump Goes Hog Wild for the Next Two Years
- Trump Creates an AI Disaster That Changes Everything
Each of these possibilities becomes even more perilous given Trump's ability to enlist billionaire allies and committed enemies of democracy like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel to his cause.
Here's what we must be ready for:
Trump Attacks the Midterms
The attacks we already know about are bad enough. But worse may lie ahead.
Throughout his second term, Trump has not hidden his desire to rig the 2026 midterms in Republicans' favor.
Most notably, Republicans have successfully redistricted house seats in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisana, and Alabama. Those changes were intended to deliver 16 seats directly to the Republicans. But changes in California and Utah cut that swing to 10. The latest polls have cut that likely gain to just four seats.
Even as a compliant Supreme Court, a corrupt USPS, and an eager DHS have worked to enable Trump's election cheating, the courts (and Senate rules) have delivered enough setbacks to account for Trump's growing desperation over the midterms.
But we cannot afford to be complacent.
In a recent conversation with LOLGOP, Dave Karpf, an author and political scientist at George Washington University, warned that the midterms could be further screwed with by:
Polling sites cut, early voting choked off
Legitimate votes tossed after the fact
A Supreme Court that won’t stop any of it
Billionaire money, already reactivated
Even possibly gun-toting J-6ers at polling places
Earlier this month, as Canada's Globe and Mail reported, Peter Van Praagh, president of the Washington-based think tank Halifax International Security issued a warning that "U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to steal the 2026 midterm elections":
Mr. Van Praagh said the President will lie about the 2026 midterm elections if the Republicans lose in "such a methodical, systematic and overwhelming way" that, if successful at persuading enough people, "will cause confusion, instill fear and reduce confidence that democratic institutions are strong enough to protect the American people."
He added: "If these efforts are successful, it will be the end of the United States as we know it."
On 11 September, retired conservative judge J. Michael Luttig warned that a "catastrophic end" for American democracy could come on 3 January if Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to seat newly elected House Democrats.
Were this to happen, Luttig notes:
"Judicial review of the House's decision not to seat Democratic representatives-elect in the 120th Congress would take weeks, if not months, during which time the United States would be in the throes of a paralyzing constitutional crisis, helplessly vulnerable to all the world's evil, as it would have been in January 2021 had Mike Pence not thwarted Donald Trump's plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election."
Trump chose the same day as Luttig's warning — the 25th anniversary of 9/11 — to issue what many saw as a new "stand back and stand by" command.
He commemorated his historic attack on America by reposting his own video from 1/6 in which he told the terrorists how much he loved them even as they were still storming the U.S. Capitol.
Trump Goes Hog Wild for the Next Two Years
Let's hope that Democrats prevail in the midterms and Mike Johnson emerges as the new Mike Pence.
But even then, we still cannot afford to be complacent.
Trump has already proven he has the capacity to endlessly obstruct and continuously distract from investigations into his crimes.
In the face of his ongoing policy disasters and ever-falling approval ratings, amid a deluge of Democratic inquiries into his personal and family corruption, Trump has already soft-launched numerous potential "Wag the Dog" scenarios that he could activate during his last two years in office.
But, as his still-unauthorized war with Iran drags on, Trump may not even need to invade Canada or annex Greenland.
A major escalation in the Middle East would dominate American politics for months — and drain interest in what will likely be painstaking and slow-moving investigations into the Epstein cover-up and Trump Family corruption.
In Trump's demented octogenarian years, his reckless presence on the world stage could further strain alliances and embolden enemies.
Any miscalculations with China over Taiwan or North Korea's nuclear testing or Russia's war in Ukraine — or a major breach of U.S. cyber defenses — could cause a cascade of flashpoints that become difficult or impossible to de-escalate.
As readers of this newsletter know, Trump's "moral insanity" — i.e. his clinical psychopathy — means there's literally nothing he won't do to save himself.
As Dr. Vince Greenwood told me last month:
The chaos we are experiencing largely flows from impulsivity, characterized by a lack of restraint and dereliction. Because of his impulsivity, Trump can’t help but:
Act quickly without considering the consequences
Continue to display no aptitude for governance
Fail to plan or persevere with any substantive task
Lurch from one egocentric need to the next
With literally nothing left to lose, and as his physical and mental declines accelerate, Trump will continue to act, as Susie Wiles, the Chief of Staff told Vanity Fair in December 2025, as if "there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing."
And it doesn't end there. There are also the risks posed by the Trump-aligned tech billionaires, led by the man who hacked the U.S. government last year, Elon Musk.
In the months and years ahead, AI-shaped political messaging will, at a minimum, have the power to target and manipulate voters at an individual level.
But as Musk looks to shape the post-Trump world, his alliance with Dear Leader could set the stage for previously unimaginable, AI-powered chaos.
Trump and Musk will be helped as needed by the other regime-friendly oligarchs hoping to lock in their own wealth and cement their power in a tech-fascist world that reduces the rest of humanity into digital serfdom.
Trump Creates an AI Disaster That Changes Everything
There are only 50 days until the midterms and everyone, including Obama, is finally focused on the "catastrophic risks" of AI.
But even if AI doesn't make humans extinct in the next two years, we still can't afford to be complacent.
One theory of how an AI disaster could play into the hands of Trump and the Crypto Bros is a home-grown version of the kind of "predictable" terrorist attack Philip Bobbitt discussed in the Times.
This scenario was explained to 3.4 million YouTube followers by financial influencer Andrei Jikh on 2 September.
It's a plan in which AI seemingly "goes rogue" with the only solution being "forced participation" in a new form of "financial repression" in which stablecoins replace the U.S. dollar.
This is how Jikh describes the scheme playing out, starting on a day when all the money in people's bank accounts suddenly disappears:
You wake up one morning, you log into your bank, and your checking and savings account show zero.
All your money's gone. Banks freeze. People can't get to their savings and nobody could have stopped it, right? It's the powerful AI.
So, what do you do? The banks step in like the good guys that they are and they're like, "Good news, guys. We can restore your balance." But there's just one condition. It can't come back to you as the dollars you had before because that system's compromised. Those rails aren't safe anymore. So, we're returning your money on a new system, a more secure one in the form of digital dollars and stablecoins. Of course, most people are probably going to say yes to this because the alternative is they lose all their money. But that is how you get hundreds of millions of people to opt into a new monetary system without needing to pass any laws.
In the short term, notes Jikh, the country would face a national security crisis severe enough to justify cancelling elections:
Everything would have to be postponed or cancelled in the name of national security. Because how would you run an election if nobody trusts the system anymore? And if the voting doesn't happen, that's how you might extend a president's final term without ever having to win a third election, which would obviously be unconstitutional.
And that is how you usher in a new financial paradigm of digital money and the global surveillance plan.
The plan sounds crazy. And normally it would "be hard to find a president who would allow all this to happen," notes Jikh, as an article about the "Trump Family's New Crypto Bank" is displayed on the screen.... "Unless, of course, that President had millions of reasons to allow it."
Conveniently, the legal framework for the plan is already in place.
Trump's 2025 GENIUS Act requires stablecoin issuers to back their assets with U.S. Treasuries, allowing them to pocket the interest on the Treasuries, while being legally compelled to pay zero interest to holders.
So, yes, the plan sounds crazy. But it may be easy to sell it to our corrupt President and his incompetent Treasury Secretary. Especially because, as Jikh tells it, it may be the "only realistic way out of the $40 trillion-worth of debt."
In conclusion: No one can predict what challenges we will face over the next 50 days or the two years after that.
But if nothing else, remember this: There will be surprises. Trump will continue to attack. We cannot afford to be complacent.
Thanks for reading and sharing! And an extra special THANK YOU to all my paid subscribers*, past and present, and contributors to my "coffee fund." While paid subscriptions are always welcome, I’m continuing to offer all content free, so choosing a “free” subscription means you'll never miss an issue of UNPRECEDENTED. (*Subscriptions are billed to TLD Media, LLC)
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See also:
EXPOSED: Trump's 3-Part Plot to End Free Elections in 2026, via Democracy Docket (12 June, 2026)
Dave Karpf says I should worry more about Trump stealing votes than AI chatbots, via LOLGOP Studios (2 September, 2026)
BOMBSHELL: Expert warns Trump is GOING TO TRY IT, via David Pakman Show (8 September, 2026)
The hidden dangers of Musk’s votesafe.org, via Popular Information (8 September, 2026)
Ballot seizures seemed impossible. But judges and officials are prepping for them now, via NPR (9 September, 2026)
The Election Deniers' Long Game, via The Atlantic (10 September, 2026)
Trump Is Preparing for Another January 6th—and We Need to Be Ready, via Endless Urgency (12 September, 2026)
Trump Will Cause The Next Financial Crisis, via Andrei Jikh (2 September, 2026)
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