Dark plot for worst Winter ever?

"We're going to have an amazing fourth quarter next year"--Donald Trump on May 15, 2020

Just yesterday, government scientist-turned-whistleblower Rick Bright testified before Congress that without a stronger federal response to the coronavirus, 2020 could be the "darkest winter in modern history."

Yes, he's making reference to the same current American "winter season" sparked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This winter isn't over until 2025. 

While the last winter season was a double-whammy harsh one that saw citizens suffer through both the Great Depression and World War II, this winter could easily pummel us with a triple-pounding--one that could be made excruciatingly severe by its planners and plotters.

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Designed by Johns Hopkins University, "Operation Dark Winter" was the code name for a senior-level bio-terrorist attack simulation conducted in June, 2001. Wikipedia: "Dark Winter was focused on evaluating the inadequacies of a national emergency response during the use of a biological weapon against the American populace. The exercise was solely intended to establish preventive measures and response strategies by increasing governmental and public awareness of the magnitude and potential of such a threat posed by biological weapons."

Last fall, The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic simulation exercise in New York City (October 18, 2019). Wikipedia: "The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences."

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When Steve Bannon was named President-elect Trump's chief White House strategist in 2016, he told  The Hollywood Reporter  he benefited from the left-wing media outlets labeling him as evil.

"Darkness is good," Bannon explained. "Dick Cheney, Darth Vader, Satan--that's power. It only helps us when they get it wrong; when they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."

A favorite book of Bannon's at the time was a primer on American winter seasons, called the “Fourth Turning,” written by historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. Bannon actually read the book three times and carried around a creased copy he had copiously underlined.

"Bannon has great admiration for a provocative but disputed theory of history that argues that the United States is nearing a crisis that could be just as disruptive and catastrophic as the most seminal global turning points of the last 250 years," reported the New York Times in April, 2017. 

The book says, "History is seasonal, and winter is coming. … The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, one commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II. The risk of catastrophe will be high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule."

Another summary: "In a Fourth Turning, the nation’s core will matter more than its diversity. Team, brand, and standard will be new catchwords. Anyone and anything not describable in those terms could be shunted aside — or worse. Do not isolate yourself from community affairs …. If you don’t want to be misjudged, don’t act in a way that might provoke Crisis-era authority to deem you guilty. If you belong to a racial or ethnic minority, brace for a nativist backlash from an assertive (and possibly authoritarian) majority."

The NYT article pointed out that Strauss and Howe started using the fourth turning phrase "before it became a pop culture buzzword courtesy of HBO’s Game of Thrones." The show is based on science fiction and fantasy writer George R.R. Martin's book series - "A Song of Ice and Fire" - "The plot, at its most basic, is a power struggle: who has it, who wants it and how they plan to get it. Interwoven are themes of honor, justice, revenge and redemption layered between issues of ethics, morality and familial bonds. Further complications involve incest, angry gods and avaricious bankers."
(new article tomorrow)