The Trump Dictatorship

[b.c.]

POST NO. 17,000​

Some have held that those of us, on the left, who have been repeatedly horrified by Trump's tenure in the Oval Office and the never ending veritable shit show of scandals, malfeasance, power grabs and the overall undermining of democracy as a whole, are just "butt hurt" over his having slipped into the White House by a minority vote.

However, if one looked backed through my posts to around the time just after the election, they'll find one where I had speculated that MAYBE Trump wouldn't turn out to be as bad as all his rhetoric and the hate based ideology behind it portended.

Had HOPED that just MAYBE having done what he clearly didn't actually EXPECT to do (because even he OBVIOUSLY didn't think that many people could be that moronically GULLIBLE)...

but having then actually achieved the office, that MAYBE he was chastened by the importance of the occasion... forthright in his election night pledge to be a president for all the people. That maybe to our surprise he'd rise to the occasion, the RESPONSIBILITY, the HONOR, the INTEGRITY required of the office.

Yeah... I hoped that for maybe a NANOSECOND, relatively speaking. Up until he immediately started naming agency heads who'd CLEARLY be the very antithesis of what roles those agencies were supposed to play. When he nominated the likes of Sessions, and empowered the likes of Stephen Miller, and obviously UNQUALIFIED stooges and charlatans and immediately proceeded to hobble government in any way he could.

And when the cronies and suckups he'd chosen, primarily for THAT particular qualification, didn't suck ass enough to HIS liking... didn't obstruct justice at his beck and call or place their own heads on the chopping block in HIS name, Trump replaced them with even GREATER ass kissers like Barr.

And then came the undermining of the intelligence agencies, the sidling up to other dictators, the emolument violations, the nepotism, the subjugation of the Supreme Court, neo-Nazis in the streets who were "very fine people," the rise of hate speech, the dismissals and insults to military leadership, the quid pro quoS, and the Senate sham NO trial whitewash of the only impeachable offense (out of many) he was IMPEACHED for, after which it was essentially argued that Trump was INDEED about the law...

...it was right about then when Trump's tenure in the White House became nothing resembling presidential (not that it EVER did) and, for all PRACTICAL purposes, became a DICTATORSHIP.

And all subsequent actions and pronouncements of his, including his recent insistence that "he has the power to do what he has the power to do," his incitement of his cult followers to insurrection against U.S. governors, his removal of oversight on the handling of vast sums of money... that and more, has only served to SOLIDIFY that argument.

The end result being that, in EFFECT, rule of law, separation of powers, perhaps democracy ITSELF, as we KNEW it, is for all intent and purposes, ALREADY GONE. And the American people sat back and WATCHED it happen.

Some analysts, political observers, and scholars think likewise:

• Sarah Kendzior Predicted the Rise of Trump Years Ago—Here’s What She Thinks Now

• Donald Trump plunges democracy into a three-alarm fire of corruption

• Donald Trump just wants to rule over a corrupt regime FOREVER | Salon.com

• Lawyers Alarmed by Trump's Inspector General Purge | Law & Crime

• Dr. Lance Dodes on Trump: A "predator" who "would be in prison" if he hadn't been born rich | Salon.com

What say you?

 

[halcyondays]

These two dictators laugh openly because they know they are and Trump's just a wannabe.

 

[Gj816]

I say "butt hurt" is an understatement. Since the night of the election Democrats have had one agenda. Removing or marring this President.

Failure to accept that Trump wron against Clinton and trying to unite the country. The Democratic body has done everything in their power to nullify the election. Even members of the FBI using their power to survey Carter Page in an attempt to keep Trump from winning the election at any cost. Which i might add, that no one has been charged with actually colluding with the Russians from Trump's Presidency.

Of course we'll have to wait until special prosecutor John Durham finishes his investigation to see whether any of the former FBI agents are prosecuted, or if they are cleared completely.

While I personally think that President Trump would be better served by staying off Twitter, and stop the name calling. I also think the we the American people would be better served if the liberal media as well as other media outlets dropped their war on the President.

I'd much rather they report facts as opposed to opinions. However, I understand why the President uses Twitter. I just don't agree with his use of it. These are different times we're in. While you see it the way you've described. I and many on the right see it completely different. Some of us see it as he's more Presidential than the former. Some people believe he brought dignity back into the White House.

As far as appointments to the US Supreme Court and other departments. If Clinton had wron she'd have appointed people of her choosing as well. In addition many of us felt that if Clinton had won, it would have been a continuation of the Obama administration.

 

[b.c.]

These two dictators laugh openly because they know they are and Trump's just a wannabe.

Yes, but a wannabe who's already been allowed to get away with TOO much. Calling it out for what it is, WAY overdue.

Dr. Lance Dodes on Trump: A "predator" who "would be in prison" if he hadn't been born rich | Salon.com

excerpt:

"I recently spoke with Dr. Lance Dodes, a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and now a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. We discussed the coronavirus pandemic and what this crisis has revealed about Donald Trump's mental health and behavior.

Dodes was a contributor to the bestselling volume "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President," and is a regular guest on MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell".

In this conversation, Dodes explains how the coronavirus pandemic offers further evidence of Trump's predatory, sociopathic behavior and his lack of care or concern for other human beings. Trump's programming and behavior, in fact makes him perhaps the worst person imaginable to lead the United States through the coronavirus crisis.

Dodes also explains why too many people, especially in the news media, remain in a state of deep denial about Trump's behavior and the depths of his mental pathologies."
​

‘Trump would love to be dictator-in-chief’: MSNBC legal analyst slams Trump’s threats to states – Raw Story

 

[marlins]

I once worked at a restaurant in Brooklyn and he and his father came in for lunch. During their conversation His dad slapped him across the back of his head - wish I could do that now..........we have been TRUMPED.........shame...........

 

[halcyondays]

Yes, but a wannabe who's already been allowed to get away with TOO much. Calling it out for what it is, WAY overdue.

Indeed. But the horrible precedents he and his Republican Senate have set will come back to haunt them in the future.

From now on it's all stonewall all the time. No future president will ever be removed from office legally except by election. Nixon said it in the Frost Interviews: "Well when the President does it, that means that it's not illegal."

 

[b.c.]

Indeed. But the horrible precedents he and his Republican Senate have set will come back to haunt them in the future.

From now on it's all stonewall all the time. No future president will ever be removed from office legally except by election. Nixon said it in the Frost Interviews: "Well when the President does it, that means that it's not illegal."

And I presently have serious doubts that we can still even count on THAT ("elections'). Mind you, Trump even as we speak is inciting insurrection against American governors and having a lot of chat time with Putin, another dictator.

The question any sensible person should be asking her or himself about now is what might he do if he, his GOP enablers, and the far right extremists and supremacists who've already taken to the streets, and who vociferously support him (including those eagerly anticipation their "boogaloo") become convinced that he CANNOT win in November. History I think, ALREADY tells us who's aid insurrectionists have sought in making war against fellow Americans.

Here are some interesting excerpts from one of the articles I linked in my op Sarah Kendzior Predicted the Rise of Trump Years Ago—Here’s What She Thinks Now :

If you’re not following Sarah Kendzior on Twitter—well, you should be. The journalist, author, and scholar of authoritarian regimes has been delivering hard truths about Donald Trump and his increasingly authoritarian regime since well before his 2016 election, and unfortunately, her track record is excellent.

Posts, warnings, and predictions that may have once seemed speculative, doomsaying, or worst-case-scenario are now part of our accepted reality. Her 2016 e-book, The View From Flyover Country, garnered so much praise and attention that it was republished in 2018 and became an unlikely New York Times best seller; it also earned her a barrage of death threats."

Kendzior:

I was saying things before the election that people didn’t want to hear: that Trump had a very good chance of winning; that he was connected to organized crime, and to Russia; that he worked with white supremacists. These were obvious things—I don’t think it took great insight. But people didn’t want to hear this then.

I don’t care what people who aren’t going to look at the facts, or who’ve made up their mind in advance, will say. I write for whoever is willing to listen.

Before I was writing about the United States, I was writing about dictatorships in former Soviet Central Asia, and I began to notice a lot of parallels between what happened to the U.S. after the 2008 economic collapse and the kleptocracies in the former Soviet Union. And then people working with dictatorships started sending me death threats.

... he has backers, and those backers have their own agenda, ranging from the transnational and kleptocratic Russian mafia to the Kremlin itself, which wants to get rid of sanctions, to various American plutocrats like Mitch McConnell, who use Trump to their advantage—to stack the federal courts with right-wing judges, among other things—to white supremacists like Stephen Miller.

But all of this information about Trump’s lifelong criminal activity has been documented, for years—it just wasn’t brought to the forefront when voters needed to know about it.

Trump covers up crime with scandal and covers up malice with incompetence. His administration would like you to think that they’re inept, that they’re just stumbling into these situations. That’s not the case.

we’re ... seeing Trump using classic mafia tactics. People like Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer for years, discussed these tactics under oath: He’s shaking down different governors, trying to weaponize this pandemic by making people from different cities and states resent each other and battle over resources

He’s flaunting his power and bullying people. He doesn’t care if Americans live or die. And that might sound harsh and blunt, but that’s the truth of the matter.

We’re facing a dire illness; unemployment is at record rates; people can’t get out in protest, and can’t get together to organize. Everyone is very frightened. This is an ideal time to be an aspiring autocrat. This is the kind of situation where autocrats consolidate their power. You might think this could wake people up, if anything could.

I don’t think he even cares whether his base lives or dies—they’re just pawns to him, background players in the reality show of the Donald....​

 

[b.c.]

COVID-19 is accelerating the Republican Party’s descent into authoritarianism | Salon.com

Trump and his allies within the GOP ecosystem are hostile to democracy. Their response to the COVID-19 outbreak clarifies existing authoritarian trends within the regime and the broader Republican coalition and provides a pretext for accelerating them.

Most recently, Trump fired both the Inspector General for the intelligence community who complied with the law and passed on a whistleblower complaint about Trump's attempt to strong arm Ukraine to Congress, and the Inspector General originally responsible for overseeing over $2 trillion in pandemic bailout funds. (We'll return to these offenses.)

In "How Democracies Die," Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt provide a checklist of authoritarian behavior which weaken and eventually destroy democracies. They include:

• Undermining the legitimacy of elections;
• denying the legitimacy of political opponents;
• tolerating or encouraging violence and attempts to curtail civil liberties,
• including or especially the freedom of the press.

The Trump administration checks every box.

Once we accept that the United States is functioning more like an autocracy, the bumbled response to COVID-19 starts to make much more sense. And that understanding also allows us to better prepare ourselves for the opposition that's required to defend our democracy.

But first things first: The Trump administration knew months ago that this pandemic was going to be bad."

​

 

[b.c.]

Trump declares himself a dictator. Blue-state governors organize. A breakup is now on the table

.
In a Monday overwhelming with Big News, these two events kinda got lost:

• Impeached president Donald Trump declared himself a dictator.

• Democratic governors (and one Republican) banded together on the West Coast and Northeast to actually do the things that the federal government, in its rank incompetence, has utterly abdicated.

Both events are related.

First of all, Trump really did declare himself a dictator.

TRUMP: "When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that's the way it's gotta be. It's total." pic.twitter.com/zIuiBn1Mhw — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 13, 2020 ​

.
Now see in mind, in the same propaganda conference, Trump claimed that his power was absolute, yet he shouldered none of the blame for literally pulling off the worst coronavirus response in the entire world. It was a ridiculous conference for sure, so nuts that the CNN chyron writer just dropped all pretenses and filters and went to town.

But declaring his power “total” and claiming the states couldn’t do anything without his approval was just another whole level of delusional. Asked for where such power derived, he said “We are going to write up papers on this. It's not going to be necessary because the governors need us one way or the other. Because ultimately it comes with the federal government.”

Don’t ask what the hell he’s talking about. Even he doesn’t know."​

.
.
The scary part being he doesn't HAVE to know wtf he's talking about. He can get away with MAKING IT UP as he goes along.

Because government is broken, and accountability (IF not democracy itself) has already DIED.

 

[Tight_N_Juicy]

The guy flat out says "I have total authority".

Anyone who says he's not a wannabe dictator probably doesn't know what that word means.

 

[ozwestcoastboy]

 

[Lookinginconshy]

Read Madeleine Albright's book Fascism . It really hits it on the nail. It will frighten you about the direction the Trump family is taking us and we seem helpless to stop it and we are footing the bill for it. After reading the book, you will see a little bit of all the historic dictators in Trump. It is scary.

I think the press should just stop covering his tweets and daily press conference as they only add fuel to followers bigotry and creates a confused smokescreen that he wants to hide behind to dismantle all the former administrations social, economic and ecological good and rewrite history to serve and enrich himself, his family, his cronies and a few equally subversive foreign interests where his family wants to gain entry and business rights. If the press only would report news of his actions and ignore his insane rantings, tweets and not attend his press meeting then I think we would see him start to fade as his ego would not take too well to being ignored. He has made our country into one of the biggest messes in the world, alienated our allies and is leading us into total disaster while his family has their hands in our wallets.

I, for one, am so tired of hearing about his daily rants and accusations. I hunger for real news, real international news not the antiseptic nightly network hogwash.

We need a competent strong President with compassion, understanding and humility. He needs to see the global big picture and understand our place in it. A willingness to listen, compromise when needed and seek the advise of other who are experts in their field (not greedy relatives). Sadly, I do not see any such good candidates (declared or otherwise) anywhere on the horizon.

This is my opinion and if you are offended then you are offended, nothing I can do about that.

 

[b.c.]

Thank you for your input. Agree with the first part, not so much the latter.

I think there are news sources that call him/it out for what he/it is and I think Biden, though not perfect, would be a WELCOME alternative.

 

[gr8gatsby]

We are very lucky as a nation that Trump is generally unhealthy, at least 80 pounds overweight and still gaining surviving on a diet of fatty foods.

 

[b.c.]

Behind Trump's threat to the U.S.P.S.... his beef with Jeff Bezos.

Trump challenges Amazon to 'build their own post office' if the company balks at his idea to charge it up to 5 times more in shipping rates as part of a USPS bailout
.
.
MEANWHILE, the "not a bigot" "not a racist" "chosen one" is hard at work (between suggesting bleach drinking and whining over press coverage) DISCRIMINATING against mixed marriages and members of the LGBTQ community:

Lawsuit filed against Trump over stimulus checks denied to those married to immigrants | TheHill

.
The Trump administration is facing a lawsuit filed Friday over a provision in the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package that denies stimulus checks to more than 1 million U.S. citizens married to undocumented immigrants.

The plaintiff is a man using the pseudonym John Doe who claims the administration is discriminating against him “based solely on whom he chose to marry.”​

Trump could allow doctors to discriminate against LGBTQ people - Vox
.
Christian right activist heading civil rights office at HHS moves closer to killing protections for LGBTQ patients – Raw Story

.
Roger Severino, a Christian right activist who heads the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights is one step closer to his own personal goal of removing protections for LGBTQ patients, a move that would allow discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.

Under Severino’s leadership the Trump administration has been moving quickly toward the final stages of dismantling critical protections for LGBTQ patients, Politico reports. The Dept. of Health and Human Services has sent a draft of its rewrite of an Obama-era policy to the Dept. of Justice for review, a sign it could soon announce the rollback of hard-fought regulations protecting some of the nation’s most vulnerable people.

.​

and another of Trump's sycophants end up UNDER THE BUS. (Surprise surprise) Will they ever learn?

New White House press secretary brutally mocked after she gets steamrolled by Trump – Raw Story

 

[Braalian82]

We are very lucky as a nation that Trump is generally unhealthy, at least 80 pounds overweight and still gaining surviving on a diet of fatty foods.

expecting us to believe he’s only 236 pounds is surreal. If he isn’t 300, he’s damn close.

 

[gr8gatsby]

expecting us to believe he’s only 236 pounds is surreal. If he isn’t 300, he’s damn close.

I totally agree, he's got to be right around 290 pounds. I believe 40 of that gained since he's been at the White House watching television.

 

[keenobserver]

I totally agree, he's got to be right around 290 pounds. I believe 40 of that gained since he's been at the White House watching television.

Edit suggestion - insert between House and watching "eating Big Macs 24-7 while".

Carry on.

 

[b.c.]

People keep referring to that "bus" Trump has thrown SO MANY of his idiot cronies and collaborators under. The way I figure it, can't be just ONE bus. Not enough ROOM for all of 'em. I figure Trump must have a fn FLEET of busses he's thrown his sycophants under... with route names like "The Tax Evasion Express" "The Emolument Special" and a good dozen OTHERS.

Under which MANY, who've foolishly aligned themselves with him, spoken on his behalf, covered for him, and WHO KNOWS what else ... would eventually WIND UP. Whenever it became politically expedient for Trump to toss them there like used up Kleenex, or whenever they failed to do his bidding, or kiss his ass enough to HIS liking. Ask Jeff about that. Cohen too.

Now it seems that Fox News, who's supported, promoted, been an echo chamber and covered for the con-man in Chief, hasn't done so enough to his liking EITHER. Such being a hazard of taking in snakes:

Furious Trump Strikes Wildly At Fox News And Other Media, Insists Reporters Return 'Noble' Prizes | HuffPost
.https://www.axios.com/trump-fox-news-tweets-oann-733fb51c-59c2-47e9-bf68-ff8e2c39216c.html
Trump blasts Fox News, says he wants an "alternative" network - Axios

meanwhile:

West Point calling back 1,000 cadets so Donald Trump can give mid-pandemic commencement speech

Trump's decision to hold an in-person graduation at West Point proves he is unfit

 

[b.c.]

Y'know it comes as absolutely NO surprise that the very people who've benefited the MOST from government support WOULD the VERY SAME PEOPLE crying about someone else supposedly "on the dole."

But hey, that's NOTHING NEW. People like Trump and the GOP have been ON THE GRIFT just about their whole f-------- LIVES, in one way or another, whether by bank bailouts, corporate welfare, tax cuts and loopholes that THEY make sure benefit THE WEALTHIEST 2 PERCENT, low interest loans and tax havens... you NAME it, while they stuck it the average Joe, INCLUDING their bamboozled constituents who run to the polls to empower them time and time again.

There are whole THREADS herein devoted to the subject... like THIS ONE:

B L O C K E D

Seems NOTHING"S changed:

Trump declares only the states that like him are America

Trump is on the McConnell “blue state bailout” bandwagon, it looks like. What a way to unify the country in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic and economic crisis. He should know about bailouts given his personal financial history, but the truth is the big blue states have been bankrolling the red states for, well, ever. And done so happily, because this is the United States, and for a majority of the country, united is what it’s all about.​

Gov. Cuomo Schools Trump On Red State 'Takers' After Tweet About Blue State Bailouts | HuffPost

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed back at ... Donald Trump Monday, informing him that it’s Republican red states — not New York and other blue states — that are sucking up more national resources than they’re contributing.

The Democratic governor was responding to a tweet by Trump complaining that the nation shouldn’t have to bail out “poorly run states.” In “all cases,” Trump claimed, they are “Democrat run and managed.” He specifically named Illinois, headed by a fierce Trump critic, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D).

“If you want to go to who’s getting bailed out and who paid what, nobody would be bailing out New York state,” Cuomo said at his daily press briefing, calling New York the “number one giver.” The state has been “bailing” out red states for decades, Cuomo said.

In fact, the top six of eight states that pay more to the nation than they get back from the federal government are blue states.​

Florida, Kansas and Missouri, bailed out ANNUALLY by blue America, now whining about returning favor