Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Will Trump Become Il Duce (Mussolini) or just Turkey's Erdogan


The question we need to ask is whether Trump will end up like Ill Duce (Mussolini) or Turkey's Erdogan?

Ruth Ben-Giat has studied fascism from her position as Professor of History and Italian studies at NYU. She recently outlined on CNN what you can expect from authoritarian individuals like Donald Trump.

1. Because he's the kind of leader who cultivates a special bond with some of his followers, he can be expected to adapt the presidency to fit his needs.

2. He sees the fact that he lies and acts aggressively towards the press as a good thing, something to be lauded. When he refused to let Jim Acosta of CNN ask a question, and said "fake news," he acted very proud of what he'd done. Because Erdogan has jailed thousands of journalists, he praised Trump for putting Jim Acosta "in his place." We have to hope that Trump will not move to criminalize the media.

3. Beginning with the judge who was to hear the Trump University case, Trump is not afraid to belittle members of the judiciary who get in his way. Judge Gonzalo Curiel will not be the last judge to face Trump's wrath. Faith in our judiciary is a prime component of the formula that has made America "really great" over more than 200 years.

If the Republicans let Trump turn America into a Banana Republic, America will no longer be the leader of the free world or the place to which people want to immigrate. Denigrating representative John Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, means he doesn't understand the country he's supposed to run and the heroism it takes to preserve it. It will take all of us to stand up to his brazen lies in his attempts to weaken our democracy.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

The Rolling Odor of Corruption


The rolling odor of corruption has begun to fill the office of the presidency before Trump even takes his place as our new leader. If you read the 35 pages on Buzz Feed you find them easy to believe. What is the difference between the comments made by Trump to Billy Bush on the bus and the story about our new president's indulging his perversions in Moscow. Is it really hard to believe that for five years Putin was creating Trump to help bring down our democracy?

When they asked  Trump voters if they believed everything he said or felt he was innocent of the perversions implied in his soliloquy on how women will let him do anything, they said no, they didn't necessarily like what he did; they just wanted a change.

And so now every day there is a new national obscenity. The American people decided they didn't care if they elected someone who represented decency or strength of character. Like some hissy fit, they just wanted a change.

Now we may have the real Manchurian Candidate in our White House because no one thought an election was a serious thing. No one believed that a blowhard could be Putin's agent.