When We Have a Clear & Present Danger Like Trump, There’s A Lot to Say…In our 3-part weekly posts, we organize the important news of the week to help you keep up with all the important political stories, since in this unprecedented Trumpian era the headlines shift fast & furious. Part 2 always has a particular emphasis on the internal dangers to our democracy emanating from sinister forces, where we especially expose the world of deceptive grifters who comprise the far-reaching right-wing media echo. As a long-time close political observer, also formerly being a lifetime GOP supporter & Fox News viewer, plus involved in my white evangelical church, I’ve clearly seen the dramatic shifts & changes that have taken place. It ain’t pretty! Please share our blog while we’re still free to express ourselves, since if the autocrats get their way, someday it might become too late as free speech could be suppressed.
And if he is re-elected, do you believe that Trump, having completed his destruction of the internal guardrails inside the executive branch, would stop? Or would he begin to attack the guardrails around the other two branches of government? Maybe by refusing to honor and enforce congressional legislation. Or openly disobeying court orders under a claim of constitutional supremacy? What used to be unthinkable has now crept its way into the mainstream, like a nightmare. Americans have spent generations during which the largest threats to our political system were external. Today, the threat is coming from inside the house.
Autocratic Dangers
The GOP base has suddenly developed a liking for autocracy. Maybe they want to follow in the footsteps of the Nazi Party from 1930’s Germany: washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/07/gop-has-caught-autocratic-fever. As Americans who love our freedoms, the rest of us need to grasp the enormity of the moment, since we are tasked with the monumental role of preserving our democracy. This blog is one of the tools we can use to warn our fellow Americans of the real threats we face when a major political party has gone off the rails & latched onto a demagogue, so this is no time to catch our zzzzz’s as seen in excerpts from dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/3/1876375/-Sleepwalking-Into-Autocracy:
What some of us are being kept awake at night worrying about didn’t happen overnight. The erosion of the foundational institutions of our Democratic Constitutional Republic has been a long-term process. The problem is that too many American citizens haven’t been kept awake at night. Just the opposite in fact; they’ve been asleep, comfortable in the delusion that “things will be alright” regardless of whether they actively participate in the maintenance of those institutions or not. Blame for what the Trump/GOP axis is doing to undermine the institutions of our democracy is, in large part, rightly to be laid at the feet of those who gave up a long time ago. I heard far too many people – all good and well-meaning people I’m sure – say that they were “sitting out” the 2016 elections because “they were tired of the politics” and saw no point in participating. Forget about the Mueller investigation that focused on “collusion” and “election hacking” and all that sort of stuff. What produced the electoral victory of Donald Trump was apathy, indifference, and discouragement and those elements have been a slow poison that go back long before Trump appeared on the scene. He simply took advantage of it while manipulators like Putin capitalized on it.
“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” – Robert M. Hutchins
“The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.” – Montesquieu
When I have seen and heard clips from any of Donald Trump’s MAGA Rallies I cannot help but be reminded of other rallies in the past. Like those past rallies, all present look to their Leader only, mindlessly chant approved slogans, and with very few exceptions look like cookie cutter props. There is no evident diversity either in appearance or in thought; there is only obedience and conformity. Those old rallies of the past? They were held at a place called Nuremberg. “Hold on now!” I hear some saying. “Comparing Trump with Hitler is a worn-out trope that goes too far! Don’t be such an alarmist by overstating your critique that way.” Well, I understand and perhaps we are fortunate that Donald Trump has neither the talents, the intelligence, nor the competence of a Hitler. Point made. But one thing he most certainly does have is the same instinct for Party and crowd control and, worse, for autocratic rule. And if he is successful in 2020 and remains in office for another term he will prepare the way for others to follow who may, indeed, have even more in common with a Hitler, a Mussolini, and/or a Stalin because if that happens we will have fallen asleep and it may be too late to take back our democracy. I am reminded of the words of Dietrich Boenhoffer, a German pastor who was executed by the Nazis for speaking out and resisting Hitler’s grab for total power: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
For those who still aren’t taking this fascist threat seriously, please review this valuable history lesson: nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/is-there-hope-for-the-american-republic-after-trump.html. There might be a window of opportunity for pushing back on autocratic tyrants to advance democratic freedoms. That would require America stepping up to assume their traditional leadership authority, something our current president is reticent to do since he seems to side with dictatorial authoritarians:
Trump Putting Henchmen in Charge of His Gestapo
Any leader like Trump aspiring to be an autocratic dictator needs puppets around him to carry out his devious deeds. Trump has been orchestrating a power-grab where loyalists are placed in important governing positions, which features having his corrupt lapdogs do his bidding at the highest levels of Congress, the courts, media & other influential groups. Installing cronies extends to his cabinet & important intelligence community posts, surrounding himself with corruption & incompetence. Those who refused to bow & worship Trump like McCabe & Strzok were fired & are now suing, while many others apparently have been forced out, otherwise known as a purge:
Impeachment News
No other president has ever deserved to be impeached more than Trump. Let me count the ways. He’s a liar, divider, con man, corrupt to the core, abuser of women, racist, bigot & whose angry rhetoric inspires domestic terrorists. If that weren’t enough, there’s credible evidence he’s a criminal. His abuse of power & glut of clues showing illegal activities are so profound, if he weren’t the president, he might be in federal prison by now. Sadly, even if Trump gets impeached & forced from office by the end of this year, I’m still not sure our nation will ever recover.
Jerry Nadler is not mincing words: politico.com/story/2019/08/08/nadler-this-is-formal-impeachment-proceedings. We’re just waiting on more hard evidence to be found, since Trump has repeatedly committed obstruction of justice which has masterfully covered-up unveiling the worst of the criminal actions. The clock is ticking as we’re heading into an election year, but once concrete proof of more felonies are uncovered, the calendar won’t matter how close we are to November 2020. Our nation would have the constitutional duty & authority to impeach in protecting the rule of law & our democracy. On that note, there are fervent efforts going on with the investigations to reveal the facts, which here are relevant recent articles on that topic:
No collusion? Maybe there was:
The Mueller Report illustrated, with neat drawings which reads like a crime drama since that’s exactly what it is:
This lawsuit to compel Don McGahn to testify could open up the floodgates to speak with other Mueller witnesses:
And as I’ve always said, following the money will find the biggest crimes:
He was always working the system to keep bad news out of the public eye:
Fox News Full of Racist & Bigoted Hate-Talk
Much of what is seen on Fox fake news goes beyond simply lying to us. They are also conduits for evil as their inexcusable rhetoric fanning the flames to domestic terrorism shows. Time & time again we post articles in Part 2 basically proving the Fox prime-time lineup is comprised of radical lunatics. The shame of it all is the difficulty of convincing their brainwashed viewers of that sober reality. But we keep trying, so here are more recent links below.
Fox has no scruples, as they have the gumption to deceive America for profit:
Whenever Trump gets in trouble, he hides away in the foxhole with his Fox fake news protectors:
Tucker Carlson is not only a racist & bigot like Trump, he’s also an idiot. There is no excuse for excusing pure evil!:
The fake news is concentrated in the far-right media echo, enhanced by white supremacist hate speech & Russian bots that exploit our divides:
Carlson, Ingraham, Dobbs among those Fox hosts giving rise to the racist/bigoted great replacement aspirations:
The evils of white supremacy are mirrored by the inflammatory rhetoric often heard on Fox such as Carlson’s show:
The Fox host xenophobe has a pattern of making despicable comments:
It’s time for him to go, & take your disgusting compatriots Hannity & Ingraham with you:
Going inside the viper’s den to call them out:
Shame on those Dems who use dirty words, when the provocative language on Fox only inspires domestic terrorists:
The echo bends over backwards to find their silly excuses:
The echo & even mainstream media put the previous administration under a microscope & demanded they abide by the highest standards. All that has gone out the window with Trump:
The echo is having conniption fits, but this donor list is publicly-available information:
Seeking to make social media a full-fledged echo member:
They attacked our democracy in 2016, which is likely to become much worse in 2020:
With many of these radical sites planting the seeds of fascism:
Trump even uses radicals in his ads:
A great book explaining the emergence of the echo & how they became such a destructive force:
Uniting Dems
Sure, Dem candidates are riding the wave of anti-Trump rhetoric to score political points with their base, but when they call Trump names like he’s a racist, they’re just stating the obvious. Biden & other Dem candidates have justifiably let him have it:
This gun/white nationalist/domestic terrorism issue has certainly united Dem candidates against the target they need to bring down, that being President Trump. In analyzing the issue, other countries have similar issues with mental health & violent video games, but don’t have anywhere near the tragic problem of regular mass shootings. The real difference is in the gun laws, which in America are irresponsibly & outrageously lax! That’s the bottom-line reason why so many innocent Americans are losing their lives. Without action, what’s going to happen is Trump, his GOP & the NRA will cause many more deaths from their inaction. When we’ve hit the warning radar of Amnesty International, we’re in a very bad place:
Doing Nothing on Guns is Not an Option!
We may have finally reached the tipping point on sensible gun legislation, with even some right-wing pundits coming to realize we must do something. The prez said this week he wanted background checks, but he also stated that after Parkland before the NRA talked him out of it. Fully expect him to cave to the NRA again, but public sentiment needs to win out on background checks & banning assault rifles. Red flag laws are fine but not nearly enough:
President Trump just isn’t up to the job, not possessing the essential qualities of a president which has become more obvious with each passing day. In the aftermath of the horrible mass shootings, his first national address called for unity but was a jittery, halting performance resembling a hostage video. He then went back into his both sides nonsense like he did after Charlottesville (the number of deaths caused by Antifa compared to white nationalists is like a grain of sand on Waikiki Beach):
Our jackass-in-chief then claimed his rhetoric brings people together, which his pleas for unity were a load of crap, as during that same day our prez unjustifiably bashed our Senator Brown by tweet after consoling the Dayton victims. You don’t go off attacking local officials when a community is grieving & trying to heal (but apparently Trump does). On the one lone day his role was to be comforter-in-chief, he still couldn’t resist going off on his partisan attacks:
Then he concluded his day after visiting El Paso in which his main message was exclaiming how much the people loved him (actually the hospital victims refused to meet with him). But it was never about consoling the victims, he was only trying to show off his leadership chops. One loyal staff minion tried to shape the narrative by opining the prez came off like a rock star. But by all accounts the trip came off as inappropriate with more residents being upset than comforted, while the president’s renowned lack of empathy showed through. Trump was even caught on video with hospital staff bragging about his crowd sizes. As always with Trump, it’s always all about him, as there’s no end to his pettiness, shallowness, tone-deafness & tomfoolery. His visits were a simple assignment to show sympathy for the horrors these people were going through, but he couldn’t even pull it off. Even his staffers privately admitted his interactions were awkward:
Short Bits
And closer to these parts of Ohio, more hate attacks which are becoming epidemic:
Other nutballs:
Trump is not just helping domestic terrorists:
Trump’s reign of terror is also tearing families apart & abandoning children. By traumatizing kids which they’ll never forget, we may be breeding the next generation of domestic terrorists. Plus the timing of these raids is really suspicious. Especially view the video in this first link:
Sent to Iraq to die:
With a party hijacked by Trump, the GOP autocracy crusade is in full swing:
Don’t click on Trump’s robotic speech. Instead scroll down to the next video in taking a comedy break by clicking on Colbert’s monologue:
Stroll Down Memory Lane
I conducted this stroll down bad-memory lane because it’s important to realize how little Trump has ever cared about the sensitivities he tramples on Twitter, at his fascistic rallies, in his media-baiting press appearances, and in interactions with other politicians. He has staked his career on a particular segment of the population and its antipathy to nonwhite people and to the “political correctness” that inhibits full-bodied expressions of racism and sexism. Sure, he will occasionally distance himself, as he did in his brief comments on the El Paso shootings over the weekend, from those who take his hateful attitude over the brink into physical, as opposed to rhetorical, violence. But violating norms of decency is at the rotten core of his politics, and that won’t change until he’s truly off the stage.
Stand for Good by Fighting Evil
Real patriots, those willing to stand up for democracy & the Constitution, are not the far-right extremists:
It’s scary how the Devil can deceive God’s people when he unleashes a spellbinding servant to work for him:
Fast forward to 2016, and the next generation of expedient ‘Christians’ threw their lot in with a man so wholly lacking in Christianity that their hypocrisy was laid bare, visible to all. But the conservative evangelicals had met their soul-mate in shamelessness. And in a devil’s pact, they gave him the votes to enthroned him as their conduit to power. Are 17 religious leaders going to make a difference? I don’t know. Jesus only had 12 disciples. The leaders of the National Cathedral in DC have added their voice And there are millions of Americans who, if they vote in 2020, can scour this stain off America’s soul.
A top Baptist leader condemned white supremacy as a form of idolatry completely at odds with Jesus Christ’s teachings in the Gospels, after a racist gunman killed 21 people in El Paso and another gunman killed nine people in Dayton. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called on Christians to reject the hateful ideology that has motivated a string of domestic terror attacks in recent years in the U.S. and abroad. “White nationalism is not just another ideology, in a world filled with competing opinions,” Moore wrote in an essay posted on his personal website. “White nationalism is a manifestation of an ancient evil that we as Christians, of all people, ought to recognize immediately.” “White nationalism emerges from what the Bible calls ‘the way of the flesh,’” he added. “This is a form of idolatry that exalts one’s own creaturely attributes, making a god out of, for instance, one’s ancestral origins or one’s tribal culture.”
The Bible is filled with examples of Christ and his disciples explicitly rejecting tribal, racial and cultural identity to build a church on faith and justice. “For Jesus and for his Spirit-anointed apostles, there is no gospel apart from the exposure of sin, and the repentance demanded in its wake,” Moore wrote, “and one of the oldest manifestations of this flesh-worshipping devil-worship is racial superiority.” Moore warned that Christians must confront the sin of racial superiority, because the “way of the flesh” inevitably leads to hatred, injustice and violence. “Sometimes it comes into a store with an assault rifle aimed at innocents, or, as we have seen, in trains bound for camps,” Moore wrote. “This sort of bigotry and hatred and self-worship is not just a danger to society, but to the one who is gripped by it himself or herself. It is a way that leads to hell.”
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