Trump's Tyranny

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.…  

The only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…. 

                                                President Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933

Forget all the bad press.

Forget that Donald Trump has completely mismanaged the Coronavirus pandemic.  ( https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=873866223038639&id=261478257610775 )

President Trump addresses the media at the White House on Super Tuesday. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP)

“…so what if another corporate-neoliberal Democratic presidency in the Clinton/Obama/Biden-Buttigieg/Bloomberg/Council on Foreign Relations mode would birth a 2025 Republican presidency even more fascistic than Trump’s (if Biden could somehow defeat a possibly recession-plagued Trump)? The oligarchs don’t care. They’ll work out a comfortable accommodation with that monster, too.”

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Definitions of Terms Used in this Column:

A cult of personality arises when a country's regime uses the techniques of mass media, propaganda, the big lie, spectacle, patriotism, and organized mass demonstrations and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and worshipful image.

A cult leader is a dynamic leader whose authority is respected and unquestioned. Obedience to the leader is often required, even when it involves deviant or unhealthy activity. Usually, a cult leader is a person of tremendous charisma who makes followers feel loved and accepted. Cult leaders use brainwashing tactics to attract and keep followers.

A sociopath is a person whose behavior is antisocial, often criminally greedy, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility, empathy or social conscience. Sociopaths never sincerely apologize nor are they capable of exhibiting remorse for wrongs that they have committed. They always lie to cover their past misdeeds or future ulterior motives.

Satire by comedian Mona Shaikh and Ed Rampell-

The Evangelical magazine Christianity Today's editor rebuked the president in a December op-ed entitled "Trump Should Be Removed From Office."   In the interests of equal time we give the devil his due with an editorial response from a periodical on the other side of the fiery aisle:

Trump Should Reign for 1,000 Years

In our founding parchments, Lucifer explains that Satanism Tonight Dispatches will help diabolical Satanists interpret one-sided fake news in a manner that reflects their deep, utter lack of faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our Lake of Fire. It requires ranting and raving. And if anybody knows about witch-hunts, it’s us!

Extended Excerpts (with some editing) from a Democracy Now! Interview with Retired Army Lt. Col Lawrence Wilkerson – January 13, 2020 (2436 words)

http://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/13/lawrence_wilkerson_american_empire_war

I suppose you have to actually be convicted of a felony to be a felon, but I also think we should make an exception for U.S. presidents. Take the current one, for example. Donald Trump just murdered Iranian and Iraqi military officials at an airport in Baghdad. His staff later “briefed” Congress members on why these murders were “legal.” Congress members denounced the briefing as utter nonsense, and yet labeled the murders “a strike of choice.” People who have been convicted of murder, and who are properly called felons, never had the option of getting their crimes labeled “strikes of choice.”

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we do about peace - more about killing than we do about living."-- General Omar Bradley

“The moment we all feared is likely upon us. An unstable President is way over his head, panicking, with all his experienced advisers having quit, and only the sycophantic amateurs remaining. Assassinating foreign leaders; announcing plans to bomb civilians. A nightmare.” –Chris Murphy, US Senator (D-Connecticut)

Thanksgiving is gone and no thanks were given for the House Democrats’ unfolding plan for a quick, tidy, Christmas-wrapped impeachment package. Why are they doing it like this? What are they thinking? Why not take the fight to the president on all the available grounds? What is the rationale for a rushed process based on a fraction of presidential infractions? Why deliberately give up control of the narrative when you have mountains of evidence on your side?

That’s where the Democrats appear to be taking us. At this point, no one knows how it will turn out, and I long to be wrong in my apprehensions. But there’s not much to work with here. Democratic leaders don’t even explain their thinking publicly. The state of play as this is written seems unchanged from what CNN reported November 21:

This week on Talk Nation Radio: a rant on impeachment, in favor of doing it right or not doing it at all.

Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.

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