Trump Wanted So Stay In Office. Long Live Trump.

[Sixties Fan]

Any evidence Trump has is denied by you traitors. This is a one-sided clusterfuck for you. The chaos you are enabling is devastating this country. All to make lies the truth. That cannot be done and that is why you are failing.

I am patiently waiting for you to show evidence that he never wanted to be a dictator. That he never used his power of the Presidency to get his way on many things, that he never treated people like nothing, etc, etc, as these two articles very clearly do a synopsis of his stay at the WH.

 

[Lastamender]

I am patiently waiting for you to show evidence that he never wanted to be a dictator. That he never used his power of the Presidency to get his way on many things, that he never treated people like nothing, etc, etc, as these two articles very clearly do a synopsis of his stay at the WH.

I am waiting for you to show evidence that there was no fraud in 2020. You first.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 7

As for the Supreme Court, a moment of truth is approaching.

With three Trump appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court — Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett —it is possible that the court’s conservative majority will vote to shield a conservative president and accept his far-reaching claims of executive immunity. Such an outcome would further diminish the ability of the judicial branch to check executive powers and conduct.

These developments and strategies mirror what authoritarian leaders abroad have used to enlarge and entrench their powers. They almost invariably target the three key institutions that can hold them accountable as they move to consolidate power: independent courts, a free press, and civil society organizations.

These indicators are not irreversible, but they offer alarming signs of where the US may be headed. With the Republican Senate on a path of blind support for Trump and a Supreme Court that may accept his claim of absolute immunity from any kind of investigation, the legislative and judicial branches appear to be unable or unwilling to exercise their constitutional duty to check the presidency. And now, after three years in office, Trump seems even less restrained by the norms of presidential conduct that were guard rails for previous occupants of the White House.

According to Javier Corrales, writing in the New York Times, Trump is using the legal system like an autocrat.

Presidents across the world use diverse tactics to achieve unlimited government, but a common approach is to erode the impartiality of the law. The goal is always to use and abuse the law to protect yourself and your allies. This is called “autocratic legalism.”

The impeachment outcome and the Roger Stone and General Flynn scandals tell us that the process of creating autocratic legalism is already underway. The executive branch seems to have all that is needed to use, abuse and ignore the law to reward loyalists and perhaps even punish critics.

The president has been embracing the principle of impunity to loyalists since the 2016 campaign. At a famous violent rally that year, he told a crowd of supporters: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ’em, would you? … I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”

This is the quintessential autocratic cry: “Support me, and both the law and I will be on your side”. The biggest winner from autocratic legalism was of course the president. A famous study found that none of the 45,000 court rulings between 2004 and 2013 successfully challenged the president’s authority.

Autocratic legalism is not easy to achieve in democracies, but it is not impossible. Trump is reminding us how it is done. First, the president needs the ruling party to serve as a legal shield. Check. Then you saturate the legal system with partisan judges. In progress. Next, you begin to interfere in sentences.

Trump has already demonstrated an affinity for legal pressuring. His recent tirade against Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for being critical, demanding that they recuse themselves on all “Trump related matters,” betrays an impulse for turning the justice system into a support system.

The subsequent step in autocratic legalism is to use and abuse the law to target critics. This, too, is commonplace today among many countries with democratically elected presidents.

President Donald Trump is a most excessive person in anything he does or says. For example, he likes to take the so-called authoritarian “Mussolini pose”. He also likes to embark on totalitarian style “purges” of persons working for the United States government who do not heel to his commands, —persons he considers his “enemies”.

He surrounds himself with hard-core sycophants, lackeys and puppets, who are expected to give him a loyalty pledge, not a pledge to the U.S. Constitution or to the American people. Consequently, it is said that the U.S. under Trump is turning into a “banana republic.”

The current American president constantly attacks the freedom of the press, which is protected by the U.S. Constitution, calling journalists “enemies of the people” —an expression used in Nazi Germany. Donald Trump also shamelessly befriends other countries’ dictators and autocrats, while making fun of democratic leaders. And, to top it all, Trump has used in public the hubristic Nazi slogan of “God is on our side”, (‘Gott mit uns’).

As an authoritarian, Donald Trump is going further and further toward turning the USA into a one-man government, with himself a dictator-in-the-making, who openly yearns for unchecked, and if possible, absolute power. His plan, notwithstanding the U.S. constitution and its founding principles, is to transform the USA into a militaristic and neo-fascist state, with all the trappings, under his control, and with as few constraints as possible.

He is, by far, the most unprincipled and the most dangerous occupant of the White House that the United States ever had. He has no qualms in bulldozing American institutions if he feels such institutions are an impediment to him exercising full powers.

David Frum, writing in The Atlantic magazine, writes, “When early Americans wrote things like “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” they did not do so to provide bromides for future bumper stickers. They lived in a world in which authoritarian rule was the norm, in which rulers habitually claimed the powers and assets of the state as their own personal property.” He goes on to argue: “If citizens learn that success in business or in public service depends on the favor of the president and his ruling clique, then it’s not only American politics that will change.

The economy will be corrupted too, and with it the larger culture. A culture that has accepted that graft is the norm, that rules don’t matter as much as relationships with those in power, and that people can be punished for speech and acts that remain theoretically legal—such a culture is not easily reoriented back to constitutionalism, freedom, and public integrity.”

Did President Trump Want to be a Dictator? - Ray Williams

By Ray Williams November 30, 2020 Part 2 of the Article: Are Americans Becoming More Authoritarian Under An Autocratic President? Many observers have argued that America was slipping into an autocratic state under President Trump, and his current efforts to undermine the results of the...

raywilliams.ca

 

[Sixties Fan]

I am waiting for you to show evidence that there was no fraud in 2020. You first.

That was proven in other threads. Look them up.

Trump himself is aware that he lost the election fairly.
He may not have liked losing, but he is more than aware that he did.

 

[Lastamender]

Your whole article is projection. Are you smart enough to realize that? No, you are not.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 8

Conclusions​

George Orwell once said: “in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” If that phrase were a test, would you say that we — in fact you, yourself — are passing or failing it? Why don’t Americans seem to have any power over the authoritarian and fascist forces and tendencies in their midst? Why have those forces run amok, gleefully shattering institution after institution, norm after norm, to the point that concentration camps for infants have arisen in just two years — mere months — after the election of a demagogue?

More than any other political system, democracy—as Plato pointed out long ago—has the inherent ability to actualize its own demise. By manipulating the democratic process, elites can limit the freedoms of individuals or social groups and put in place authoritarian and autocratic leaders who are not democratically inclined. In a very concrete sense, democracy depends upon ordinary citizens’ capacities and motivations to absorb democratic values and tolerate those with diverse social, cultural, ethnic, and ideological backgrounds.

These are precisely the values that those on the right wing have been attacking for years, and they have exploited the inherent popularity of conservative ideology to do so. Social scientists have long known that highly threatening historical periods are accompanied by an increase in authoritarianism in the general population. Thus, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a predictable uptick in support for authoritarian conservatism, as well as decreased commitment to tolerance and the protection of civil liberties.

Whatever the proximal psychological causes, we are bearing witness—all over the world—to the rebirth of extreme right-wing movements that thrive under conditions of anxiety. These movements promise a return to “traditional” (often religious) values, a curtailing of reproductive and other rights of women (as well as sexual minorities), and a revival of nationalistic (often ethnic) pride and the “restoration” of national boundaries, along with a dismantling of the “administrative” welfare state and the imposition of illiberal reforms and vindictive immigration policies.

Once in power, right-wing movements flirt with (and sometimes embrace) totalitarian practices, such as intimidating and even incarcerating protestors, journalists, academics, and any others whom they find potentially threatening or disruptive. With the support of conservative voters, illiberal governments have gained power in Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Brazil and many other countries. Radical right-wing parties are also resurgent in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom.

Understanding mass psychology in this day and age, and the ways in which authoritarian politicians have so successfully tapped into it, is of paramount importance for understanding how this happened and how it can be fought; that is, for the long-term preservation of democratic systems.

To believe that America will retain its commitment to a vibrant democracy, and that any threats to it, including the authoritarian leadership of Donald Trump is only a temporary aberration, is wishful thinking and ignores the requirement that an informed and active citizenry represents all the citizens and protects democratic institutions. There’s an old story about how to boil a live frog so that it doesn’t notice you’re killing it slowly. You turn up the heat incrementally, but it is only aware of mild discomfort along the way and does nothing to save itself. And then it’s too late.

Did President Trump Want to be a Dictator? - Ray Williams

By Ray Williams November 30, 2020 Part 2 of the Article: Are Americans Becoming More Authoritarian Under An Autocratic President? Many observers have argued that America was slipping into an autocratic state under President Trump, and his current efforts to undermine the results of the...

raywilliams.ca

 

[Sixties Fan]

Your whole article is projection. Are you smart enough to realize that? No, you are not.

You are the one projecting. Gosh forbid you ever come to your senses.

 

[Lastamender]

That was proven in other threads. Look them up.

Trump himself is aware that he lost the election fairly.
He may not have liked losing, but he is more than aware that he did.

Trump has never conceded. And you people proved nothing because you said you do not have to. If you did those ballots and other things requested would not have been blocked from public scrutiny. These people could not act more guilty if they tried.

 

[MinTrut]

Its crazy how easy yall rubes fall for his trolls.
Blows the mind actually.

Their cultish adoration of Trump is summin elz, right?

 

[Lastamender]

You are the one projecting. Gosh forbid you ever come to your senses.

What am I projecting? I am telling you your posts are bullshit propaganda.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Trump has never conceded. And you people proved nothing because you said you do not have to. If you did those ballots and other things requested would not have been blocked from public scrutiny. These people could not act more guilty if they tried.

This thread is not about the election.
GO find the threads which talk about it.

 

[Sixties Fan]

What am I projecting? I am telling you your posts are bullshit propaganda.

Then do not read them. No one is forcing you to come to this thread and read or post to it.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 1

President Donald Trump reliably tells the truth on one thing: He likes the way dictators do business.

“He speaks, and his people sit up at attention,” Trump said on Friday morning of North Korean despot Kim Jong Un in an interview with Fox News — a network where he receives no shortage of praise. “I want my people to do the same.”

Some of the people who worked for Kim have been fired, “Fox & Friends” hype man Steve Doocy pointed out. Trump corrected him: “Fired may be a nice word.”

Some less nice words: Poisoned. Blown apart by anti-aircraft guns. Sent to work camps.

It’s not that Trump isn’t aware. Fox’s Bret Baier reminded the president of Kim’s record earlier this week during their Air Force One interview en route home from the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore that Kim is “clearly executing people.”

But the president blew Baier off. “He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father I don’t care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have. If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that,” Trump explained. “I think we understand each other.”

Vladimir Putin’s also a tough guy whom Trump praises for running his country well. So is Rodrigo Duterte, whose executions of drug dealers without trial in the Philippines is something Trump has said he’s looking into.

He’s spent the three years — to the day — since riding down that escalator in Trump Tower demanding loyalty, fantasizing about torture, dividing the country into “followers” and enemies.

“Using even language like ‘the enemy of the people’ — it’s a Stalin phrase. People say, ‘He’s a loudmouth, he’s never had the governing experience,’” said Eric Edelman, President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Turkey during the early days of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of power. “But what he has done is begun to stress these norms and stress them constantly, and people become inured to it.”

Donald dreams of dictators

In the three years since he first descended his golden escalator to announce his presidential bid, Trump has made clear he yearns for fealty along with authority.

www.politico.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 2

Edelman went on: “I’ve seen this play out in Turkey, and that’s how this stuff gets normalized. And after a while, people say, OK, that’s the way it is.”

This is perhaps the most important aspect of Trump’s approach: Make it seem normal. Old guardrails become distant memories. Is this time that he declared himself above the law such a big deal, or is it old news already, since he also said it last week or last month or last year?

He stocks his staff with supplicants and family members, then pits them against one another to watch them fight for his favor in a nonstop West Wing soap opera. His lawyer says, echoing Trump himself, that he could murder people and no one would be able to do anything about it unless they impeached him first.

Political enemies should be investigated and jailed, Trump says. He’ll pardon whom he wants to, whomever gets his attention by running to a Fox News set. He blames it on a justice system he undercuts. He says the Department of Justice inspector general’s report “blew it,” but also that it “totally exonerates me,” with the same logic that has him attacking NFL players for kneeling during the anthem but also saying he would pardon Muhammad Ali for refusing to be drafted on his own beliefs (although Ali’s conviction was already overturned by the Supreme Court, so he doesn’t need a pardon).

Debate over whether special Russia prosecutor Robert Mueller could be fired becomes a general acceptance that he probably will be — and then, among Republicans vying to demonstrate their fealty, an inevitability. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, with whom Trump has openly feuded, has gotten into the act, saying that he believes Mueller should “wrap it up.”

“We should definitely be concerned,” said Steve Levitsky, who included a dictator litmus test in the first chapter of the book he co-authored, “How Democracies Die.” “Unambiguously, Trump checks off all the boxes for a very authoritarian figure.”

If you’re offended, Trump and his aides say, if you disagree, if you want an explanation, you’re either an idiot or not a patriot. Free speech, by the White House’s definition last week, doesn’t cover protesting police. Trump’s press secretary and secretary of state both personally attacked reporters this week for asking for details on what the administration was doing, and in the course of it, said a number of things that were completely and clearly not true.


Or maybe you didn’t realize Trump was joking. That’s a go-to line for the president and his aides. Like when he said Democrats who disagree with him are committing treason, or said he thinks police should be “rough” when they’re arresting suspects. After yearning on Fox News for the treatment Kim enjoys at home, Trump told reporters he “was kidding and you don’t understand sarcasm” — then turned to the one who asked him about his praise for Kim and said, “You’re the worst.”

Donald dreams of dictators

In the three years since he first descended his golden escalator to announce his presidential bid, Trump has made clear he yearns for fealty along with authority.

www.politico.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 3

Accept whatever Trump says, Trump says, because he says that’s the only way to stay alive. That’s how he answered a reporter Friday who asked him how he could have so many nice things to say about the same man responsible for the death of Otto Warmbier, whom he spoke so passionately about last year.

“I don’t want to see a nuclear weapon destroy you and your family,” he said.

Trump and his aides insist that separating parents from their children is the law, though it’s not. He says that he’ll consider doing something for the kids if he can leverage it against Democrats for money to pay for his border wall. That would be, as he tweeted, Friday, a “WIN!”

The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda. Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration. Go for it! WIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2018

Meanwhile federal contractors are holding migrant kids in former Wal-Marts, where the walls are decorated with murals of presidents — including Trump.

“He’s completely reversing the vision that I encapsulate with Lady Liberty holding up the torch to the world and saying, ‘If you are an immigrant, we care about you,’” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who tried to tour a detention center two weeks ago and is leading a congressional delegation on another attempt for Father’s Day. “Deliberately injuring children to send a message, to send a message of deterrence to the world is the complete opposite.”

Merkley said a president who cared more about democracy and American ideals would have taken a different approach, but “Trump doesn’t have the ability to recognize and admit, ‘I did this, I am changing the policy, I am choosing to treat children horrifically.’” He added, “You can see the arc of the dehumanization of immigrants that created the grounds for treating immigrants like this.”

But Trump understands the dynamics of power and the media better than perhaps anyone who’s ever lived. He sees what people say he can’t do — and see what they don’t do to stop him when he does it.

When Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the courts during the Great Depression and Richard Nixon tried to bend the Justice Department to stop the Watergate investigation, they were eventually stopped by their own parties. Trump, however, seems to have cowed the Republican Party into shrugging off whatever he does.


“It’s one thing to elect somebody with authoritarian impulses, which we clearly have done,” Levitsky said. “Our people and our institutions need to stop him. What worries me most is that Republicans seem increasingly unwilling or unable to do that.”

When Pew Research last year polled the statement, “A system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts would be a good way to govern our country,” a third of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats agreed. When the Economist and YouGov asked, “Do you favor giving the government power to shut down ‘biased or inaccurate’ media outlets?” 45 percent of Republicans said yes and 18 percent of Democrats agreed.

Donald dreams of dictators

In the three years since he first descended his golden escalator to announce his presidential bid, Trump has made clear he yearns for fealty along with authority.

www.politico.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Everything President Trump Has Said That Sounds Like He Wants to be a Dictator (No, Really)

As Donald Trump praises dictator Kim Jong-un, look back at some of his most eyebrow-raising comments about history's worst tyrants

people.com

 

[Lastamender]

Then do not read them. No one is forcing you to come to this thread and read or post to it.

No, but someone has to be paying you. Are there substantial payments for selling out your country?

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 1

Autocracy expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat believes that while America remains a democracy on the national level, the system has been eroded particularly at a state level. | Erin Baiano


Michael Kruse: We’re coming up on seven years since Donald Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced he was running for president. I’m wondering where in your estimation we are in this country in the timeline of increasing authoritarianism.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: When somebody like Trump comes on the scene and holds office, it’s really like an earthquake or a volcano, and it shakes up the whole system by gathering in this big tent all the extremists, all the far-right people, and giving them legitimation. The GOP was already going away from a democratic political culture, but he accelerated it and normalized extremism and normalized lawlessness. And so the GOP over these years has truly, in my estimation, become an authoritarian far-right party. And the other big story is that his agenda and his methods are being continued at the state level. Some of these things were on the agenda way before he came in, like getting rid of abortion rights and stuff like that. But these states are really laboratories of autocracy now, like Florida, Texas.


The final thing I’d say is machismo [is] up there as a tool of rule alongside propaganda and corruption. Getting ahead as a man [in this political system] means being more like Trump. And so you saw Mike Pompeo, who started talking about “swagger” and he was a very different kind of State Department head. And now you have people like Ron DeSantis who even absorbed the hand gestures of Trump. And so at the elite level, the political system is shaped by Trump, and every day we see his legacy.

Kruse: What would you say to those in this country who say, “No, the Republicans aren’t the autocrats. It’s the Democrats who are the autocrats. It’s Joe Biden. It’s other Democrats with power who are making us wear masks or take vaccines we don’t want to take. They’re the ones who are behaving more in autocratic ways, not the Republicans.”

Ben-Ghiat: One of the big talking points and strategy of right-wing authoritarianism, is to label democratic systems as tyrannical. Mussolini was the first to say that democracies are tyrannical, democracies are the problem. And there’s a whole century’s worth of the strategy of calling sitting Democrats, who you want to overthrow, dictators. Biden as a social dictator, [is] a phony talking point. It has so many articulations from “They’re forcing us to wear masks.” And you have people like DeSantis who are doing this very subversive thing of saying, “Florida’s the free state. You can have refuge from the dictatorship of Biden here.” And what this is designed to do is discredit the sitting democratic administration in order to create, a myth of freedom. January 6 was actually marketed as the violence [being] in the service of freedom, and you were overthrowing a dictator.

Kruse: Where is Trump in his own timeline? Is he in your estimation getting weaker, getting stronger, in a holding pattern?

Ben-Ghiat: The genius of the “big lie” was not only that it sparked a movement that ended up with January 6 to physically allow him to stay in office. But psychologically the “big lie” was very important because it prevented his propagandized followers from having to reckon with the fact that he lost. And it maintains him as their hero, as their winner, as the invincible Trump, but also as the wronged Trump, the victim. Victimhood is extremely important for all autocrats. They always have to be the biggest victim.
So the “big lie” maintained Trump’s personality cult versus seeing him as just another president who was voted out of office. Americans traditionally always accepted that when your time is up, no matter how popular you were, you were gone. Trump disrupted that because he’s different from any other president, Republican or Democrat. He’s an authoritarian, and they can’t leave office. They don’t have good endings and they don’t leave properly. And I predicted — I had to turn in [my] book in the summer of 2020 — and I just predicted that he wouldn’t leave in a quiet manner. The “big lie” allowed him to psychologically never leave. So he’s in this kind of limbo. As an authoritarian, his other job has been to make sure to keep hold of the party so no rivals emerge, so that he could [not] be eclipsed by a younger version of himself. And that would be DeSantis.

The One Way History Shows Trump’s Personality Cult Will End

An expert on autocracy assesses how far America has slipped away from democracy, and what it will take to get it back.

www.politico.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

No, but someone has to be paying you. Are there substantial payments for selling out your country?

Find some courage and learn, on your own, what Authocracy is.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 2

Kruse: Have you been surprised at how successful he’s been in this regard, especially considering he doesn’t have Twitter? As you referenced, Truth Social has been more or less a failure to this point. He is doing this through emails and [conservative] media hits.

Ben-Ghiat: The Twitter was for the masses, to keep the masses indoctrinated, and I see Trump as one of the most successful propagandists of the early 21st century. He tweeted over 120 times a day. But that was for the masses. I wasn’t talking about voters as much as how has he kept the elites tethered to him. And that has nothing to do with Twitter. That has to do with what he’s always done: collecting compromising information, threatening, and he’s changed the party to an authoritarian party culture. So not only do you go after external enemies, but you go after internal enemies. You’re not allowed to have any dissent. And it’s not just when the leader was going to be impeached. In February 2021, during the second impeachment, and Republicans who voted to impeach him had to buy body armor because they were being threatened.

The big question will be what will happen in the coming months so that he can retain that power because he’s very toxic. There’s always this worry that maybe the investigations will bring more things out, so it’s not a done deal that he will get the nomination. But he’s been remarkably successful in ways that don’t surprise me at all. Because that’s how authoritarians are. They’re personality cults, even if they rule in a democracy like [Italy’s former prime minister Silvio] Berlusconi did. Berlusconi’s personality cult did not deflate until he was convicted, which he eventually was. That’s what it takes. It takes prosecution and conviction to deflate their personality cults.

Kruse: You recently wrote, “Ron DeSantis is turning Florida into his own mini-autocracy.” Why is he an autocrat?


Ben-Ghiat: He has autocratic tendencies. What’s so interesting is he was a Reaganite and then he had clearly some kind of epiphany when Trump came on the scene. He had that campaign video that showed his house being transformed into an altar for Trump. And he got the endorsement. He has absorbed the lessons of what you need to get ahead in the GOP today. And that is to be a forceful bully, even to high school students. The way he carries himself and speaks has gotten much more aggressive. And he’s also very smartly tried to turn Florida into this refuge for all who are oppressed by Biden. He invited New York city cops and people from all over the nation who are oppressed by federal government vaccine [rules], or state mandates, [to] come to Florida and be free. And so that’s one way he’s setting up Florida to be the fiefdom of a certain politics, a certain ideology, that he clearly then wants to take national. And in fact his spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, says, “Make America Florida.”

The One Way History Shows Trump’s Personality Cult Will End

An expert on autocracy assesses how far America has slipped away from democracy, and what it will take to get it back.

www.politico.com