Category Archives: Death of Democracy

More Brave Defenders of the Truth

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Decline of the west, Trump

Before the riot in the Capitol, and after Brad Raffensperger the Republican Secretary of State for Georgia stood up to Trump, another Republican also did himself proud. This was Gabriel Sterling the Georgia Voting System Implementation Manager. One day after Trump unsuccessfully failed to bully Raffensperger to do his illegal bidding, based on a basket of lies, Gabriel Sterling patiently and methodically went through Trump’s lies line by line, demolishing each Trump claim about voter fraud and voting irregularities. Sterling is another Republican official who stood up for the truth.

Sterling also made it clear that he believed the Trump team was intentionally trying to mislead the Georgia State Senate and the public. They had all the information to know that their claims were false but continued to make them in order to try to keep Trump in office. Clearly the Trump team, with their bosses agreement, was trying to undermine public faith in the electoral system. That is often the first step toward fascism.

CNN asked their fact checker Daniel Dale to review the famous telephone call Trump and his chief of staff and legal team made to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Here is what Dale said about that call and others:

“Nothing the president of the United States is saying about the election is true. I’ve said over and over again on CNN that the president is a serial liar, but he usually sprinkles in some truth amid the lies. Since election night it has been all nonsense. It true about Georgia, it true about Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. He’s spouting conspiracy theories either deliberately or because his brain has been captured by weird people on the internet, I don’t know. The media likes to describe this as a debate or a feud. There is no 2 sides here. One side we has facts and other side we have lies.”

The key issue of course is what will the Republican Party, and even more importantly the American people, do about Trump’s slide to untruth and fascism? Steve Schmidt a former Republican and advisor to Republican John McCain has described the modern Republican Party as “an American autocratic movement with Fascistic markers.” Stuart Stevens another Republican has said this about his own party:

“The bottom line is that the @GOP has become a threat to democracy. I spent decades helping elect members of the party and it’s painful to admit. But it’s a clear and present danger and should be treated as such.”

Finally and most importantly what about the American public. 70 million or more Americans voted for Trump in 2020. Are they prepared to put up with  this tsunami of lies? There is significant evidence that they will. Most of us don’t want to believe it. But we have to beware of the truth of this statement made by John Cassidy: “This is primarily Trump’s work, but it’s not just Trump’s work. Not by a long shot.”

Even if Trump leaves the Oval office, this is far from over.

A Call to Arms: Inciting Violence

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Decline of the west, Trump

 

I prepared this post last night (January 5, 2021) in anticipation of the Joint meeting of the 2 houses of the US Congress and Trump’s comments I heard on the television):

 

Trump appeared at a rally in Georgia on January 4, 2021 ostensibly to support 2 Republican candidates for the US Senate, but, of course, he could not hold back on efforts to promote his own special cause of overcoming his defeat in the election in November. In fact Trump went so far it seemed like he was inciting his supporters to get violent to support him. At least it certainly could be characterized that way.

Here is what Amy Davidson Sorokin said in an article in the New Yorker,

“Trump is not fighting for his legacy but to unconstitutionally and criminally hold on to a position that he has already lost. In typical Trump style, he is doing so, in part, by calling his opponents the real crooks: “The Democrats are trying to steal the White House—you cannot let them!” he said in Dalton.

But what does that injunction mean for Trump supporters who are not elected officials or judges? What plate does Trump expect them to step up to? He wanted them to vote for Perdue and Loeffler, but that wouldn’t be enough. In the course of the rally, he warned that if “we don’t do something fast,” there will never be another free election and the United States will succumb to “communism.” “If you don’t fight to save your country with everything you have, you’re not gonna have a country left,” he said. He appeared to be past caring whether anyone listening heard that as a call to violence. The system is corrupt, he said, it is rigged, his supporters have a mission. “We have to go all the way, and that’s what’s happening,” Trump said. “You watch what happens over the next couple of weeks, you watch what’s going to come out, watch what’s going to be revealed.” The crowd cheered, and did so again a moment later when he said, “They’re not taking this White House; we’re going to fight like hell.” What else did they need to hear?”

 

To people who love their country and hate communism with passion, this is a call to save the country from people who are trying to steal it. Would such people, if properly coached not be willing to join a war to defend it? Is this not a call to war?

A Bully against a Brave Defender of Truth

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Decline of the west, Trump

 

By now everyone has likely heard about the hour long phone call between Donald Trump, his chief of Staff Mark Meadows, a bunch of his lawyers, and Brad Ratffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state together with his General Counsel.   I listened to most of the telephone call and it really did sound as Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the Justice Department,  described it commented on Twitter as reported by John Cassidy in the New Yorker,

“The entire call is astonishing, the bullying, the threats, the insults, the credulous embrace of discredited conspiracy theories. Like a crime boss, Trump occasionally says that all he wants is the truth. But he doesn’t—he wants the win.”

Trump wanted Raffensperger to kick the election his way. Simple. Find the votes—somewhere. So Trump leaned on Raffensperger.

President Trump rambled on for many minutes, as he tends to do, urging Raffensperger the Republican Secretary of State, whose job it was to certify the election results in Georgia, a state that Trump narrowly lost by to find the 11,780 votes he needed to overturn Biden who beat him by a measly 11,779 votes. Trump and his allies were trying to get the Secretary of State to override the will of the voters of Georgia in his favour based on dubious discredited claims of various irregularities.

As Cassidy reported,

“Raffensperger and his general counsel, who was also on the call, calmly pointed out that his office had investigated all of these claims and found them to be false. (Georgia’s state supreme court and a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush rejected the Trump campaign’s claims as well.)”

Raffefsperger quietly  and repeatedly told the president he was not telling the truth and the truth would come out. The “facts” Trump was relying on where not true. But Trump was not deterred by the truth coming out. He never is. It doesn’t even phase him. Instead he reverted to bullying. Again a typical Trump response.

Trump responded like a true wanna-be despot: Trump wasn’t to be put off. “So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need eleven thousand votes,” he repeated. “Fellas, I need eleven thousand votes. Give me a break.” Find me the votes.it didn’t matter where. Raffensperger could admit he made a mistake or whatever. It didn’t matter how he explained it. What mattered was that he found 11,800 votes. The crime boss was pleading. But, he did not stop there. He strongly suggested to the Secretary of State that the people of Georgia would be angry with him and the act of refusing to do what Trump asked for was illegal and he and his General Counsel could get in trouble for that. Nothing like a little muscle when asking nicely doesn’t work.

Yet bravely, Republican Brad Raffensperger stood up to the President of the United States to uphold the truth. Americans should be proud, but there are still a lot of people who support Trump in his efforts to defeat the will of the majority of the people of Georgia. That is the real issue here.

To say that Trump is a wanna-be autocrat is not interesting any more. It is too well known. What is scary is that so many Republicans agree with this. So far more than 100 Congressmen and 11 Senators have said they will support Trump in his plan to overturn the election on January 6, 2020 when the two houses of the American Congress will be asked to ratify the electoral college vote. Normally that is a mere formality. Not this time. Vice-president Mike Pence will be presiding. Ominously this is what Pence has already said, as reported by John Cassidy:

“Soon after this news emerged, Vice-President Mike Pence, a politician who gives invertebrates a bad name, issued a statement saying that he “welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th.”

It could be very interesting to see how far down the slope to fascism the Republican Party will go on January 6, 2020. Keep watch. We should all do that. Who said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance?

All is permitted

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Decline of the west, Trump

 

 

During Watergate in the 1970s Richard Nixon famously said, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” But in his day his Republican congressmen had some courage and did not put up with that, so he gave up trying that approach. In fact both parties essentially agreed on this until Donald Trump was in power. But in 2020 when Trump’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz said basically the same thing at the Senate impeachment trial, only one Republican Senator dissented. The rest all fell into line. In 2019 Trump’s lawyers argued that anything the president did, so long as he thought it was helpful to getting elected was lawful. The checks and balances were completely emasculated. His lawyers also  argued in a federal case that a sitting president cannot even be investigated. Even an impeachment inquiry is “constitutionally invalid.”

Then in the recent Presidential election, his Republicans in Congress acquiesced and more than 73 million Americans in the 2020 election did not object either. The president could be as corrupt as he pleased and it would make no difference. Effectively the president was a dictator. Democracy was dead. The swamp is alive with nasty creatures, many of which have found a friend in the White House. Corruption is alive and well.

Trump has tried to use the federal law enforcement people for his own advantage. That meets the strict legal definition of corruption. As Peter Baker of the New York Times said,

“He is trying to turn the people charged with federal law enforcement into presidential fixers, starting with Mr. Barr, who finds himself in a tight spot.”

In the case of Nixon the proud checks and balances worked and the country and the constitution were protected. Now with the current crop of Republican sycophants that is clearly not the case.

This is the corruption that millions of Americans voted for. Many Americans seem to like it.

This is what happens when a country elects a crime boss as its leader!

Law is weak when a Crime Boss is elected President

Corruption, Death of Democracy, Law, Trump

 

When Donald Trump was running for the presidency in the 2016 campaign he came up with a very catchy slogan. He is good at that. He said he would “drain the swamp.” One of the handy things about this slogan was that it could mean different things to different people. The image was graphic. People loved it. Heck, I loved it.

But what actually did it mean? He never did define it. That was smart because people could fill it in as they saw fit. Some of his supporters thought it meant that he would get rid of the Wall Street barons s that ate the lunches of the poor suckers from the working classes in the financial crisis of 2008, when they managed to get the alligator’s share of the federal goodies thrown into the swamp by the government. People lost their houses, while executives from Wall Street got their debts paid because they were too big too fail. It was another case of socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the suckers. Then Trump, after getting elected, appointed many of the creatures from the Swamp to his cabinet. Obviously that was not what he meant by draining the swamp, he was he was feeding the swamp critters.

Some Trump supporters thought draining the swamp meant that Trump would get rid of the Deep State. Instead Trump tried to turn the government officials into his own private mobsters. He expected them to do his bidding and if they didn’t, like Christopher Wray at the FBI, Trump just fired them. Again he was draining the swamp by tossing out the good guys who were courageously doing their job

Whatever it means to drain the swamp surely it surely means to get rid of the corruption. This was one of Trump’s main promises together with building the big beautiful wall.

In law corruption in politics means essentially a politician using the political office to advance his own personal interests over that of the public he or she is supposed to serve. Sadly, that is precisely what Trump did. That is not surprising except perhaps to his devoted supporters who actually believed him. Fortunately, for Trump these supporters were so devoted to him there is nothing he could do to lose that support. As he himself said, he could kill someone in Times Square and he would not lose support. Similarly, he could be the most corrupt president in recent history and he would not lose support. He had a license to kill and a license to corrupt.

The New York Times editorial board understood this well. They pointed out that Trump was the chief law enforcement officer in the country but the meaning of this all depended on what “law” actually meant. As the board said, about Trump:

“The law is something that applies to his adversaries, not to himself or his friends. He regularly turned to the courts to harass and intimidate employees, critics and contractors. But when it has come to his own perceived advantage — whether he was violating federal fair-housing laws to keep black renters out of his apartment buildings, playing shady games with his tax returns, sexually assaulting women, defrauding students of his “university,” raiding his own charity, buying silence of alleged mistresses on the eve of an election, running his global business empire out of the White House, or thwarting the will of Congress by using foreign aid to advance his re-election — Mr. Trump has always seen the law as just another set of rules to be bent, if not broken.”

In other words, for Trump, the law was his instrument of corruption! It was no check on him, it was his to use as he pleased. He really came to understand this after he escaped impeachment. After that he realized that the law could not stop him. The Senate and House of Representatives could not stop him. They would help him. The vaunted American checks and balances were helpless beside his authority. After all he was the chief law enforcement officer of the country and he was ready for the job.

The law is a mighty weak instrument when the people elect a crime boss to lead it.

 

Rotten to the Core

Corruption, Death of Democracy, Trump

 

I said many times that “this tops it all” in relation to Donald Trump, only to find one outrageous act after another promptly exceeded by the next But this one really  does take the cake. (Actually they all did)

Yesterday, December 23, 2020 Donald Trump pardoned a bunch of people. That is not unusual as American presidents have done that repeatedly, though I have often thought only a crazy political system would give that much authority to one man.

As political commentator John Avalon said on CNN,

“If you look back at the Mueller investigation, the 4 main players who refused to talk and lied to prosecutors were Manafort, Flynn, Papadopoulos, and Stone. They’ve all now been pardoned. And the 2 significant defendants who did testify they’ve not been pardoned.”

 In case you have forgotten who this “rogues gallery of convicted criminals” are,  as CNN called them, Manafort was Trump’s former campaign manager, Flynn was his National Security advisor and promoter of Qanon conspiracies, Stone was Trump’s long time crony and special political advisor and Papadopoulos was a former Trump campaign aide.

In other words the Trump cronies who were loyal to Trump are out of jail, thanks to Trump and those who were loyal to the country remain in jail. One of the lead prosecutors in the Mueller investigation, Andrew Weissmann said this: “The pardons from this president are what you would expect if you gave the pardon power to a mob boss.” Weissmann knows what he is talking about. Before the Mueller investigation he prosecuted cases involving members of the Genovese, Colombo, and Gambino crime families in New York. That is what the US has elected as a president—a Crime Boss.

The Mueller report had said how Trump would signal to the 4 pardoned men while they were being investigated that they could look for a pardon. And yesterday Trump delivered with spectacular results.

Former FBI Deputy Director Any McCabe, also severely criticized the pardons as sending a message that people who did not cooperate with investigators can get rewarded while those who did can suck socks. McCabe called the move by Trump a ‘culmination’ of acts of ‘obstruction of justice.’

As McCabe said on CNN, those who play ball with Trump will be lucky because ‘He will pay you off with a pardon and give you a get out of jail free card. The Mueller report explored whether Trump and allies dangled a pardon to Manafort to discourage him from cooperating with prosecutors.

“ ‘What was seen and referred to in the Mueller report has now been completed. Pardons were dangled. And now they’ve delivered in return for protection for the president. I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s so obviously corrupt,’ he said.”

Laura Coates another former prosecutor with the Department of Justice (‘DOJ”) described it this way;

“On the eve of the eve of Christmas, the ghosts of criminals past have slates wiped clean with presidential pardons, but the smell you smell wafting is not holiday cheer and evergreen boughs, it’s the stench of the swamp and rotten to the core.”

The words “rotten to the core” actually came from Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. Laura Coates the guest host on the show also said this,

“I am a lawyer who has studied the constitution and I know the president is given the authority to pardon and there are absolutely times when it should be used to right a wrong. But not for executing revenge or rewarding your cronies. That’s rotten to the core.”

Not satisfied with pleasing only those who protected him during the Mueller investigation, Trump gave  an early Christmas gift to his son-in-law Jared Kushners by pardoning his father Charles Kushner for tax evasion and retaliation against a federal witness, and lying to the election commission.

John Avalon was right when he said, “This president who will be considered the most corrupt in American history.” Avalon also reminded us that of the 65 people Trump has pardoned so far, 60 have a personal connection to Trump. He also pointed out that the phrase “quid pro quo,” that played such a prominent role in the impeachment trial of Trump in the Senate was again very appropriate here. Corruption is simple in  criminal cases involving politicians. It means a politician is prohibited from using his or her office for personal game. This is an abuse of power. Exactly what Trump was charged with in the Senate hearing. And exactly what he did here. The use of the pardon power for personal game, such as keeping unflattering witnesses quiet is a simple quid pro quo. This completes the Mueller report where Trump tried from the beginning to obstruct the course of justice.

Who will have faith in American justice after this? Who will think it is rotten to the core? What do the millions of Trump supporters think about him now?

Is it time to give up on America?

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Decline of the west, Trump

 

I love the United States of America. I have gone there many times. I have met many Americans that I like and respect. So it is very hard for me to say this. Is it time to give up on America?

What has shaken me is the realization that after 4 years of seeing Trump in the media every single day, no one in America can say they did not know him. No one can say Trump fooled them. Not after 4 years of hearing and seeing him on the television every single  day. He is probably the most famous person in the history of the world!

 

In 2020, no one can say that they voted for Trump because they could not abide voting for that corrupt Hillary Clinton. This time a majority of Americans chose Biden over Trump, but just by a relative sliver. In fact, I strongly suspect that had it not been for the coronavirus more people would have voted for Trump than Biden. In fact more white people  voted for Trump than Biden. That is also something very difficult for me to comprehend. More on that later.

Today I just want to talk about corruption. I do this listening to the news and hearing that multiple people have been asking Trump for pardons. Most of these are his cronies! I have never heard of that before. I have always thought the American system of granting pardons was itself open to corruption, but Trump seems to be taking it to an entirely new level. We will have to see before we judge.

But consider what he has already done. He has pardoned his former Cabinet Minister Michael Flynn even though he pled guilty. And remember Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI to protect Donald Trump!

But, even worse, was the case of Trump’s old crony Roger Stone who kept his mouth shut and did not rat out Donald Trump. In July of 2020 Trump  commuted the sentence of Mr. Roger Stone who had  been convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into Donald Trump! At the time Stone was convicted Trump praised him for not talking, comparing him favourably to his former lawyer Michael Cohen,  hinting that Stone would eventually get some help.  At the time Trump sounded just like a Mafia Don.

And Trump eventually helped his close friend. Stone was not pardoned, but his sentence was commuted. That meant Stone was released from jail or prison, for no reason other than the fact that Donald Trump was grateful. This caused Republican Senator Mitt Romney to say, the commutation was an act of “unprecedented, historic corruption.”

Now there appears to be a caravan of people looking for pardons. I have never heard of a president pardoning friends, relatives, or associates. Is this not absolutely corrupt?

The real point of course is not that Trump is corrupt. That surprises no. The real point is that more than 73 million people voted for Trump over Biden after he did that. Millions of Americans don’t care how corrupt their President is. I find that shocking. I guess I am just a Pollyanna.

God Save America

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Decline of the west, Trump

 

Some people think I have been ranting about Trump. I have been ranting about America. I know many Americans and like most of them. But I just cannot understand how Trump can have such widespread support.

In 2016 many people said he won because Hillary Clinton was even worse. First of all that claim mystifies me. I think comparing Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump is like comparing a trickle to a tsunami. I see nothing resembling equivalence there. The far right has hated her since the first time her husband Bill Clinton ran for governor of Arkansas. I know many people hate her, but I really don’t know why. If any of my readers do please let me know.

But more importantly, in 2020 the Americans had a pretty decent alternative. Biden may not have been very exciting, but it’s hard to argue that he was not a decent man. Who can say that about Trump? Yet in 2020 more than 73 million Americans picked Trump over Biden. Thankfully 4 or 5 million more voted for Biden, but that is still a lot of support for Trump.

According to the editorial board of the New York Times,

“Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.”

 

 

The Times makes mistakes. Every media does. It is far from perfect, but it is not,  as Trump alleges Fake News. It is a serious newspaper with serious journalists and is internationally respected as among the best of the United States media. And yet they came out so strongly in favour of Biden over Trump it is as if the two candidates were in different universes.

The Times did not stop there in their critique. Here is how they continued:

“Mr. Trump stands without any real rivals as the worst American president in modern history. In 2016, his bitter account of the nation’s ailments struck a chord with many voters. But the lesson of the last four years is that he cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.

He is a racist demagogue presiding over an increasingly diverse country; an isolationist in an interconnected world; a showman forever boasting about things he has never done, and promising to do things he never will.”

 

How could so many Americans pick this man as their leader, rather than Joe Biden?

In my opinion, most egregious of all was Trump lying to the American people about the dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic leading many Americans, and even others around the globe in doubt about whether or not they should bother taking measures to protect themselves and their loved ones. As the New York Times editorial board said,

“Mr. Trump’s inadequacies as a leader have been on particularly painful display during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of working to save lives, Mr. Trump has treated the pandemic as a public relations problem. He lied about the danger, challenged the expertise of public health officials and resisted the implementation of necessary precautions; he is still trying to force the resumption of economic activity without bringing the virus under control.

As the economy pancaked, he signed an initial round of aid for Americans who lost their jobs. Then the stock market rebounded and, even though millions remained out of work, Mr. Trump lost interest in their plight.

In September, he declared that the virus “affects virtually nobody” the day before the death toll from the disease in the United States topped 200,000.

Nine days later, Mr. Trump fell ill.”

 

How could so many Americans pick this man to represent them rather than Joe Biden? Here is what the New York Times editorial board said,

“The foundations of American civil society were crumbling before Mr. Trump rode down the escalator of Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his presidential campaign. But he has intensified the worst tendencies in American politics: Under his leadership, the nation has grown more polarized, more paranoid and meaner.

He has pitted Americans against each other, mastering new broadcast media like Twitter and Facebook to rally his supporters around a virtual bonfire of grievances and to flood the public square with lies, disinformation and propaganda. He is relentless in his denigration of opponents and reluctant to condemn violence by those he regards as allies. At the first presidential debate in September, Mr. Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists. He responded by instructing one violent gang, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by.”

 

And this is the man millions chose to lead them rather than a much simpler, ordinary, and decent man—Joe Biden. Does this not tell us a lot about America?

Of course , Trump did much more than that. He polluted the American democracy. He spread vicious conspiracy theories. He mocked handicapped people. He treated soldiers like suckers and losers. He bragged about sexually assaulting women.

Yes this is the man who millions of American voted for. He did not get a majority of the votes, thank goodness. But a lot of Americans preferred him to the much more plain and modest Joe Biden.

God save America. I don’t know who else can.

 

Americans voted for a Slow Moving Coup

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Trump

 

Bill Maher was the first person I heard say that Trump would not leave the Presidency if he was voted out of office. Others later echoed those fears. For good reason. Trump provided ample evidence that he might do that. As I write, about 3 weeks after the election of 2020, it appears, though it is not certain, that the American democracy has held and the erosive powers have lost. Yet that is still not clear. President Trump and his minions including a vast array of lawyers, each one appearing more comical than the last, has lost about 34 consecutive court cases challenging the election without a victory. Though I heard someone say he won 2 minor victories. So as far as I know the status is not clear. Not yet. I must admit that I have started to stop paying attention already so there may have been changes.

 

Many are calling Trump’s actions an “attempted coup”. Perhaps his most egregious post election action (so far) was the blatant attempt to persuade Republican politicians from Michigan to overturn the substantial Biden majority of votes he obtained on flimsy grounds of voter fraud. So far it looks like the coup will fail. But if it does fail, it has come close. Frighteningly close actually.

And what really bothers me as I keep repeating is that about 73 million of Americans voted for him after it was clear to one and all that this is what he is like. They knew him and liked him enough to vote for him.

Here is what Bill Maher said, way back in 2017 (his list would be a lot longer if it was made in 2020) :

“This is a slow moving coup. Here is a list of things that Donald Trump does that sounds like a 3rd world dictator: You put your name on buildings; you appoint your family members to positions of power; your rallies are scary; you hate the press, and threaten to lock some of them up; you want military parades, you use the office for financial gain; you love other dictators; you lie so freely people can’t tell the difference any more between lies and truth; you crave the constant ridiculous over-the-top flattery that political leaders need. For example, Kim Jong-un of North Korea. They say that he learned to drive at the age of 3, he trained his body so that he never needs to urinate or defecate, he invented the hamburger, when he was born a new star was created and winter turned to spring, the first time he golfed he had 11 holes in one. This is us now. This is America. This is what’s so scary. I see where he is going. When his sycophants lavish praise on him to his face in absurd amounts he stands there soaking it all in as if it is natural and totally de. He served. He nods his head. It’s creepy.”

 

Yes it is creepy. Stephen Colbert used the word fascism to describe this. What is really creepy is Americans voted for this in huge numbers. That tells us a lot about America.  That is creepy too.

Not happy with American Election

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Epidemics/Pandemics, racism, Trump

 

People asked me if I was happy about the elections results of 2020, The answer is obvious—of course I was. But am I satisfied? Not by a long shot!

In the 2020 presidential election of 2020 approximately 73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump after seeing him on television and reading about him every single day. No person in the history of the world has become more famous or well known. Trump can bask in that thought. That is what narcissists  and demagogues do.

No American can say they were deceived about who Trump was. Trump cannot hold back because he always thinks he can sell us on his narrative. That is what he did his whole life as a real estate developer. Every American knew exactly who they were voting for. And who did they vote for? This is not a pretty picture.

 

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew had lied to them about the severity of Covid-19 pandemic because he did not want to alarm them. So he lied instead, thus lulling them into a false sense of security so they failed to take precautions to protect themselves, their loved ones, and the communities in which they lived.

 

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew was a white nationalist who refused to renounce white supremacy and instead asked the Proud boys to ‘Stand back and stand by” a call that they accepted as an endorsement.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew voted for president who mocked handicapped people.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they who they knew thought that because he was a star he could freely grope any woman he met.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew  tried to pressure a foreign country (the Ukraine) to do him a personal favor of investing one of his political opponents by withholding funds that had been approved by Congress and which the Ukraine needed to protect itself from Russia.

Approximately 74 million Americans voted for a president they knew claimed that as president he could do whatever he wanted fo nothing he did was illegal.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew abandoned long time American allies (the Kurds) who were under attack by the Turks, thus forcing them to turn to Russia for protection, proving that “these colors run” contrary to American propaganda.

What does this say about America?   That is the real question.