Yes, He Is Just Like That Guy
I'm beginning to wonder if anything, no matter how despicable, can put people off Donald Trump. And I don't just mean his ignorant, violent followers, but the mainstream press, which seems to be unwilling to call out anything he says or does, no matter how frightening.
Here are the latest examples: A couple of days ago, a Muslim woman who attended a Trump rally in a head scarf was forcibly thrown out. She wasn't demonstrating against him; she wasn't heckling him; she was doing nothing but standing and listening to him. But Trump's followers threw her out; and Trump had not a word of complaint, then or since. This is the point where it is no longer possible to write these things off as factionalism, or fear of brown people- this is out and out racist hatred, of the sort that, left unchecked, leads directly to an American Kristallnacht. And I am neither exaggerating here nor breaking Godwin's law. We all know that this is true, but the mainstream press, which has spent decades collaborating with the Republicans to demonize Hillary and Obama on every phony pretext they can create, will not speak a word of truth about this.
The second, in a way, is even more frightening. Here is what Trump had to say today about the North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong Un, who regularly threatens our country with nuclear annihilation:
Kim Jong Un is to be admired not just because he "took over," but by the way he did it- by murdering his opponents. And this is not just sarcasm- it is clearly true admiration for the world's most mindless, belligerent dictator, the head of a country that lets its people wallow in poverty while its leaders rob the economy at every turn. But he is to be admired, because if you don't like it, he kills you. That, to Trump, is strong leadership.
And remember, Trump did not say this in an offhand remark- he is presenting it as a model of how he would run this country if elected. And his followers seem to think that is just fine.
With these two incidents, I think the time has come when no one need feel the slightest doubt in saying that the Republicans' leading candidate is advocating totalitarian, racist dictatorship. Godwin, you can just go back to sleep now; we finally have a national figure that we really can compare to Hitler.
And Trump only gets worse as time goes on. I have spent a large part of my life wondering how the educated, cultured German people could have given themselves over to a vicious madman. Well, I guess we're finding out just how easy it can be.
Oh, and in case that is not scary enough, consider the fact that, as Hitlerian as Trump is behaving, he is not the worst that the Republicans have to offer- that would be number two in the polling, Ted Cruz, who honestly thinks that God gave him life so he could rule the world according to his miserable, hateful idea of a religion.
And we don't seem to be able to do a thing about it. The Republican party has created a monster that is set to devour us all.
Here are the latest examples: A couple of days ago, a Muslim woman who attended a Trump rally in a head scarf was forcibly thrown out. She wasn't demonstrating against him; she wasn't heckling him; she was doing nothing but standing and listening to him. But Trump's followers threw her out; and Trump had not a word of complaint, then or since. This is the point where it is no longer possible to write these things off as factionalism, or fear of brown people- this is out and out racist hatred, of the sort that, left unchecked, leads directly to an American Kristallnacht. And I am neither exaggerating here nor breaking Godwin's law. We all know that this is true, but the mainstream press, which has spent decades collaborating with the Republicans to demonize Hillary and Obama on every phony pretext they can create, will not speak a word of truth about this.
The second, in a way, is even more frightening. Here is what Trump had to say today about the North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong Un, who regularly threatens our country with nuclear annihilation:
"You gotta give him credit. How many young guys -- he was like 26 or 25 when his father died -- take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden ... he goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss," Trump said. "It's incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. I mean this guy doesn't play games."
Kim Jong Un is to be admired not just because he "took over," but by the way he did it- by murdering his opponents. And this is not just sarcasm- it is clearly true admiration for the world's most mindless, belligerent dictator, the head of a country that lets its people wallow in poverty while its leaders rob the economy at every turn. But he is to be admired, because if you don't like it, he kills you. That, to Trump, is strong leadership.
And remember, Trump did not say this in an offhand remark- he is presenting it as a model of how he would run this country if elected. And his followers seem to think that is just fine.
With these two incidents, I think the time has come when no one need feel the slightest doubt in saying that the Republicans' leading candidate is advocating totalitarian, racist dictatorship. Godwin, you can just go back to sleep now; we finally have a national figure that we really can compare to Hitler.
And Trump only gets worse as time goes on. I have spent a large part of my life wondering how the educated, cultured German people could have given themselves over to a vicious madman. Well, I guess we're finding out just how easy it can be.
Oh, and in case that is not scary enough, consider the fact that, as Hitlerian as Trump is behaving, he is not the worst that the Republicans have to offer- that would be number two in the polling, Ted Cruz, who honestly thinks that God gave him life so he could rule the world according to his miserable, hateful idea of a religion.
And we don't seem to be able to do a thing about it. The Republican party has created a monster that is set to devour us all.
Comments
I came to that conclusion about Trump around the time he started talking about making Muslims carry special ID and having them "register" (he was vague) with the government, and I'd been heading towards it for some time before that. He's used anti-Latino and later anti-Muslim rhetoric to inflame and agitate his followers in ways that parallel what the European fascists did. His constant insistence that the US is being victimized by foreign countries, and his obvious comfort with seeing his followers get violent with dissenters, are also parallels. One of Trump's wives has said that years ago he had a book of Hitler's speeches which he actually used to study. If he had dreams of someday rising to power by this kind of populist rabble-rousing, studying how Hitler did it would be a logical thing to do.
You and I aren't the only ones who have noticed these things. For example, John Kasich, the Republican Governor of Ohio (or at least his PAC), released an ad which implicitly suggests parallels between Trump and Hitler.
Fortunately, the situation here today is quite different. Hitler actually only got about a third of the popular vote -- he became Chancellor because Germany had a Parliamentary system. Our strong two-party system would not allow someone who got only a third of the vote to become President. Once in power, Hitler easily swept away the democratic institutions of the Weimar Republic, which were less than a decade and a half old and had been imposed by hated enemies after the defeat in World War I. Our institutions are almost two and a half centuries old and much more resilient.
I don't believe Trump will become President, but yes, we do finally have a genuine American equivalent to Mussolini or Hitler on our hands. The situation is deadly serious.
Even if Trump were to come out in a few months and announce that it was all a giant joke, the country would still be stuck with millions of angry white guys who have had their hatred stoked since Reagan, and who now have been licensed to openly support fascism. They've tasted blood, and they like it.
‘well, at least we know now where all the food aid went’.
“all these tough generals”… Yeah, and their brothers and sisters and wives and their children and their grandchildren, infants….
He also told a whopper that China’s economic growth is an act of theft from the USA, because that’s where American jobs went - like a factory manager in China can just reach across the world and steal a job like picking someone’s pocket. No mention of globalisation or reference to WHO SENT those jobs offshore. And therefore by Trump’s reasoning China owes America, and thus he will make China fix North Korea along with Japan and South Korea (and these three just get along so famously....)
It’s just so simple.
Just make China do it. China would do anything Donald would tell them.... I mean... they are a nuclear armed communist nation with thousands of years of history and more people than anyone on Earth.
And a wall.
Just make Mexico built a wall...just make Muslims go away..
And the drooling morons at these Trump rallies just eat this shit up - as if it makes any sense at all.
Greed and hatred. That's all they have ever been about, no matter how they try to hide the fact.
How frightened that poor lady must've been as she was escorted out of the "rally." I really feel bad for her, but she has cajones most of those fools could only dream of.
I thought for certain, after his disgusting comments about Megyn Kelley "bleeding," the nation's entire female population and any man with any dignity at all would erupt into a tar and feather Trump party. Nope, and Fox News didn't even raise a peep. I'm no fan of Kelly or Fox, but that kind of remark in the "normal" working world will get any man fired on the spot.
Yet; Trump seems immune to any condemnation from anywhere, regardless of how offensive or off the wall he becomes.
I've often wondered if Trump is purposely trying to undermine the GOP. Do you think that has any merit?
I think Trump himself is a pathological egomaniac who found a way to get the national attention that he craves, and that is what he is really interested in. But let us not forget that being swept into a Presidential nomination by circumstances is not an unknown phenomenon. We have the testimony of Michael Dukakis that all he intended in his Presidential run was to raise his national visibility; he had no idea that he was to end up being the nominee. But with others scared away by the Reagan machine, he ended up being the Democratic candidate, and with no strategy past the primaries, was crushed. So, things can happen that even their perpetrators weren't planning for.