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Thursday, February 20, 2020
The Donald Trump Phenomenon: The Drift towards an Autocratic Presidency
in the United States
By Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay
(Author of the books “The Code for
Global Ethics”, and “The New American Empire”)
“Experience shows us that every man
invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it
will go”. —Montesquieu (1689-1755), 1748.
“Where
you have a concentration of power in a few hands —all too
frequently —men with the mentality of gangsters get control.” —Lord Acton (1834-1902), 1866.
“The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological
assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic
statements one day, and trust if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their
falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied
to them, they would protest that they had known all along the statement was a lie and would
admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.“
—Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), (in ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, 1951, Part 3, Ch. 2, p. 80).
“If this [U.S.] government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological
capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable
it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the
most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no
matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to
know.“
—Frank
Church (1924-1984), American lawyer and U.S. Senator, chairman of the
Church Senate Committee, (in an interview with TV program ‘Meet The Press’,
Aug. 17, 1975)
“When fascism comes to America, it will
be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” —Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), American author (in
‘It Can't Happen Here’, 1935, a novel about
the election of a fascist to the American presidency).
• Introduction
Wednesday, February 5, 2020 will come to be remembered as a date of historic
significance for the United States.
Indeed, this is the date when a Senate majority of 52 Republican Senators
(with the notable exception of Sen. Mitt Romney), voted against
convicting President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of
justice, in the impeachment
trial of the latter. That is also the
date when Donald Trump interpreted such exoneration as a blank check to move
towards a fully autocratic presidency.
Thus, in open defiance of the
American Constitution and of America’s
checks-and-balances system, Trump’s
Republican enablers have placed the American people before a fait accompli and the only question now
is to see if this dangerous
drift toward autocracy will be condoned or reversed in the
next presidential election of November 3rd.
• How far will Donald Trump push the United States
towards autocracy?
According to the well-known duck test, “If it looks
like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it
probably is a duck“!
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”!
• Donald Trump, the law and the privatization of the
U.S. government
Mr. Donald Trump has often used
the courts to his personal advantage. He has arbitrarily and unprecedentedly attacked
the courts and about everybody else who
stands in his way. He has second-guessed prosecutors and contested
judges’ decisions, and he has expected favors to help his felon “friends” receive
reduced sentences. This is showing an elevated level of disrespect and contempt for the rule of law, and it is undermining the American legal
system in a big way.
Mr. Trump has also declared that the
Secretary of the Department of Justice should de facto work as his
own personal attorney, and not be the independent chief lawyer of
the federal government of the United States. This could have the effect of destroying the integrity and
independence of the Justice Department and its reputation.
Indeed, it is to be feared that
the DOJ
under William Barr is going to be
Mr. Trump’s weapon of choice against his so-called “enemies”. What Trump is
doing is privatizing the U.S.
Department of Justice for his own personal benefits. Fearing the worst, more
than 1,100 former U.S. federal prosecutors and officials have pressed Mr. Barr
to resign.
Donald Trump is also showing a
profound lack of judgment when he does not hesitate to
tweet about pending criminal cases
before the courts. Donald Trump seems to really believe that because he is
president, he is above
the law. Do Americans accept that? They did
not accept it when Richard Nixon said, “if
the President does it, it’s legal”! Would they do it now?
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’), …
etc.
—Well. One gets the picture, if
one is not totally blind by partisanship or embroiled in his emotional cult
of personality. Ever since he
took the oath of office, with his inappropriate daily tweets and reprehensible
pronouncements, Donald Trump has been a daily scandal in American politics, and
his behavior is going from bad to worse.
As an authoritarian, Donald Trump is going further and further
toward turning the USA into a one-man
government, with himself as an intolerant, ultra
nationalist tin pot 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.
Donald Trump can be seen as some sort of a deadly political virus, which was introduced accidently into the American body politic in 2016. 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. In this post-impeachment
era, Mr. Trump feels unleashed and he thinks that
he can do whatever he wants, including meddling in the functioning of the
justice system of the United States.
Conclusion
As the duck test above wisely teaches, “if a politician thinks, talks and acts like
an autocrat, that is probably because he is an autocrat”!
Such a politician can be expected to undermine
the very democratic institutions (Congress, the courts, the press, etc.) that
stand in his way. Maine Republican senator Susan Collins has been much
chastised for claiming, after the Senate impeachment trial, that Donald Trump "has learned from this case ... a
pretty big lesson … I believe that he will be much more cautious in the future." She should have known better, i.e. that after
a personal setback, Donald Trump always doubles down and that, in fact, he
would get much worse as time goes by.
Therefore, it is time for Americans to hear a
wake up call before it is too late. When constitutional democracy is dying
under one’s very eyes, the least a concerned citizen can do is to stand up and
denounce the forces whose aim is to destroy democracy and replace it with an
authoritarian regime. Please keep in mind that the Second World War (1939-1945) was fought at very high costs to defend the principles of
democracy and liberty. How could one accept that these principles could be
undermined from within?
If one is comfortable with corruption, abuse of
power and amorality in politics, if one accepts that the U.S. Congress
could be by-stepped and the courts compromised, and if one does not mind if an
autocratic politician wants to be a one-man government and if he shows disrespect for the
constitution and its core principle of division of power, he or she may
be tempted to vote for such an autocratic candidate.
Yes, I know. The stock market is up and
unemployment is low. As an economist, let me tell you something. First, one should not get obsessed with the stock market. The current stock
market bubble is largely the artificial
result of huge tax cuts to corporations. The latter are buying back their
shares with public money, while the government is going deep into debt. Add to
that artificially low, sometimes negative, interest rates pushed down by
central banks in a panic over debt levels, and you have the result that you see.
Secondly, the current low unemployment rates
are mainly the demographic
result of baby-boomer workers going
into retirement in droves, thus creating a shortfall in the supply of labor in
many professions and trades. —Don’t be fooled by these mirages and slight of
hand.
Yes, I know also how clumsy and amateurish the retrenched Democratic
establishment is. One has only to see the complex rules, based on proportional representation, chosen to select a Democratic
presidential candidate in 2020. Such rules seem to have been designed to divide
the democratic electorate and weaken the Democratic presidential candidate to
the utmost.
Nevertheless, if a
citizen values democracy, liberty and freedom, for the present as well
as for the future, he or she should think
twice before giving Mr. Trump a second chance. Otherwise, this would be like playing
dangerously with fire.
Indeed, as Hannah Arendt wrote, "If someone cannot be mobilized when freedom
is threatened, it is because nothing can mobilize him."
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Posted Thursday, February 20, 2020, at 8:30 am.
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© 2020 by Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay
