The left’s increasingly unhinged portrayal of Trump as a dictator
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Nazi analogy has long been recognized as the crudest and dumbest form of argument, but it’s enjoying a renaissance.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden notoriously and unapologetically tweeted a photo of Auschwitz-Birkenau as a response to family separations at the border . Upon a report that parents at the border were being told that their children were being taken to get bathed and disappearing, Chris Hayes of MSNBC tweeted , “What does this remind you of?” Soledad O’Brien chimed in , “Welp, I guess we’ve put to rest the question: ‘Nazi Germany: Could it happen here in America?’ ”
Progressives imagine that they are protecting our system when making these and related charges, but they are really losing faith in it themselves and undermining its legitimacy.
Kumail Nanjiani, a comedian and actor with more than 2 million followers on Twitter, objected to President Trump’s contention that illegal immigration brings criminals into the United States. He said Hitler “focused on crimes by Jews,” and this is what brought on Nazi Germany over time.
Actually, Hitler was named chancellor in January 1933 and immediately acted to curtail press and individual rights and begin repressing the Jews. He used the Reichstag fire to mobilize against opponents, including through violence, and gained full dictatorial powers via the Enabling Act in March 1933.
By comparison, Trump in his first year and a half in office has tweeted, called the press names and — yes — highlighted crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Unpresidential? Yes. Disturbing? At times. Fascistic? No.
Several books, including one by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, are devoted to more sophisticated versions of the Trump-as-budding-fascist theme.
In “ How Democracies Die, ” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt write that “Trump’s first year in office followed a familiar script. Like Alberto Fujimori, Hugo Chavez and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, America’s new president began his tenure by launching blistering rhetorical attacks on his opponents.”
Well, yeah, and these comparisons would be fair and apt if Trump went on to purge and jail his opponents.
Levitsky and Ziblatt believe the best scenario for democracy is that Trump loses. A much darker future is that “a pro-Trump GOP would retain the presidency, both houses of Congress, and the vast majority of statehouses, and it would eventually gain a solid majority in the Supreme Court.”
To do all this, Republicans would have . . . to win elections, an odd thing for an anti-democratic party to do.
Yes, authoritarians overseas win elections — by rigging them and disqualifying opponents.
After continuing to win sweeping electoral mandates, per Levitsky and Ziblatt, Republicans would then enshrine their rule by “using the techniques of constitutional hardball to manufacture durable white electoral majorities.”
They’d do this through large-scale deportations (never mind that illegal immigrants don’t vote); immigration restriction (which would require Congress passing laws and would presumably change the foreign-born percentage of the electorate only slowly over time); purges of the voter rolls (if the Ohio example recently upheld by the Supreme Court is any indication, this would involve the removal of nonvoters who didn’t reply to a notice over a period of years) and strict voter ID laws (i.e., requiring a valid ID).
You can object to every single one of these measures and still realize that they hardly amount to the agenda of Erdogan or Fujimori.
The worries about Trump as fascist dovetail with critiques of our system itself as undemocratic. These will become more prominent as Trump moves to almost certainly nominate another robustly constitutionalist, highly credentialed jurist to the highest court in the land.
For progressives like Jonathan Chait of New York magazine and Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times, this is another sign of “minority rule.”
But Republicans get to nominate and confirm Supreme Court justices because they won the presidency and retained control of the Senate in 2016 in a hard-fought national election.
It is true that Trump won despite losing the popular vote, but the Electoral College is nothing new or untoward. It can’t be that Democrats, thought not long ago to have a lock on the presidency, suddenly can’t possibly muster 270 electoral votes. Have Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania gone from blue wall to unwinnable that quickly? And the Senate, held by Democrats as recently as 2014, become an insuperable electoral obstacle?
Our system will presumably look much better to progressives if Democrats go out and win some elections. You know, like the alleged fascists do.
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I think much of the left lacks an understanding of basic terms like “dictator.” Not sure how else to explain the idiocy.
E.A Or " Majority Rule " Hence no clue how Democracy functions, let alone a Federal Republic Democracy!!
I saw the movie The Death of Stalin last night and it's a fantastic dark comedy that captures the unbelievable brutality, lawlessness and casual violence of a real dictatorship. It's a level of disconnect that I simply cannot fathom how idiotic "resisters" must be to compare life under an actual dictatorship to contemporary America, where they are free to spill all their hatred and vileness at the government without fear of reprisal.
One throwaway line from Beria in the movie talking about arresting a husband and wife, "Shoot her before him, but make sure he sees." That's dictatorship, not a President who says things that you don't like.
So all you do is parrot heartland institute propaganda?
Apparently...the Left considers one to be a dictator if the one pays too much attention to "America" and the "American Citizens".
mussolini
the leftwing admits they want socialism and the left uses the tactics of fascists.
but magically... rightwingers are fascists? seriously... too funny.
I suggest the left take another look in the mirror. (fascist? meet thyself)
The truth has been in your face a long time
Watch out, they’ll. Cut and paste a “definition”of fascism from a holocaust denying conspiracy site and think they’ answered you.
nope.
but those states did turn un-rig-able that quickly/ as in just before, and during, the election
(military intelligence - Thank Q )
In Memory Of:
What It Costs to Be Smuggled
Across the U.S. Border
Bribes and shakedowns. Days in hideaways without food. For many fleeing violence in Central
America, this is what thousands of dollars gets them on the journey to the United States.
By NICHOLAS KULISH JUNE 30, 2018
…….
The nearly 2,000-mile trip had already cost Mr. Cruz’s family more than $6,000 and brought him within sight of Brownsville, Tex. The remaining 500 miles to Houston — terrain prowled by the United States Border Patrol as well as the state and local police — would set them back another $6,500.
It was an almost inconceivable amount of money for someone who earned just a few dollars a day picking coffee beans back home. But he wasn’t weighing the benefits of a higher-paying job. He was fleeing violence and what he said was near-certain death at the hands of local gangs.
E.A If the Money is not from Friend and Family, but a Loan from a Loan Shark, or a Gang, what conditions are tied to that loan?
E.A Is it part of the Immigration policy, to safeguard from " Local Gangs "?
" The homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, told lawmakers in May that migrants paid $500 million a year to groups fueling violence and instability in the region. A decade ago, Mexicans and Central Americans paid between $1,000 and $3,000 for clandestine passage into the United States. Now they hand over up to $9,200 for the same journey, the Department of Homeland Security reported last year. Those figures have continued to rise, according to interviews at migrant shelters in Mexico.
To trace Mr. Cruz’s journey from El Salvador, The New York Times relied on extensive interviews with him and his family, and reviewed contemporaneous photographs, text messages, receipts and GPS positions. "
With Jobs to Fill, Businesses Play the Visa Lottery
A tight labor market set off a scramble among businesses in a visa lottery for temporary workers, adding a new element to the politics of immigration.
By Patricia Cohen
I mean, what else do they have? Nothing. Some want a big recession. Some want to harass every conservative or all Republicans in office. What do they have? They have the stupidest complaints, bathrooms, acting like taking children away from their parents when their parents are being charged for illegally entering this country. It's time we actually obeyed the laws for a change instead of letting everyone be lawless and running around burning up other people's property. Catch and release. How dumb does a person have to be?