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Archive for February 9th, 2022|Daily archive page

DEMOCRACY HANGS BY A THREAD: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2022 at 12:12 am

In 2016, “reality show” host Donald Trump—with major assistance from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—was elected President.

Throughout his four-year term, the Right enthusiastically supported him despite a record of unprecedented infamy—which included: 

  • Repeatedly and viciously attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
  • Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
  • Praising Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen.
  • Using his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
  • Attacking and alienating America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
  • Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.  
  • Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
  • Trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans supported Trump’s actions or refused to actively oppose them.

On April 27, 2020, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans ignored Trump’s crimes and outrages for so long:

“I’ve said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won’t listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—“

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It doesn’t impact their lives.”

JOE SCARBOROUGH: “They’re still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they’ve got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage. You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don’t really care.”

Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders provided strong evidence for this when she bragged, on June 4, 2018:

“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”

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Donald Trump

Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are

But COVID-19 changed all that. Suddenly, millions of Americans found themselves stuck at home with their children. Many of them couldn’t go to work—because they were sick or their jobs had disappeared. Their 401Ks suddenly became worthless.

Had COVID-19 not intervened, Trump would still be President. And he wouldn’t have had to call on aid from Vladimir Putin. Millions of Right-wing, “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” Americans would have happily returned him to office as “President-for-Life.” 

During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 overthrow plots. The most famous of these occurred on July 20, 1944.

So far as is known, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.   

  • No Cabinet members dared to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump for office as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
  • House and Senate Republicans rubberstamped his every infamy. When he praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain or falsely charged massive voter fraud, Republicans stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
  • On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. 
  • Just hours after Trump incited the deadly January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the United States Capitol, 147 Republicans lawmakers in the House and Senate voted to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss—following months of his baseless claims that the November election had been stolen.
  • At the Pentagon, American generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly abused their ability and  integrity, while pursuing policies calculated to aid Russia.
  • Although they regularly met with Trump, none of them plotted his removal. 
  • No FBI agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution. This despite his attacking their integrity and even firing their director, James Comey, for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.

Trump knows he cannot win office in a free election. 

So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.

Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, revamped the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increased coordination with state and local governments.

By all accounts—except Donald Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election was virtually free of fraud. As a result, Trump lost.

That’s why legislators in Republican-controlled states are trying to corrupt election machinery at state and local levels—to nullify the votes of millions of Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.

If they can restore a lifelong criminal to absolute power in 2024, Joseph Biden will be the last democratically-elected American President. 

And Donald Trump will live out his dictatorial fantasies as “President-for-Life.”

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