In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, President Donald Trump revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Donald Trump
Among these:
- American Intelligence: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and NSA that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
- “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
- And when FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.
- American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
- He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- He intended to fire Mueller during the summer of 2017, but was talked out of it by aides fearful that it would set off calls for his impeachment.
- American military agencies: In 2020, Trump declined to visit an American cemetery near Paris in 2018, and referred to U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and “suckers.”
- While President, Trump regularly abused military officials, calling Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley a “dumbass” and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”
- The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
- Appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
- The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle US District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first travel ban.
- In one tweet, Trump claimed: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
- At Trump’s bidding, White House aide Stephen Miller attacked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government.”
- President Barack Obama: For five years, Trump popularized the slander that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya—and was therefore not an American citizen or a legitimate President..
- Even after Obama released the long-form version of his birth certificate—on April 27, 2011—Trump tweeted, on August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”
- Trump was later forced to admit he had no evidence to back up his slanderous claims.
Barack Obama
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Nor, since leaving the White House, has Trump stopped trying to undermine one American institution after another.
- Facing 91 criminal counts in four cases, he has discredited the judicial system, attacking judges, prosecutors, witnesses—and even their family members.
- He has attacked Independent Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and accused him of trying to invalidate his candidacy for President in 2024.
- He has attacked retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley for calling him “a wannabe dictator,” and said that Milley deserved execution as a traitor.
- Milley had successfully averted war with China by calling his Chinese military counterparts in the final weeks of Trump’s administration to assure them that Trump was not planning to attack China.
- He claims voter fraud where none exists, casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.
- He claims himself to be the victim of “the deep state” inside the federal bureaucracy.
- He attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows exactly what he’s doing—and why.
He intends to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. If he succeeds, there will be:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2028—or any other year..
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”
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LOVE THY DICTATOR: PART ONE (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 20, 2024 at 12:10 am“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana, “Scarface”
“Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
On July 26, former President Donald Trump confirmed—intentionally or unintentionally—that the fears of his enemies were correct. If he won office for a second time, he would act as the all-powerful dictator he has long lusted to be.
And which he nearly became in 2020, after refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election where former Vice President Joe Biden got more votes than he did.
The site of his confession was the Turning Point Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. To his audience of evangelical Christians, Trump announced:
“You gotta get out and vote. Just this time. In four years you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care. But we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.
“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians! I’m a Christian.
“I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”
Why would they not have to vote again? Because there won’t be any more elections for President because Trump would be President until he died.
Donald Trump at Turning Point Believers’ Summit
From the moment Trump declared his candidacy for the Presidency on June 15, 2015, throughout his four years in office and the almost eight months the Presidential campaign of 2024, much of the mainstream media has repeatedly ignored the threats he poses.
But Trump’s comments at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit have grabbed attention from the nation’s most important news media. Among these:
Democrats pounced on Trump’s statements. Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement of her own: “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who had presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial, wrote: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.”
Naturally Trump’s campaign disagreed: “President Trump was talking about the importance of faith, uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”
In fact, it has been Donald Trump who created “the divisive political environment.” On July 31 he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists—to falsely accuse Kamala Harris of misleading voters about her race:
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
As for the motives for Thomas Matthew Crooks’ July 13 assassination attempt on Trump: A vigorous FBI investigation has revealed him as an intelligent loner with few friends, a thin social media presence and no strong political beliefs offering a motive for his action.
If Trump wins a second term in the White House, he can—by law—serve only four years. But Trump has spent his entire life defying the law—including when he was President.
His most egregious offense came after he lost the 2020 Presidential election: He refused to accept his defeat, refused to leave office, tried to pressure states to “find” non-existent Electoral College votes for him, and finally incited a violent riot against Congress to stop the Electoral Vote count.
Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building
Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In May, 2024, speaking at a National Rifle Association gathering, Trump “joked” about serving more than two terms as president.
He referred to the four-term, 12-year Presidency of Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the only president to serve more than two terms. The two-term limit was added after Roosevelt’s death.
“You know, FDR, 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”
By raising the question of “three terms,” Trump was resurrecting The Big Lie: That he won the 2020 Presidential campaign but was cheated of victory by massive voter fraud.
In fact, Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.
This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
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