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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 15, 2025 at 12:11 am
In 2024, President Joseph Biden turned 80—six years younger than German President Paul von Hindenburg when he died—and was capable of dying literally any day.
His Vice President, Kamala Harris, was widely perceived as unprepared for the Presidency.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump—like Adolf Hitler—was waging an all-out campaign to make himself dictator. And—like Hitler—he was using the democratic system to destroy democracy.
Hitler had a list of priorities—such as persecuting the Jews and conquering the Soviet Union—that he intended to carry out.
Adolf Hitler
And so did Trump. Among Trump’s: Implementing “Project 2025.”
This was 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 aimed to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
- Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
- Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks would arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
- Republicans believed the Department of Justice had “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
- As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
- The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB was personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California had done.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project called “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
- Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States—the way Islam is designated as the official religion of Saudi Arabia.
- The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.
Throughout the campaign, Trump denied that he had even heard of “Project 2025.”
According to the Washington Post Fact Checker 2020, by the time Trump left office in 2021, he had told approximately 30,573 lies. Among his most lethal were the ones he repeatedly told in 2020 about COVID-19:
- “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
- “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine.”
- “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
- “CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
- “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
As a result of his lies and ruthless attacks on medical professionals trying to combat the disease, more than 400,000 Americans died.
That should have been enough to prove that nothing he said could be trusted. But for 77 million voters who were invested in their own hatred and/or ignorance, it wasn’t.
CBS Correspondent William L. Shirer covered the Third Reich from 1934 to 1940. Writing about the rise of Adolf Hitler in his monumental bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), he noted:
“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.
“At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 percent of the vote. But the 63 percent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out.”
Competent future historians will reach the same verdict about the second coming to power for Donald Trump on November 5, 2024.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 14, 2025 at 12:10 am
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.
Despite Donald Trump’s overt racism, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.
A clear majority of young black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older black voters.
Despite Trump’s demands for “mass deportations,” numerous Hispanics, when interviewed, said they didn’t feel threatened. They felt certain that Trump would deport “only the bad people.”
Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were more supportive to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about six in 10 who went for Trump.
Majorities of black and Latino voters said the economy was in bad shape. They wanted a bigger paycheck. And they were willing to re-elect a man who despised them in hopes of getting it.
Case #13: Muslims—especially those living in Dearborn, Michigan—played a losing blackmail game with the Biden administration
On October 7, 2023, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimated 1,139 men, women and children in Israeli streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.
About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.
Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Terrorism-sympathizing Islamics—especially in Michigan—demanded that the Biden administration stop sending military equipment to Israel—and force Israelis to stop their military campaign to free the hostages. They threatened: “If you don’t do what we want, we won’t vote for Kamala Harris.”
Biden and Harris rejected their demands—and Islamics voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
The result: Harris lost—and was replaced with a Right-wing administration so pro-Israel that it made the Biden one seem pro-Palestinian by comparison.
Case 14: Ignorance of and/or contempt for history.
“Low information voters” is a euphemism for people dangerously ignorant of and indifferent to the issues affecting their lives.
After World War II ended in 1945, the United States proved a force for worldwide stability. Its “nuclear umbrella” prevented a Russian takeover of Europe and a Chinese takeover of Asia.
But voters ignored Trump’s “bromance” with Communist dictators Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-Un (North Korea). They also ignored his proven disdain for the leaders of democratic nations—such as Canada and Great Britain.
As a result, Canada and Mexico, America’s biggest trading partners, are now treated—by Trump—as enemies. Meanwhile, he cozies up to Putin against Ukraine’s legally-elected President, Vododmyr Zelensky.
* * * * *
Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?”
Future historians will ask the same question about Donald Trump—and the almost certain disaster of a second Trump Presidency.
Competent historians will conclude that no one factor was responsible, but a combination of otherwise unrelated ones. Among these:
- Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
- Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
- Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.
- Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
- Blacks: Voted for a racist in hopes of a bigger paycheck.
- Muslims: Refused to vote for Kamala Harris because Biden wouldn’t stop Israel’s military campaign to free Hamas-captured hostages.
- Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them.
- The Biden administration: Which refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
- Toxic masculinity voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
- American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.
In short: Those opposed to Trump’s evil were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.
As John Adams, second President of the United States, observed:
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence and cruelty.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Social commentary on November 13, 2025 at 12:10 am
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
Case #9: Americans had become increasingly worried and angry about surging numbers of illegal aliens pouring into the country. But the Biden administration refused—until its closing months—to dramatically address this issue.
A Vox story, dated July 12, 2024, warned: “According to Gallup, 2024 is the first time since 2005 that most of the public have wanted less immigration, and this year marks the largest share of Americans feeling resistant to immigration since 58 percent said so in 2001….”
Illegal alien climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas
Six months later, on January 17, 2025, another Vox story offered: “What Democrats must learn from Biden’s disastrous immigration record.”
It opened: “One of the main reasons Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election is the Biden administration’s record on immigration and the border — polls show it ranks up close with inflation among the top issues that drove swing voters to Trump….
“During Biden’s first three years in office, the number of arriving migrants skyrocketed, leading to a backlash as even blue states and cities complained they were overwhelmed. The peak came in December 2023, a month when officials reported about 250,000 encounters with migrants at the border, a record.”
Then, starting early in 2024, and continuing throughout the year, border arrivals plummeted—by more than 80%.
The reasons:
- The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States.
- Biden decreed that new unauthorized migrants would be ineligible for asylum if too many people were coming to the border. Essentially, this meant shutting down the asylum process.
Unfortunately for Harris, the downturn in illegal immigration came too late.
Donald Trump
In times of economic uncertainty, hostility rises toward immigrants—especially those who are alien to a host country’s language and culture. This has proven true in Europe as well as the United States.
Case #10: Americans blamed President Biden for inflationary price increases—especially for groceries such as eggs.
According to a December 20, 2024 article—“Why are groceries so expensive? What you need to know”—by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:
“Since January 2019, food prices have risen nearly 30 percent in the US, leaving many households struggling to afford groceries.”
Among the issues responsible for this:
- COVID-19: Caused worldwide disruptions in supply chains.
- Transportation costs and fuel prices: Fuel costs are directly tied to how much retailers charge for groceries and other goods.
- Animal diseases, weather events, crop failures: When bird flu (H5N1) first struck the U.S. in 2022, eggs were priced at around $2 per dozen. They peaked at $4.82/dozen in January 2023, and in December 2024—following the infection of over 123 million chickens—prices fell to about $4.15/dozen.
- Global conflict: In February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, which exports wheat, corn and agricultural fertilizer, among other products. Russia has tried to strangle Ukraine’s exports by attacking the nation’s agricultural centers.
No President—including Biden and Trump—can control such events. Unfortunately, every Presidential candidate virtually promises to be Superman. And voters repeatedly fall victim to this absurdity.
So when elected Presidents fail to perform miracles, those voters turn on them—and turn them out of office.
Case #11: Americans don’t want a woman President.
American voters proved that in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President—and lost to Trump in the Electoral College by a count of 227 to 304.
And Hillary had an advantage that Vice President Kamala Harris lacked: Hillary was white.
England has elected a female Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. And Mexico—notorious for the machismo of its men—has elected a woman President: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. But in the United States, electing a woman chief executive is unthinkable to most American men.
According to Daniel Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, men who support Trump hold to a traditionally masculine identity.
“So, among that group, Trump is up over Harris by about 35 points. Huge gap, Among other men, the half of men who don’t put themselves at the extremes of masculinity, Harris is up by 20. In fact, Harris is also up by 20 among most groups of women. So, really the gap is not between men and women, it’s between this one group of traditional masculine men and everybody else.”
Machismo played a major role in Trump’s popularity among Hispanics. Roughly six in 10 men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%.
Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.
During the eight-year tenure of America’s first black President, Donald Trump attacked Barack Obama as a foreign-born citizen who was thus ineligible for that office. He also had a history of supporting—and being supported by—racist white groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Nevertheless, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 12, 2025 at 12:12 am
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
Case #5: Even after Donald Trump left office, the Justice Department treated him with a deference not shown any other criminal defendant.
He was allowed, for example, to hurl insults and threats at Special Counsel Jack Smith and even Smith’s family.
One such post, published on Trump’s website, Truth Social, went: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!”
By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith.
Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such a threat.
Jack Smith
By contrast: Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him for jury tampering—and convicting him on March 4, 1964. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
No one in the Kennedy Justice Department said: “He’s the elected president of the Teamsters Union—so we can’t touch him.” Yet that is precisely how the Biden Justice Department repeatedly acted—simply because, in 2016, he won a Presidential election.
Case #6: Throughout his struggles to stay out of prison, Trump was aided by the unrelenting support of the Republican party.
Republicans loudly and repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election—despite overwhelming evidence that he wasn’t.
They also claimed that, by appointing Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.
They also fully supported Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
For example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.
On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held. “Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.
Adolf Hitler similarly portrayed as martyrs the Nazis who tried to violently overthrow the government of Bavaria on November 9, 1923.
A March 2, 2020 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously: “U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
Case #7: While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.
The United States House Oversight Committee opened its investigation into the Biden family on January 11, 2023. The investigation included the foreign business activities of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James.
By November 2023, the investigation had not found any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.
Democrats, by contrast, never probed why Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021.
Jared Kushner
Salman has been implicated by U.S. Intelligence reports in the 2018 torture and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. When asked if he believed the reports, Kushner said: “Are we really still doing this?”
Democrats also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
The Federal Government did not inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for.
Case #8: On July 13, 2024, Trump was allegedly wounded in his right ear by a gunman while speaking at an open-air Presidential campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.
The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight rounds from an AR-15 style rifle from the roof of a nearby building. Trump dived for cover behind his lectern, as the shooter killed one audience member and critically injured two others.
Crooks was shot and killed seconds later by the Secret Service’s Counter Sniper Team.
Had Trump not slightly turned his head at the moment Crooks fired, Republicans would have been forced to choose another nominee.
In addition, Trump would not have been alive to win the 2024 Presidential election and openly threaten to imprison the Justice Department prosecutors who sought to hold him accountable for his litany of crimes.
The assassination attempt calls to mind that by Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb. Had he succeeded, the war in Europe would no doubt have ended far earlier, with countless lives being saved.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 11, 2025 at 12:10 am
On January 20, for the second time, Donald J. Trump took the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States.
Since then, he has aggressively committed a series of outrages against the country he claims to love, including:
- Granting clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
- Signing 26 executive orders reversing climate change initiatives, eliminating DEI programs, changing the federal designation for the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and initiating a federal hiring freeze.
- Revoking an executive order on Artificial Intelligence safety signed by former President Joseph Biden, to establish safeguards for the rapidly advancing AI technology.
- Firing the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
- Purging about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations. Their “crime”: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and illegally holding highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the Department of Defense deletes content that included the achievements of nonwhites—such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans.
- Firing the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- James had convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Comey had sought to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential campaign to ensure Trump’s election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on October 1, when Democrats refused to agree to his gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), causing 10-15 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage.
- Among those not getting paid: Air traffic controllers for the Federal Aviation Administration. Owing to many controllers refusing to work, the FAA reduced air traffic by 10% at many airports.
- Shutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 election—and prevented these outrages.
Case #1: On December 18, 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment.
Their motive: Fear that if they didn’t, they would be “primaried” by even more extreme, Trump-supported Right-wing candidates—and lose their positions and the accompanying power and perks.
Had Republicans agreed to convict him, he could not have run again for President.
Case #2: On January 13, 2021, Trump was impeached for the second time for “incitement of insurrection”—inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.
The reason: To stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which he knew would prove that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won the 2020 Presidential election.
The evidence against him was overwhelming—including video of his inciting a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol Building.
But Republican Senators again acquitted Trump on February 13, 2021—choosing ambition over patriotism.
Had they done so, he could not have again been a candidate for President.
Donald Trump
Case #3: Only on November 18, 2022—a year and a half after becoming Attorney General—did Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Independent Counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s role for:
- Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
- Illegally seizing and storing highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida.
This gave Trump time to play his “deny and delay” game. Had he been prosecuted and convicted before the November 5 Presidential election, the results might well have been different.
Even hardcore supporters might have proved unwilling to vote for someone found guilty of inciting a riot or stealing highly classified documents.
Case #4: In June, 2023, Trump was indicted for illegally seizing and storing hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee as Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, presided over the case.
She repeatedly ruled in his favor and finally dismissed the case in July, 2024. claiming that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
Aileen Cannon
Southern District of Florida, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Many legal experts, citing her handling of the civil case against Trump, called for her recusal from the case. Jack Smith could have requested her removal from the case but did not ask a Federal appeals court to do so.
MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuade told Newsweek that Smith likely refused to do so to “return public trust” to the Justice Department, which had been challenged in recent years.
Cannon’s kid-gloves treatment of Trump echoed that of the Right-wing judge who presided over Adolf Hitler’s trial in 1923 for trying to overthrow the government of Bavaria.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 22, 2025 at 12:05 am
During his 1992 Presidential campaign, Bill Clinton had “It’s the Economy, Stupid,” as his mantra for staying focused on the issue that recession-suffering Americans most cared about.
Donald Trump’s mantra—as Presidential candidate and President—could be summed up as: “It’s the Hatred, Stupid.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his first Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him— in politics, journalism, TV and films.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them. Among his targets:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- News organizations
- The disabled
- POWs
And his base is equally motivated by hatred—of the same persons and organizations whom Trump regularly attacks. During the 2016 campaign, countless such voters told interviewers: “He says what I’ve long been thinking!”
Trump didn’t implant hatred in them—he simply gave it legitimacy. And they love him for it.
And since coming to power once again as President on January 20, Trump has given his lust for hatred free reign.
- Issued pardons to about 1,500 of his followers who violently tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Move than 250 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting police.
- Withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Suspended all foreign aid for at least three months.
- Withdrew from the Paris climate agreement.
- Through his appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, has declared all-out war on established medical institutions.
- Ordered the dismissal of 5,000 FBI agents who investigated his incitement of the January 6 riot and his own hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
- Declared “a national emergency” targeting migrants—legal and illegal.
- Sought to cancel automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children, known as birthright, and enshrined within the United States Constitution.
- Withdrew the security detail assigned to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley for rightly criticizing him as a wannabe dictator.
- Cancelled travel to the United States for refugees, including those who had been approved to resettle within the country.
- Withdrew the security detail assigned to Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Fauci’s crime: Contradicting Trump’s lies about the dangers of COVID-19.
- Ordered all Federal Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility offices, positions, plans, actions, initiatives or programs to be scrapped within 60 days.
- Through his Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Brenden Carr, forced CBS to cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”—a fierce Trump critic.
Upon being named Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler ruthlessly moved to make himself absolute dictator.
During his first eight months since again taking office on January 20, Donald Trump has ruthlessly moved to make himself absolute dictator
* * * * * * * * * *
As non- and anti-Fascist Americans have watched Trump’s behavior with fear and morbid fascination, many of them have asked: “What makes him do the things he does?”
It’s a question asked—and answered—in the 1993 Western, Tombstone. And the answer given in that movie may just hold the answer to the question so many Americans are now asking about Trump.
Tombstone recounts the legendary blood feud between the Ike Clanton outlaw gang and the Earp brothers—Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil—in the famous gold-mining town in 1880s Arizona.
Wyatt Earp has been challenged to a gunfight by quick-trigger gunman Johnny Ringo. Although he impulsively accepted the challenge, Wyatt now realizes he’s certain to be killed. Thus follows this exchange with his longtime friend, the pistol-packing dentist, John H. “Doc” Holliday:
WYATT EARP: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
JOHN H. “DOC” HOLLIDAY: A man like Ringo’s got a great empty hole right through the middle of him. He can never kill enough or steal enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
EARP: What does he need?
HOLLIDAY: Revenge.
EARP: For what?
HOLLIDAY: Bein’ born.
Donald Trump was born into a world of wealth and privilege. His father gave him $200 million, which he channeled into a real estate empire. He has claimed to be worth a billion dollars.
He has been linked—often by his own boasts—to some of the most beautiful women in the world. He has been a major force on TV through his “reality show,” The Apprentice. He has literally stamped his name on hundreds of buildings.
And now he holds the Presidency of the United States, the most powerful office in the Western world.
Yet he remains filled with a poisonous hatred that encompasses almost everyone.
Since taking office, he has offered nothing positive in his agenda. Instead, he has focused his efforts on what he can take from others. At the top of his list: Declaring war on millions of illegal immigrants—many of whom hold menial jobs most other Americans refuse to take.
As first-mate Starbuck says of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick: “He is a champion of darkness.”
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In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 17, 2025 at 12:10 am
On September 10, 2025, Donald Trump discovered hate speech.
It had been a long time coming.
As both a Presidential candidate and President, Donald Trump repeatedly used Twitter (now X) to attack hundreds of real and imagined enemies in politics, journalism, TV and films.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his first Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them. Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- President Barack Obama
- Actress Meryl Streep
- Singer Neil Young
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Comedian John Oliver
- News organizations
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Perhaps his most slanderous insult came when he accused Rafael Cruz, the father of his campaign rival, Senator Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz, of being a potential part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
As a Presidential candidate and President, he has shown outright hatred for President Barack Obama. Starting in 2011, he slandered Obama as a Kenyan-born alien who had no right to hold the Presidency.
Barack Obama
Only on the eve of the first Presidential debate with Hillary Clinton—in September, 2016—did he finally admit that Obama had been born in the United States. He did so to desperately court support among black voters, who saw his attacks on Obama as attacks on them.
Then, on March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, Trump accused Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
Both the FBI and Justice Department vigorously refuted this slander.
According to The Washington Post Fact Checker database: Trump’s false or misleading claims totaled over 30,573 during his first presidency. Many of these claims were directed at political opponents, media figures, and other individuals.
Trump reserved some of his most insulting speech for political opponents:
- “Crooked Hillary” Clinton
- “Crazy Bernie” Sanders
- “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz
To blunt the influence of the news media’s influence with the public, Trump labeled them “Fake News” and “The enemy of the American people.”
Then, on September 10, 2025, Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk was shot by a sniper while speaking at a Turning Point USA public debate event on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah.
That was when Trump discovered the evils of hate speech. And on September 16, he offered his own definition of it.
On September 15, his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, had vowed to go after those who engaged in “hate speech” following Kirk’s assassination: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place—especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie—in our society.
“We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that is across the aisle.”
Pam Bondi
On September 16, ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl asked Trump about Bondi’s threat, noting: “A lot of your allies say that hate speech is free speech.”
Trump replied:
“She’ll probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly, You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they will come after ABC. ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech. Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech, so maybe they will have to go after you.”
In short: Any speech that displeases Trump automatically becomes “hate speech”—and is subject to federal prosecution
Writing about Alexander the Great more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian and biographer Plutarch noted:
“And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.”
Another ancient writer to cast light on the mentality behind Trump’s remark was Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. As private secretary to the Roman Emperor Hadrian, he gained access to the imperial archives. It was from these that he obtained the material for The Twelve Caesars, his chronicle of debauchery from Julius Caesar to Domitian.
His chapter on Gaius Caligula is especially pornographic. It was Caligula who summed up the underlying goal of all the Caesars—and its effects on countless Romans and non-Romans.
Speaking to a critic, Caligula said: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.”
On February 27, 1933, a lone arsonist set fire to the German parliament building, the Reichstag, gutting most of the structure.
The next day, at the request of newly-installed Chancellor Adolf Hitler, President Paul von Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree into law. This suspended most civil liberties in Germany, including:
- Freedom of speech, press, association and public assembly;
- Habeas corpus; and
- Secrecy of the mails and telephone.
Donald Trump is clearly seeking to turn Charlie Kirk’s murder into the equivalent of the Reichstag fire.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 8, 2025 at 12:30 am
As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump was fiercely attacked by Democrats and his fellow Republicans. But one of his sharpest critics lived more than 500 years ago.
He was Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesmen and father of modern politics.
For openers: Trump had drawn heavy criticism for his angry and brutal attacks on a wide range of persons and organizations—including his fellow Republicans, journalists, news organizations, other countries and even celebrities who have nothing to do with politics.
Donald Trump
Now consider Machiavelli’s advice on gratuitously handing out insults and threats:
- “I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.”
- “For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy—but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
Trump, in turn, casually dismissed the criticism he had received:
“I can be Presidential, but if I was Presidential I would only have—about 20% of you would be here because it would be boring as hell, I will say,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Superior, Wisconsin.
Trump admitted that his wife, Melania, and daughter, Ivanka, had urged him to be more Presidential. And he promised that he would.
“But I gotta knock off the final two [Republican candidates—Ohio Governor John Kasich and Texas U.S. Senator Rafael Cruz] first, if you don’t mind.”
For those who expected Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli offered a stern warning:
- “…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure.”
- “No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it…”
- “For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
Then there was Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
This totally contrasted with the advice given by Machiavelli:
- “A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.”
- “But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”
And Machiavelli gave a related warning on the advising of rulers: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.
During the fifth GOP debate in the 2016 Presidential sweepstakes, host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump this question:
“Mr. Trump, Dr. [Ben] Carson just referenced the single most important job of the president, the command and the care of our nuclear forces. And he mentioned the triad.
“The B-52s are older than I am. The missiles are old. The submarines are aging out. It’s an executive order. It’s a commander-in-chief decision.
“What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?”
[The triad refers to America’s land-, sea- and air-based systems for delivering nuclear missiles and bombs.]
Nuclear missile in silo
Trump’s reply: “Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important.”
He then digressed to his having called the Iraq invasion a mistake in 2003 and 2004. Finally he came back on topic:
“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear.
“Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. The biggest problem we have today is nuclear–nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon.
“I think to me, nuclear, is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”
Which brings us back to Machiavelli:
- “…Some think that a prince who gains the reputation of being prudent [owes this to] the good counselors he has about him; they are undoubtedly deceived.”
- “It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”
All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 20, 2025 at 12:05 am
Albert Anastasia may have a lesson to teach Donald Trump.
Born in Calabria, Italy, in 1902, he illegally entered the United States in 1919. By the late 1920s, Anastasia had become a top leader of the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA), controlling six local chapters of the labor union in Brooklyn.
Soon he entered the ranks of the Mafia.
His close associates included future crime bosses Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello.
Anastasia was not a financial wizard like Lansky or a consummate fixer like Costello. His “gift” was on a far more coarse level: He was a killer who turned murder into a highly profitable business.
As the head of “Murder, Inc.,” the Mafia’s extermination squad, Anastasia arranged for the murders of hundreds of men.
Albert Anastasia
One of those targets was Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, a Mafia assassin who turned state’s witness in 1941. His revelations sent mobster Louis “Lepke” Buchalter to the electric chair on March 4, 1944—to date, the only mob boss to do so.
Reles’ next target was to be Anastasia himself.
But he never got the chance. Guarded constantly by NYPD detectives at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, Reles was found sprawled on the sidewalk six floors below his room. Police claimed he had made a makeshift rope and climbed out of the window to play a trick on his guards. No one was ever charged with his death.
“I never met anyone yet who thought Reles went out that window on purpose,” said later Mafia turncoat Joseph Valachi.
In 1951, Anastasia rose to the head of what is now called the Gambino family after making his boss, Vincent Mangno, “do the Houdini,” as mobsters liked to put it.
But his lethal wrath could descend on anyone—including honest citizens who had no connections to organized crime.
Such a citizen was Arnold Schuster, an American clothing salesman and amateur detective. On February 18, 1952, while riding the Brooklyn subway, Schuster spotted notorious bank robber Willie “The Actor” Sutton.
Arnold Schuster
Following Sutton to a garage, Schuster quickly notified police of his whereabouts. They arrested Sutton as he changed a dead battery from his car, which had stalled in the street.
Schuster became—briefly—a celebrity.
Then, on March 8, a gunman shot Schuster outside his home. Police were baffled: Schuster was not a mobster, and Sutton had no ties to organized crime.
Only years later did the truth emerge: According to Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, Anastasia was watching TV when Schuster was being interviewed. Anastasia yelled at a nearby enforcer: “I can’t stand squealers! Hit that guy!”
Anastasia’s murder of Schuster violated a cardinal Mafia rule: Police, prosecutors and and citizens who aren’t involved in organized crime are off-limits.
This isn’t because mobsters want to be “good guys.” It’s because attacks on these people draw unacceptable heat from the press and police.
In 1935, the Commission, the governing body established by Luciano, learned that mobster Arthur Flegenheimer—better known as Dutch Schultz—planned to “hit” New York Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey.
Knowing that this would provoke an all-out attack on the Mafia, the Commission ordered Schutz’ own murder—which occurred on October 23, 1935.
Anastasia already had plenty of enemies within the mob. They feared his insatiable greed and willingness to destroy anyone who stood in his way. One of these was Meyer Lansky, who, by the mid-1950s, had set up a highly profitable casino empire in Havana, Cuba.
Anastasia made it clear he wanted a hefty portion of those revenues.
Anastasia’s murder of Arnold Schuster gave his enemies another reason to scorn him: His sheer unpredictability. If he could order the execution of a “civilian” who had become a minor celebrity, he could order the execution of anyone.
Vito Genovese, eager to replace Frank Costello as “boss of all bosses” of the Mafia, knew that Anastasia was a longtime friend of Costello. And any move made against Costello would be swiftly avenged by Anastasia.
Vito Genovese
Genovese found it easy to persuade other high-ranking Mafiosi that the killing of Schuster proved that Anastasia was too unstable to be allowed to live.
On October 27, 1957, Anastasia became a victim of his own specialty. While resting under hot towels in the Sheraton Palace barber shop, he didn’t see two men with scarves covering their faces rush in.
As the gunmen fired at Anastasia, he lunged at their reflections in the wall mirror of the barber shop. The gunmen continued firing until a lucky shot struck him in the back of the head.
So much for Anastasia.
Now for Donald Trump, a President who not only acts like a mobster but has had close business relationships with mobsters.
Specifically: Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, head of the Genovese crime Family, and Paul “Big Paul” Castellano, boss of the Gambino one. Trump reportedly employed construction companies linked to both Families to build Trump Plaza and Trump Tower.
Trump’s mania for using social media to attack everyone he hates is deservedly legendary. But his latest rabid attacks on megastars Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen may have sealed his own fate.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 11, 2025 at 12:23 am
To understand Republicans’ behavior, you need to understand the word “projection.“
As defined by psychologists, “projection” means unconsciously taking unwanted emotions or traits you don’t like about yourself and attributing them to someone else.
Except that, with Republicans, there is nothing unconscious about attributing their own evil intentions and/or actions to those they hate.
To cite a telling example: “Weaponizing” is a word now in vogue among Republicans. As in: “By appointing a Special Counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice (DOJ) proves that Democrats have weaponized Federal law enforcement.”
Republicans conveniently refuse to say why the Justice Department appointed former DOJ official Jack Smith to that position: Because, before leaving the White House, Trump shipped more than 300 highly classified documents in 15 boxes to his estate in Mar-a-Lago.
Jack Smith
As an ex-President, he had no right to possess any of these documents.
Moreover, he not only illegally took these documents, he lied to government investigators that he had not done so. It took an August 8, 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to retrieve them.
Then there’s the matter of the January 6, 2021 defendants.
They are so named because, on that date, Trump incited his followers to violently attack the United States Capitol Building. Their goal: To prevent Republicans and Democrats from counting the Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election.
Trump fully understood that an accurate count of those votes would reveal his loss to former Vice President Joe Biden: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers
- Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted.
- A gallows was erected in front of the Capitol.
- Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes.
- Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
- A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
- Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
- Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
- Blue-and-white TRUMP flags floated above the crowd.
- Shouts of “Hang [Vice President] Mike Pence!” often rang out.
- Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
Stormtrumpers inside the Capitol Building
More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
By December, 2023, 1,270 participants in the coup attempt had pleaded guilty or convicted. a total of 1,100 defendants were sentenced; more than 600 were sentenced to prison.
Upon retaking office on January 20, 2025, Trump pardoned all of them.
Yet Republicans—most notably Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—have depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.
On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held.
“Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), another member of the tour, exchanged hugs with with Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt had been shot by police as she forced her way into the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place.
Republicans‘ fixation on “weaponization” centered on Trump’s facing 91 criminal offenses in four criminal cases.
These related to Trump’s
- Attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election;
- Election interference in Georgia;
- Falsifying business records in New York; and
- Mishandling classified records after leaving the presidency.
Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to be criminally indicted—and convicted..
For Republicans, prosecutors’ daring to hold Trump accountable for his litany of crimes amounts to “election interference.” As if winning office through the efforts of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has conferred “untouchable” status upon him.
As a result, Republicans made unprecedented efforts to undermine these prosecutions.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a Trump ally who sits on the Appropriations Committee, introduced two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump’s prosecutors—Special Counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., tried to cut off funding for Smith’s office.
Republicans have in the past championed “states’ rights” against “federal overreach.” But when their former President found himself facing the consequences of his own criminality, they were eager to abort state-level prosecutions.
At the same time, they slandered President Joseph Biden as “weaponizing” the Justice Department against his political rival.
In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, the dictatorship ruling Oceania offers the following slogan for its citizens:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Republicans would have Americans believe
- The attempted overturning of a legitimate Presidential election was an act of patriotism;
- An ex-President taking classified materials to which he had no right was entirely justified; and
- Donald Trump has an absolute right to commit any crime he desires.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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FIRST THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC VANISHED, NOW THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC: PART SIX (OF SEVEN)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 15, 2025 at 12:11 amIn 2024, President Joseph Biden turned 80—six years younger than German President Paul von Hindenburg when he died—and was capable of dying literally any day.
His Vice President, Kamala Harris, was widely perceived as unprepared for the Presidency.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump—like Adolf Hitler—was waging an all-out campaign to make himself dictator. And—like Hitler—he was using the democratic system to destroy democracy.
Hitler had a list of priorities—such as persecuting the Jews and conquering the Soviet Union—that he intended to carry out.
Adolf Hitler
And so did Trump. Among Trump’s: Implementing “Project 2025.”
This was 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 aimed to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
Seal of the Justice Department
Throughout the campaign, Trump denied that he had even heard of “Project 2025.”
According to the Washington Post Fact Checker 2020, by the time Trump left office in 2021, he had told approximately 30,573 lies. Among his most lethal were the ones he repeatedly told in 2020 about COVID-19:
As a result of his lies and ruthless attacks on medical professionals trying to combat the disease, more than 400,000 Americans died.
That should have been enough to prove that nothing he said could be trusted. But for 77 million voters who were invested in their own hatred and/or ignorance, it wasn’t.
CBS Correspondent William L. Shirer covered the Third Reich from 1934 to 1940. Writing about the rise of Adolf Hitler in his monumental bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), he noted:
“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.
“At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 percent of the vote. But the 63 percent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out.”
Competent future historians will reach the same verdict about the second coming to power for Donald Trump on November 5, 2024.
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