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Posts Tagged ‘NAZIS’

THE REAL VILLIANS RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP’S EVIL—PART TWO (OF FOUR)

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.

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

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.

Republican Disc.svg

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. 

DNC alleges Secret Service blocked it from serving lawsuit to Jared Kushner | CNN Politics

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.

THE REPUBLICANS’ LATEST HORST WESSEL

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 24, 2025 at 12:06 am

Legitimate similarities abound between the tactics—and often the goals—of yesterday’s Nazis and today’s Republicans

One of these is the need for martyrs by both parties. 

The Nazis found theirs in Horst Wessel (October 9, 1907 – February 23, 1930).

As a teenager growing up in the Weimar Republic of Germany, he joined the Viking Liga (“Viking League”), a Right-wing paramilitary group. Its goal, wrote Wessel, was “the “establishment of a national dictatorship.”

Wessel soon became a local leader, engaging in street battles with rival Leftist groups such as the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD). In 1926, he joined the paramilitary Sturmabteilung (“Storm Detachment” or SA) of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party.

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1978-043-14, Horst Wessel.jpg

Horst Wessel

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-043-14 / Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

His unit had a reputation as “a band of thugs, a brutal squad.” One of his men described the way they fought against the Communists: “Horst made Adolf Hitler’s principle his own: Terror can be destroyed only by counterterror.”

In September 1929, Wessel met Erna Jänicke, a 23-year-old ex-prostitute, in a tavern. Some sources claim Wessel acted as Jänicke’s pimp. She soon moved into his room. 

Wessel’s landlady, Elisabeth Salm, wanted Jänicke to leave. But Jänicke refused to do so.

Salm appealed to Communist friends of her late husband to evict Jänicke, They agreed to beat Wessel up and evict him from Salm’s flat. 

On February 23, 1930, Albrecht Höhler, an armed pimp and petty criminal, knocked at Wessel’s door. When Wessel opened it, Höhler shot him dead.

He was 22 when he died.

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels quickly turned Wessel into a Nazi martyr. Wessel had written the lyrics for a new Nazi fight song: “The Unknown SA-Man.” It later became known as “Raise the Flag” and finally the “Horst Wessel Lied.” 

Its opening stanza.

Raise the flag! The ranks tightly closed!
The SA marches with calm, steady step.
Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries
March in spirit within our ranks.

“The Horst Wessel Lied” became the official anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945.

Fast forward to September 10, 2025—when the Republican Party got its own martyr: Charlie Kirk.

Kirk (October 14, 1993 – September 10, 2025) was an American Right-wing political activist, entrepreneur and media personality. 

He co-founded the organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012 and was its executive director. He published a range of books and hosted a talk radio program, The Charlie Kirk Show.

Charlie Kirk

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Kirk opposed gun control, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and abortion. Asked if he would support abortion for his 10-year-old daughter if she were raped, he said: “The baby would be delivered.”

Kirk spread misinformation about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, masks, lockdowns, and related public health measures during the pandemic. As a result, he was at least partially responsible for untold numbers of the 400,000 Americans who died of COVID during 2020, Trump’s final year in office.

He was a major promoter of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory—that white populations in Western countries are being systematically replaced by non-white immigrants, with the complicity of liberal governments.

Kirk accepted wholesale Trump’s lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him by massive voter fraud. And he played a pivotal role in re-electing the 34-times convicted felon in 2024.

Head-and-shoulders shot of Trump with a serious facial expression, his right eye partly closed. He is wearing a dark blue suit, a pale blue dress shirt, a red necktie, and an American flag lapel pin. Parts of the image are slightly out of focus. The background is black.

Donald Trump

On September 10, 2025, 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.

The Republican party responded with outrage comparable to that expressed by the Nazis upon the assassination of SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1042.

In an Oval Office address the same day as the shooting, Trump blamed the “radical Left,” even as the killer’s identity and motivation remained unknown. Totally ignored in his speech was his own role in fomenting politically motivated violence.

Trump’s high-ranking political appointees uttered similar threatening statements: 

On September 15, his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, vowed to attack 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 15—five days after Kirk’s death–-Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast: “So, when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”  

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to use law enforcement to go after Americans who mocked Kirk’s death, calling that domestic terrorism:

“We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law to take away your freedom.” 

Donald Trump is clearly seeking to turn Charlie Kirk’s murder into the equivalent of that of Horst Wessel. 

“AMERICAN HISTORY” ISN’T WHAT IT WAS

In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2025 at 12:08 am

Future historians—if there are any—may well view the administration of President Donald Trump the same way that historian Richard J. Evans analyzes the Third Reich. 

To place the infamy of the Trump administration in the same context as that of the Third Reich, consider the opening paragraph from his latest bestseller: Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich.

Substitute “Republicans” for “Nazis,” “Donald Trump” for “Adolf Hitler,” andAmericans” for “Germans.”      

As in the following:

“Who were the Republicans? What motivated the leaders and functionaries of the Republican movement and those who put their project into action? What had happened to their moral compass?

“Were they in some sense deviant, or deranged, or degenerate? Were they gangsters acting with criminal intent? Or were they ‘ordinary men’ (and a few women), or perhaps, more precisely, ‘ordinary Americans’? Did they come from the margins of society, were they outsiders, or were they in some sense part of American society’s mainstream?

“And how do they explain Trump’s drive to achieve dictatorial power? Was he a kind of empty shell, devoid of personal qualities and without a personal life, into which Americans poured their deepest political ambitions and desires?

Amazon.com: Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich: 9780593296424: Evans, Richard J: Books

“What made otherwise normal people carry out, or approve, terrible and murderous atrocities against Republicans’ real and supposed enemies? Or were they perhaps not normal at all? Beyond this, why did so many leading Americans in responsible positions, in the key institutions of society, go along with the dictatorship….?

“And what did those of them who survived….think of about their conduct during the Trump administration? Did they gain a moral perspective on it, did they repent, did they come to an understanding of what they had done?”

Americans have always considered themselves separate from—and superior to—those in other nations. Germans and Russians might fall prey to evil dictators, but Americans? Never!

Evangelical Americans believe that the United States is divinely inspired—and protected.

Thus, American TV networks have filled the airwaves with movies and doc-u-dramas about Nazi Germany such as: “Hitler: The Rise of Evil,” “The Bunker,” “Nuremberg,” “Holocaust,” “Inside the Third Reich,” “Conspiracy,” “Hitler’s SS: Portrait of Evil,” “The Plot to Kill Hitler.”

Hitler: The Rise of Evil (TV Mini Series 2003) - IMDb

Yet American networks have been unwilling to produce films about the evil of America’s own Right-wing leaders. It’s extremely unlikely that future network executives will OK a miniseries on “Trump: The Rise of Evil.”

To date, only one film—“Tail Gunner Joe”—has been made about the rise and fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

For four years (1950-1954) McCarthy terrorized Americans with false charges of a massive Communist conspiracy, leaving broken lives and national mistrust in his wake.

And “Tail Gunner Joe” was made in 1974.

The fall of President Richard Nixon in 1974 led networks to produce such movies as “Blind Ambition” (1979) and “The Final Days” (1989). But those appeared decades ago. And no new ones have appeared since.

In 1989, CBS found the courage to run “Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North.” What made this unusual was that it appeared only three years after the story of the infamous “Iran-Contra” arms-for-hostages story broke.

But the role of former President Ronald Reagan in waging unjustified terror-war against Nicaragua was totally ignored. And no other movie has since been made on this disgraceful period in United States history.

Ronald Reagan: Biography, 40th U.S. President, Politician, Actor

Ronald Reagan

Americans have always been convinced of their own purity as a people—especially when compared to those supposedly corrupt, undemocratic European nations. And so, according to popular mythology, the United States is constantly losing its innocence.

Such as:

I861 – 1865: Civil War—When brother supporting slavery fought brother supporting freedom. 

1898: Spanish-American War–The United States freed Cuba from the Spanish.

1917 – 1918: World War 1–When innocent American “doughboys” rushed to Europe to save immoral France and England from the Hunnish Germans.

1942 – 1945: World War II–Once again, Americans rushed to Europe to (again) save impure France and England from (again) the Hunnish Germans and end the Holocaust. 

1954 – 1975: Vietnam War–The United States rushed to fight Communism on behalf of a people struggling to be free.

Lost in all these “innocent” scenarios are such unpleasant realities as: 

  • After the Civil War, millions of former slaves were left to fend for themselves. Although freed, blacks were left poor, despised and subject to violence at any time by the Ku Klux Klan.
  • After the Spanish-American war, America seized the Philippines for itself—and relinquished them only in 1946.
  • Before World War II, the United States turned away thousands of would-be Jewish immigrants, dooming them to the Holocaust. And it entered the war only after it was attacked at Pearl Harbor.
  • During the Vietnam war, the United States defended an unpopular dictatorship in the South against a popular Communist one in the North.

During the 1950s, Baby Boom schoolers were spoon-fed a Disney version of American history. When they grew old enough to witness the struggles for black civil rights and against the Vietnam war, they felt they had been lied to—and reacted with anger and protest. 

Generations that have been “protected” against the ugly realities of the past are ill-equipped to cope with those in their own lives.

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 20, 2025 at 12:14 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.

Similarly, in 2024, Trump made “mass deportations” the signature issue of his campaign. The vast majority of those slated for such removal were Hispanics. 

But 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 Latino voters, regardless of age, 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. Palestinian health authorities claim that Israel’s ground and air campaign has killed more than 46,600 people, 

Why Hamas and Israel reached this moment now — and what comes next | WBUR

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 end 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 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.
  • 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.
  • American 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.

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. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Social commentary on March 19, 2025 at 12:08 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:

  1. The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States. 
  2. 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.

Related image

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. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on March 18, 2025 at 12:05 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.

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

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.

Republican Disc.svg

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 have relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats have 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, have not 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. 

DNC alleges Secret Service blocked it from serving lawsuit to Jared Kushner | CNN Politics

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 have 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.

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 17, 2025 at 2:37 am

On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.          

About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.  

Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.

Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.

At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.

Hitler used his time in prison to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—including the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of the Soviet Union.

Image result for Images of Adolf Hitler outside Landsberg prison

Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924

Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic.

Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.

Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….

“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.”Related imageAmazon.com: Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939: 9780385354387: Ullrich, Volker: Books

Thus, it isn’t just what happens that can influence the course of history. Often, it’s what doesn’t happen that has at least as great a result.

Future historians—if there are any—may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in re-electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 election.

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. 

Related image

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:

  1. Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
  2. 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&gt;, 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. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on December 18, 2024 at 12:47 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.

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

Jack Smith

By contrast: From 1957 to 1971, Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him on May 18, 1962, for accepting $1 million from a trucking company in exchange for labor peace.

After beating the case through jury tampering, he was again indicted—for jury tampering—and convicted 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, by appointing a Special Counsel to investigate  Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.

Republicans refuse to acknowledge the criminal charges which led to the Justice Department appointing former DOJ official Jack Smith to that position. They also fully support Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

Republican Disc.svg

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.

Case 7: While Congressional Republicans have relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats have 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, have not 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. 

DNC alleges Secret Service blocked it from serving lawsuit to Jared Kushner | CNN Politics

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 have 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 shot and slightly wounded in his right ear 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. 

Case 9: On November 5, Americans faced a choice between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon for President. 

They chose the felon—partly out of hatred for illegal aliens and partly out of anger at high grocery prices. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 17, 2024 at 12:18 am

On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.     

About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.  

Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.

Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.

At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.

Hitler used his time in prison to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—including the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of the Soviet Union.

Image result for Images of Adolf Hitler outside Landsberg prison

Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924

Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic.

Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.

Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….

“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.”

Related imageAmazon.com: Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939: 9780385354387: Ullrich, Volker: Books

Thus, it isn’t just what happens that can influence the course of history. Often, it’s what doesn’t happen that has at least as great a result.

Future historians—if there are any—may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in re-electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 election.

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. 

Related image

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:

  1. Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
  2. 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&gt;, 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. 

THE TEFLON HAS MELTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2024 at 12:16 am

Commentators have long speculated on why millions of Americans remain fanatically committed to Donald Trump.       

There has been far less speculation on why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason.

Among those guilty:

  • The Justice Department did not indict Trump for the series of threats he made—directly and indirectly—against Republicans and Democrats throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign. 
  • The United States Secret Service did not charge him with threatening the life of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” 
  • The Justice Department did not prosecute Trump for treason, even though he solicited aid from Russia, a nation hostile to the United States. On July 27, 2016. Trump publicly invited “Russia”—i.e., Vladimir Putin—to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

There are at least two reasons why Trump has been allowed to insult and even threaten prosecutors and judges without facing the punishment an ordinary citizen would:

Cowardice: They fear Trump will slander them by claiming he’s the victim of a “witch hunt” to remove him from the 2024 Presidential race.

And/or they fear physical attack from his legions of fanatical followers.

Awe of the Presidency:  They fear their careers will be tainted by prosecuting or judging a man who won the votes of 70 million Americans. 

Scales of justice legal gavel, brown, lawyers book png | PNGEgg

There are, however, remedies for both cowardice and awe:

Cowardice:  Prosecutors and judges should expect threats and slanders from Trump. This is how he has traditionally responded to attempts to hold him legally accountable. 

If judges and prosecutors fear violence from Trump’s fanatical followers, they can easily obtain round-the-clock protection by local and/or federal law enforcement agencies.

Awe: Trump is no longer President. He no longer commands Presidential immunity nor the powers of that office—such as being able to cite “executive privilege” to prevent the release of documents or testimony.

His refusals to accept this reality should be bluntly ignored. 

More importantly, as President, he:

  • Took no action to protect Americans from the deadly COVID-19 virus;
  • Constantly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the United States; 
  • Attacked the independent judiciary and free press;
  • Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen;
  • Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump and turn the agency into Trump’s private police force;
  • Used his position as President to further enrich himself in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution;
  • Attacked and alienated America’s oldest democratic allies, such as Canada and Great Britain;
  • Refused to accept the results of a legitimate Presidential election; and
  • Incited a deadly attack on Congress so he could illegally remain in office.

repost dictator Memes & GIFs - Imgflip

Those are only some of the despicable actions he took while in office.

The Presidency has long held most Americans in awe. This is largely because the man (and it’s always been a man) who holds it is elected by all Americans, and not just those of a particular city or state.

And he alone has control of America’s enormous military—the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force—as well as a nuclear arsenal that can literally destroy all life on Earth.

Americans have long assumed that a victorious Presidential candidate has been blessed by God, and thus automatically commands a respect—if not reverence—denied to ordinary mortals.

But respect must be earned. And anyone guilty of even a small number of the crimes committed by Donald Trump long ago forfeited any right to such regard.

Once a President leaves office, he should be treated as any other American citizen—and held to the same standards as an ordinary citizen.

Related image

Niccolo Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman and father of modern political science, has eloquently warned of the dangers of ignoring this truth: 

…No well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits.  But having established rewards for good actions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits.  And a state that properly observes this principle will long enjoy its liberty, but if otherwise, it will speedily come to ruin. 

For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.  

Putting an end to “all power of the law” and setting himself up as “The Law” is precisely what Donald Trump tried to do after losing the 2020 Presidential election—and is still trying to do.