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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 9, 2025 at 12:11 am
There are literally no limits to which Donald Trump’s fanatical supporters will go to convince others he’s a heroic champion worthy of their reverence.
On Facebook and Twitter, his disciples post images of him that are not only false but laughably so.
One such image posted by “Nick Adams (Alpha Male)” showed the jowly, grotesquely overweight, 77-year-old ex-President as a muscular bodybuilder. And it came with the caption: “President Trump is a TITAN!”
Ironically, the tweet came on the same day—June 18, 2023—when news broke of the implosion of the Titan mini-sub and the loss of its five-man crew. The tragedy occurred during a dive to view the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in 1912.
Other memes have depicted Trump—a notorious draft-dodger who received no fewer than five deferments to escape the Vietnam war—as a military hero, clad in full military gear.
One even claimed he had killed Osama bin Laden—an act that occurred when Barack Obama was President and Trump was safely presiding over the TV show, “The Apprentice.”
Other propagandists for Trump have depicted him as beloved by Jesus. This despite the fact that Trump is a notorious liar, egomaniac, adulterer, thief and materialist.
Still others have tried to compare Trump to historical titans—like Winston Churchill.
On May 25, 2020, mass protests erupted across the country following the murder of George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer.
Cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned. In response, President Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”
Death of George Floyd
To drive home his point, on June 1, Trump ordered police, Secret Service agents and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
The purpose of the removal: So Trump—holding a Bible upside down—could have a photo-op in front of the church.
On June 3, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany compared Trump’s photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s visits to bombed British cities during World War II:
“Through all of time, we have seen presidents and leaders across the world who have had leadership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any given time to show a message of resilience and determination.
“Like Churchill, we saw him inspecting the bombing damage. It sent a powerful message of leadership to the British people.”
Kayleigh McEnany
Comparing Trump to Churchill proved a triumph of imagination on McEnany’s part:
- Churchill was an avowed and relentless opponent of Fascism—and especially its most infamous exponent, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler.
- During the 1930s, as Europe’s democracies ignored or quailed before Nazi threats, Churchill demanded that England arm for the coming war against Nazi Germany.
- Trump, a Fascistic dictator by nature, tried to rule by fiat and identified with dictators—most notably Communist ones, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.
- Throughout World War II, Churchill had only one bodyguard—Inspector Walter Thompson, of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch.
Winston Churchill (testing a submachinegun); Walter Thompson (in black fedora)
- Trump was constantly protected by hundreds of Secret Service agents who were supplemented by platoons of local police.
- During bombing raids, Churchill often climbed atop London buildings to watch the bombardment—or raced to cities he had just learned were under attack.
- During the George Floyd protests, Trump ducked into the White House’s bombproof bunker.
- Trump turned the normally well-protected White House into an armed fortress. Block after block of tall, black reinforced fencing had been erected in recent days. Tan military vehicles rolled along Pennsylvania Avenue and camo-clad troops patrolled the corner where tourists once bought red, white and blue USA sweatshirts.
- As a young man, Churchill had served as a second lieutenant in the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars regiment of the British Army. He volunteered to campaign against Islamic rebels in the Swat Valley of northwest India. In Egypt, he joined the 21st Lancers and saw action in the Battle of Omdurman.
- Trump had used his father’s influence to win five draft deferments during the Vietnam war—four allowing him to complete college and one for “bone spurs.”
Donald Trump is by no means the first tyrant to be hailed as a hero.
Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler—who almost certainly never rode a horse—was depicted as an armor-clad knight holding a swastika banner while astride a spirited steed.
And the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin—whose pockmarked face, short stature and widening girth were visible to all who met him—was depicted in posters as handsome, gigantic and trim.
Tyrants pay close attention to how they are depicted. They want to be seen as forever modest, humble, wise and courageous—the embodiment of virtue and patriotism.
To depict them as they usually are—vain, arrogant, stupid, cowardly—they consider a personal affront and a challenge to their absolute rule.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 8, 2025 at 12:27 am
The first six months of Gaius Caligula’s reign as Emperor of Rome were successful and popular.
After that, wrote his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.”
The same could now be written about Donald Trump.
Gaius Caligula
Among his litany of crimes, according to Suetonius:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.
“He had the manager of his gladiatorial shows beaten with chains in his presence for several successive days, and would not kill him until he was disgusted at the stench of his putrefied brain.”
Donald Trump has never been charged with murder. But among his first acts as reelected President was to issue pardons to his 1,500-plus supporters charged in the January 6, 2021 insurrection that shook the foundation of American democracy.
Dozens of them had prior convictions or pending charges for rape, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, manslaughter, production of child pornography and drug trafficking.
Donald Trump
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens.
To prevent this, President Joe Biden issued pre-pardons to, among others:
- Former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney;
- Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley;
- Members of the Biden family;
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases;
- Members of Congress who served on the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
Issuing pardons to those who had not committed crimes to protect them from a vengeance-seeking President was an act unprecedented in American history.
Caligula’s egomania soon reached psychotic heights.
- He gave himself several surnames: “Pious,” “Child of the Camp,” “Father of the Armies,” and “Greatest and Best of Caesars.”
- Flattered that he had risen higher than princes and kings, he began to believe himself a god.
- He appeared at the temple of Castor and Pollux to be worshiped as Jupiter Latiaris.
Trump’s egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them—52%–bear his last name. He often refers to his properties as “the swankiest,” “the most beautiful.”
Among the references he’s made to himself:
- “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
- “My IQ is one of the highest––and you all know it.”
When Caligula wasn’t ordering wholesale Stalin-like purges—ranging from Roman aristocrats to slaves—he was setting new records for debauchery.
According to the Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “[Caligula] lived in habitual incest with all his [three] sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor.”
Trump has never been charged with incest, but he’s repeatedly made sexually inappropriate comments about his daughter, Ivanka:
- “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father …”
- When asked how he would react if Ivanka, a former teen model, posed for Playboy, Trump replied: “I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
I
Ivanka Trump
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Since returning to the White House on January 20, Trump has ordered a massive and continuing purge of federal employees. By April 1, 2025, about 60,000 workers had been laid off or fired.
Among the purged agencies:
- Federal Aviation Administration
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Food and Drug Administration
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Department of Health and Human Services
These firings were not related to poor job performance. And those fired were not given advance notice of their coming termination.
Veterans—who comprise about 30% of the federal workforce–have been particularly hard-hit.
Even those responsible for protecting Trump have been or will be affected: Many Secret Service agents have friends or family members whose lives have been shattered by these purges.
Some of those victims have lost their livelihood. Still others may die of illnesses owing to Trump’s attacks on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It remains to be seen if Trump suffers the final fate as Caligula.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2025 at 12:07 am
Even many Republicans secretly believe that Donald Trump is better-suited for the role of Gaius Caligula than President of the United States. It was Caligula who, as the mad emperor of Rome, once said: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.”
Gaius Caligula
On October 7, 2016, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women.
The remarks came during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood (and now host of Today).
The two were traveling in an Access Hollywood bus to the set of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where Trump was to make a cameo appearance.
Neither Trump nor Bush could be seen during the exchange—the video focuses entirely on the bus. But the audio came in clearly—and, for Trump, damningly:
DONALD TRUMP: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach.
UNKNOWN: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.
TRUMP: I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married.
UNKNOWN: That’s huge news.
TRUMP: No, no, Nancy. No this was—and I moved on her very heavily, in fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.
I took her out furniture. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.
[At that point, they spot Adrianne Zucker, the starring actress in Days in Our Lives.]
Donald Trump
BUSH: Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit. In the purple. Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!
TRUMP: Look at you. You are a pussy. Maybe it’s a different one.
BUSH: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s her. It’s—
TRUMP: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
When the Washington Post broke the story on October 7, the reaction was immediate—and explosive.
This was not a testosterone-fueled teenager fantasizing about making love with a girl he adored. This was a 70-year-old man bragging about having used deceit to try to lure a married woman into bed.
And about having used his celebrity status to force himself on women: “I moved on her very heavily. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Gaius Caligula himself couldn’t have said it better. He lived 29 years and ruled Rome three years, 10 months and eight days. When he died, his reign of depravity and terror died with him.
Today, millions of Americans fear a similar fate will sweep their country now that Donald Trump has again become President.
Caligula’s life spanned August 31, 12 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D. His chief biographer was Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
Trump was born on June 14, 1946.
Caligula became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Trump was reelected President on November 5, 2024, after winning 312 electoral votes to 226 for his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump began his real estate career at his father’s real estate and construction company. He rose to wealth and fame after his father, Fred, gave him control of the business in 1971.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and destroyed lists of those Tiberius had declared traitors. He allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
Similarly, soon after acquiring the family business, Trump set out to build his own empire—hotels, golf courses, casinos, skyscrapers across North and South America, Europe and Asia. He named many of them after himself.
He appeared at the Miss USA pageants, which he owned from 1996 to 2015. He hosted and co-produced The Apprentice, an NBC reality television series from 2004 to 2015.
The ancient historians describe Caligula as a noble and enlightened ruler during the first six months of his reign. But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began laying claim to divine majesty, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered a tribune to murder his brother Tiberius, and drove his father-in‑law Silanus to cut his throat with a razor.
He favorite method of execution was to have a victim tortured with many slight wounds. His infamous order for this: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 4, 2025 at 12:06 am
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, authored The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
For conspirators, there are three ways their efforts can be foiled.
- Discovery through denunciation;
- Discovery through incautiousness;
- Discovery through writings.
The first has already been covered. Now for the second and third.
Discovery through Writings: “You may talk freely with anyone man about everything, for unless you have committed yourself in writing, the “Yes” of one man is worth as much as the ‘No’ of another.
Thus, you should guard most carefully against writing, as against a dangerous rock, for nothing will convict you quicker than your own handwriting.
If you are denounced, there are means of escaping punishment:
- By denying the accusation and claiming that the person making it hates you; or
- Claiming that your accuser was tortured or coerced into giving false testimony against you.
“But the most prudent course is to not tell your intentions to anyone, and to carry out the attempt yourself.”
Even if you’re not discovered before you carry out your attack, there are still two dangers facing a conspirator:
Dangers in Execution: These result from:
- An unexpected change in the routine of the intended target;
- The lack of courage among the conspirators; or
- An error on their part, such as leaving some of those alive whom the conspirators intended to kill.
Adolf Hitler, who claimed to have a sixth-sense for danger, was famous for changing his routine at the last minute.
On November 9, 1939, this instinct saved his life. He had been scheduled to give a long speech at a Munich beer hall before the “Old Fighters” of his storm troopers.
But that evening he cut short his speech and left the beer hall. Forty-five minutes later, a bomb exploded inside a pillar—before which Hitler had been speaking.
Conspirators can also be doomed by their good intentions.
In 44 B.C., Gaius Cassius, Marcus Brutus and other Roman senators decided to assassinate Julius Caesar, whose dictatorial ambitions they feared.
Cassius also intended to murder Mark Anthony, Caesar’s strongest ally. But Brutus objected, fearing the plotters would look like butchers, not saviors. Even worse, he allowed Anthony to deliver a eulogy at Caesar’s funeral.
This proved so inflammatory that the mourners rioted, driving the conspirators out of Rome. Soon afterward, they were defeated in a battle with the legions of Anthony and Octavian Caesar—and forced to commit suicide to avoid capture and execution.
Machiavelli closes his chapter “Of Conspiracies” with advice to rulers on how they should act when they find a conspiracy has been formed against them.
“If they discover that a conspiracy exists against them, they must, before punishing its authors, strive to learn its nature and extent. And they must measure the danger posed by the conspirators against their own strength.
And if they find it powerful and alarming, they must not expose it until they have amassed sufficient force to crush it. Otherwise, they will only speed their own destruction. They should try to pretend ignorance of it. If the conspirators find themselves discovered, they will be forced by necessity to act without consideration.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
But Machiavelli also notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens:
“Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course.
Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate.
On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.”
In his better-known work, The Prince, he warns rulers who—like Donald Trump–are inclined to rule by fear:
“A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
Donald Trump
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy.
Since being inaugurated President a second time, he—and his billionaire enforcer, Elon Musk—have fired about 30,000 federal civil service workers. Another 75,000 have accepted buyouts under threat of being fired.
Among the purged agencies:
- Homeland Security
- Defense
- FBI
- Internal Revenue Service
- Veterans Affairs
- Environmental Protection Agency.
Many of these ex-employees have backgrounds in security. Combine this with the anger fired employees feel at the injustices to themselves and their families, and the result is a recipe for conspiratorial hatred.
“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 3, 2025 at 12:05 am
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, offered sound advice for would-be conspirators—and for rulers seeking to thwart conspiracies.
He did so in The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
One of the longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.” In it, those who wish to conspire against a ruler will find highly useful advice. And so will those who might well become the targets of conspiracies—such as President Donald J. Trump.
Niccolo Machiavellil
The most dangerous time for a ruler comes when he is universally hated.
Niccolo Machiavelli: “When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing the prince is widely loathed.
A prince, then, should avoid incurring such universal hatred….
By doing this, he protects himself from such vengeance-seekers. There are two reasons for this:
(1) Men rarely risk danger to avenge a wrong; and
(2) Even if they want to avenge a wrong, they know they will face almost universal condemnation because the prince is held in such high esteem.”
Machiavelli draws a distinction between plots and conspiracies.
“A plot may be formed by a single individual or by many. The first isn’t a conspiracy, since that would involve at least two participants.”
A single plotter avoids the danger faced by two or more conspirators:
“Since no one knows his intention, he can’t be betrayed by an accomplice.
Anyone may form a plot, whether he is prominent or insignificant, because everyone is at some time allowed to speak to the prince. And he can use this opportunity to satisfy his desire for revenge.”
On the other hand, says Machiavelli, the dangers of assassination by a trusted intimate are slight.
“Few people dare to assault a prince. Of those who do, few or none escapes being killed in the attempt, or immediately afterward. As a result, only a small number of people are willing to incur such certain death.”
Those who take part in a conspiracy against a ruler are “the great men of the state, or those on terms of familiar intercourse with the prince.”
These are men who have access to him. Julius Caesar, for example, was stabbed to death by members of the Roman Senate, who feared his assuming dictatorial powers.
And Adolf Hitler was conspired against by colonels and generals of the German Army. He was in fact holding a war conference when a briefcase bomb exploded, killing three officers and a stenographer, but leaving Hitler only slightly injured.
Adolf Hitler
There are three ways a conspiracy can be foiled:
- Discovery through denunciation;
- Discovery through incautiousness;
- Discovery through writings.
Discovery through Denunciation: This occurs through treachery or lack of prudence among one or more conspirators.
“Treachery is so common that you can safely tell your plans to only your most trusted friends who are willing to risk their lives for your sake. You may find that you have only one or two of these.
But as you are bring more people into the conspiracy, the chances of discovery greatly increase. It’s impossible to find many who can be completely trusted: For their devotion to you must be greater than their sense of danger and fear of punishment.”
Discovery through Carelessness: “This happens when one of the conspirators speaks incautiously, so that a third person overhears it Or it may occur from thoughtlessness, when a conspirator tells the secret to his wife or child, or to some other indiscreet person.
When a conspiracy has more than three or four members, its discovery is almost certain, either through treason, imprudence or carelessness.
If more than one conspirator is arrested, the whole plot is discovered, for it will be impossible for any two to agree perfectly as to all their statements.
If only one is arrested, he may—through courage and stubbornness—be able to conceal the names of his accomplices. But then the others, to remain safe, must not panic and flee, since this is certain to be discovered.
If one of them becomes fearful—whether it’s the one who was arrested or is still at liberty—discovery of the conspiracy is certain.
The best way to avoid such detection is to confide your project to your intended fellow conspirators at the moment of execution—and not sooner.”
A classic example of this occurred in ancient Persia. According to the Greek historian Herodotus: A group of nobles assembled to discuss overthrowing a usurper to the throne. The last one to arrive was Darius.
When one of the conspirators asked, “When should we strike?” Darius replied: “We must either go now at this very moment and carry it into execution, or I shall go and denounce you all. For I will not give any of you time to denounce me.”
At that, they went directly to the palace, assassinated the usurper and proclaimed Darius their new king.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 3, 2025 at 12:13 am
Eighty-six years after Adolf Hitler declared himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people,” the United States faced the same fate under President Donald J. Trump.
On June 1, 2020, Trump declared: ”I am your President of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters.”
But on that same evening, Trump ordered police, Secret Service agents and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
They were protesting the murder of George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25.
The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo op outside the church.
Donald Trump at St. John’s Church
On September 2, Trump sent a memo to Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Attorney General William P. Barr. Its message: Find ways to cut funding to several cities controlled by Democrats.
Trump singled out four cities for defunding: Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; Seattle, Washington; and New York City.
Trump gave his official reason for this move: “Anarchy has recently beset some of our states and cities. My administration will not allow federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones.”
He blamed rising crime rates on Black Lives Matter protesters and blacks who had looted and burned stores during nationwide protests against police brutality. And he claimed that only he could save America from a civil war ignited by such protesters.
At the same time, he totally ignored—or defended—armed white militias who had faced off with Black Lives Matter protesters.
The memo seemed especially aimed at New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio and the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, had been highly critical of Trump’s failure to stem the Coronavirus pandemic.
On Twitter, Cuomo accused Trump of trying to strip funding that cities and states need to recover from Coronavirus: “He is not a king. He cannot ‘defund’ NYC. It’s an illegal stunt.”
Andrew Cuomo
Bill Neidhardt, a spokesman for de Blasio, tweeted: “As much as Donald Trump wants New York City to drop dead, we will never let this stand. This has nothing to do with ‘law and order’. This is a racist campaign stunt out of the Oval Office to attack millions of people of color.”
Trump’s order was never implemented—and was officially revoked on February 24, 2021, by the Justice Department of President Joe Biden.
As for his claim of being “your President of law and order”:
Trump is only the third United States President—after Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton—to be impeached. And not once but twice.
He is also the only President to be:
- Convicted of sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll;
- Convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn actress;
- Repeatedly and falsely claiming voter fraud cheated him of re-election in 2020, thus undermining the legitimacy of the electoral system;
- Falsely claiming that Haitian immigrants were “eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” of Ohio residents.
In addition, Trump waged all-out war on the following institutions:
- The FBI: When FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election on Trump’s behalf, Trump fired him without warning on May 9, 2017.
- The Press: Viciously attacking the nation’s free press to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people”—a phrase used by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
- The Justice Department: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation. On November 7, 2018, the day after Democrats won a majority of House seats, Trump fired Sessions.
- The Judiciary: On October 20, 2018, Trump attacked U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar as an “Obama judge.” Tigar had ruled that the administration must consider asylum claims no matter where migrants cross the U.S. border.
- The Department of Health and Human Services: By lying about the dangers of the COVID-19 virus and promoting quack cures, he caused the deaths of 400,000 Americans by the time he left office.
- The Electoral Process: On September 2, 2020 Trump urged residents in the critical political battleground of North Carolina to try to vote twice in the November 3 election, once by mail and once in person—a totally illegal act.
On the private-sector front:
- On December 10, 2019, Trump paid $2 million to eight charities as part of a settlement where he admitted to misusing funds raised by the Donald J. Trump Foundation. These had been used to promote his presidential bid and pay off business debts. He was forced to close the charity as a result.
- Legal action also forced Trump to shut down his unaccredited Trump University, which the conservative magazine National Review described as a “massive scam.” Although he boasted that he never settled lawsuits, he settled this one in November, 2016, for a reported $25 million rather than go to trial.
When Donald Trump calls himself a “law and order President,” he means: “My order is your law.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 2, 2025 at 12:17 am
On June 30, 1934, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Brownshirts. It was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The Brownshirts (also known as “Stiormtroopers”) had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents (especially Communists) and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, had served as a tough army officer during World War 1. He was one of the few men allowed to use “du,” the personal form of “you” in German, when addressing Hitler.
Rohm urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own undisciplined paramilitary legions as the nation’s defense force.
Ernst Rohm
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
Hitler didn’t hesitate. Backed by armed thugs, he stormed into Rohm’s apartment, catching him in bed with a young S.A. Stormtrooper.
Accusing his onetime friend of treasonously plotting to overthrow him, Hitler screamed: “You’re going to be shot!”
Rohm was not plotting a coup. But the generals had the whip hand—and, for Hitler, that was enough to literally sign Rohm’s death warrant.
Hours later, sitting in a prison cell, Rohm was offered a pistol with a single bullet.
“Adolf himself should do the dirty work,” said Rohm, adding: “All revolutions devour their own children.”
One hour later, Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets.
Earlier throughout that day, so had several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies. Many of them yelled “Heil Hitler!” as they stood against barracks walls waiting to be shot.
SS firing squad
Thirteen days later, addressing the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, Hitler justified his purge in a nationally broadcast speech: “If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the Supreme Judge of the German people!
“I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterize down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life.
“Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.”
Adolf Hitler addressing parliament
Eighty-six years after Adolf Hitler declared himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people,” the United States faces the same fate under President Donald J. Trump.
On September 2, Trump sent a memo to Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Attorney General William P. Barr. Its title: “Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence and Destruction in American Cities.”
Both officials were ordered to find ways to cut funding to several cities controlled by Democrats.
Donald Trump
Accusing local and state officials of abdicating their duties, Trump wrote: “Anarchy has recently beset some of our states and cities. My administration will not allow federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones.”
In his memo, Trump ordered Vought to issue guidance in 30 days “to the heads of agencies on restricting eligibility of or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of Federal grants.”
And he gave Barr 14 days to identify “anarchist jurisdictions” that “permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures” to restore order.
Trump singled out four cities for defunding: Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; Seattle, Washington; and New York City.
The move threatened billions of dollars for many of the country’s largest urban cities.
But protecting American citizens from crime was not the real reason for this effort.
Polls showed Trump trailing his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. As a result, Trump was resorting to the classic Republican tactics of smear and fear.
He wanted to shift public attention from his failure to halt the escalating Coronavirus pandemic—which had already killed more than 189,000 Americans and left 25 million unemployed.
He also wanted to turn Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality into white counter-protest at the ballot box.
Trump had long relied on divide-and-rule tactics to gain and hold power. He hoped to persuade suburban whites that he was the only thing standing between them and a black crime wave about to engulf them.
The hatred that millions of older whites—especially rural ones—felt for most of their fellow Americans gave Trump the White House in 2016. Trump hoped that such hatred—combined with fear—would do it again in 2020.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 4, 2024 at 12:13 am
Donald Trump has lost the Presidential immunity shielding him from a wide range of civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions.
He now faces unprecedented challenges from a legal system that had long ignored his rampant criminality.
Thus, regaining that Presidential immunity is arguably the biggest reason why he wants to become President again.
Although he no longer holds the Presidency, Trump repeatedly acts as though he does. He has asserted “executive privilege” on behalf of former members of his administration to block their testimony before courts, grand juries and even the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith.
He hid behind layers of Secret Service protection while attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and even New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over his arraignment and trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money payment case.
Juan Merchan
“The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information,” Trump told supporters at Mar-a-Lago. “For which he should be prosecuted, or at a minimum he should resign.”
As for Merchan: “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter work[ed] for Kamala Harris.”
In Trump’s vocabulary, “Trump-hating” is the absolute worst sin/crime that can be committed.
Another man he has attacked as a “Trump hater” is Special Counsel Jack Smith, who’s also investigating Trump’s role in inciting his followers to attack Congress on January 6, 2021.
Jack Smith
The purpose of that attack: To stop the Electoral College vote count that would certify former Vice President Joseph Biden as the actual winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
In a July 4, 2023 post on his website, Truth Social, Trump falsely claimed:
“As my Poll numbers go higher & higher, the Communists, Marxists, & Fascists get more & more CRAZY with their ridiculous Indictments & Election Interference plans & plots, all controlled by an out of control, & very corrupt, DOJ/FBI. They have WEAPONIZED Law Enforcement in America at a level not seen before.”
Trump’s reference to “Communists, Marxists, & Fascists” as his enemies is particularly noteworthy.
He was, after all, the President who:
- Defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against findings by the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency that Russia had interfered in the 2020 Presidential election;
- Boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love” after an exchange of letters; and
- Praised Chinese strongman Xi Jinping for making himself “President-for-Life: “No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
Given his subsequent efforts to remain in office despite losing the 2020 Presidential election, it’s clear that he had himself in mind when he “joked” about “giving that a shot some day.”
In his post, Trump continued: “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.
Despite all this, Trump’s millions of Right-wing followers remain fanatically loyal to him.
Why?
On August 30, 2017, an article in Salon examined why Donald Trump’s base supports him so fanatically: “Most Americans Strongly Dislike Trump, But the Angry Minority That Adores Him Controls Our Politics.”
It described these voters as representing about one-third of the Republican party:
“These are older and more conservative white people, for the most part, who believe he should not listen to other Republicans and should follow his own instincts….
“They like Trump’s coarse personality, and approve of the fact that he treats women like his personal playthings. They enjoy it when he expresses sympathy for neo-Nazis and neo-Confederate white supremacists.
Supporters giving the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute to Trump
“They cheer when he declares his love for torture, tells the police to rough up suspects and vows to mandate the death penalty for certain crimes. (Which of course the president cannot do.)
“…This cohort of the Republican party didn’t vote for Trump because of his supposed policies on trade or his threat to withdraw from NATO. They voted for him because he said out loud what they were thinking. A petty, sophomoric, crude bully is apparently what they want as a leader.”
What is harder to explain is why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason. Among those who have:
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates. After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons. After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2024 at 1:09 am
On May 30, 2024 former President Donald Trump was convicted by a Manhattan jury of all 34 charges of falsifying business records He thus became the first current or former president to be convicted of a felony.
He’s also the first major-party presidential nominee to be convicted of a crime in the midst of a campaign for the White House.
On April 1, CNN reported/editorialized: “The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.”
Throughout the trial—which began on April 15—Trump aggressively attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as pursuing a leftist agenda to prevent him from running for President in 2024.
“If they can do this to me,” he has thundered in countless fund-raising appeals to his Right-wing followers, “they can do this to you.”
Which raises the question: How many others have tried to illegally pay hush-money to a porn “actress” to silence her during a Presidential campaign?
Nor is that the end of Trump’s prosecutorial troubles.
On June 13, 2023, he became the first ex-President to be formally booked by the Justice Department on federal charges.
Seal of the Department of Justice
He’s now facing 40 felony charges based on his retaining and hiding classified government documents from authorities.
These charges include:
- Willfully retaining national defense information: Storing 31 classified documents at his estate at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
- Conspiring to obstruct justice: Conspiring to keep those documents from the grand jury.
- Withholding a document or a record: Misleading one of his attorneys by moving boxes of classified documents so the attorney could not find or introduce them to the grand jury.
- Concealing a document in a federal investigation: Hiding Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago from the FBI and causing a false certificate to be submitted to the FBI.
- Scheme to conceal: Hiding his continued possession of documents from the FBI and the grand jury.
Donald Trump
Each charge carries a maximum fine of $250,000, with maximum prison sentences between five and 20 years.
According to Trump, facing 40 felony charges is “an honor because I’m doing it for you, I’m doing it for our country, to show how evil and sinister a place it has become. Make America great again! We’re not going to let them get away with it.”
In short: To save America, Trump has volunteered for this indictment. He isn’t the one who illegally removed and tried to retain almost 300 highly classified documents.
You did.
And he, like Jesus, is taking your sins upon himself.
Trump has repeatedly tried to make himself appear the victim of “a Democratic-led witch hunt.” But if politics has tainted the dispensing of justice in Trump’s case, it’s been on his behalf.
As President, he had immunity from criminal and civil lawsuits. He couldn’t be tried at local, state and federal levels.
And he had good reason to avoid facing trial at any level. He was facing at least five cases while he held office:
- The Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal case against the Trump Organization: For falsifying New York business records to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
- The New York Attorney General’s civil investigation into the Trump Organization: For engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits.
- The E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit: For calling her a liar after she claimed he raped her in the 1990s.
- The Mary Trump lawsuit: For defrauding his niece out of millions of dollars.
- The Trump Tower lawsuit: Five people claim that Keith Schiller, the Trump Organization’s then chief of security, hit one of them on the head when they were protesting outside the company’s Manhattan headquarters in 2015.
Since leaving the White House, Trump has seen additional cases pile up against him. Among these:
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election.
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s inciting an attack on Congress on January 6, 2021.
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s illegally taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate and refusing to return them to the government.
- The House of Representatives’ January 6 lawsuit for trying to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021.
- The Eric Swalwell lawsuit by the California Representative for trying to block the Electoral College vote count.
- The Capitol Police January 6 lawsuits for emotional and physical injuries sustained by officers during the January 6, 2021 attack by Trump’s followers.
- The Michael Cohen lawsuit by Trump’s former attorney and fixer. He claims Trump retaliated against him after he said he was writing a tell-all about his years working for Trump.
- The Class Action lawsuit against the Trumps [Donald, Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric] and their business. This alleges that “the defendants used their brand name to defraud thousands of working-class individuals by promoting numerous businesses in exchange for ’secret payments.’”
Now his Presidential immunity is gone and he faces unprecedented challenges from a legal system that had long ignored his rampant criminality.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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TYRANTS AS HEROES: IT’S ALL IN THE ARTWORK
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 9, 2025 at 12:11 amThere are literally no limits to which Donald Trump’s fanatical supporters will go to convince others he’s a heroic champion worthy of their reverence.
On Facebook and Twitter, his disciples post images of him that are not only false but laughably so.
One such image posted by “Nick Adams (Alpha Male)” showed the jowly, grotesquely overweight, 77-year-old ex-President as a muscular bodybuilder. And it came with the caption: “President Trump is a TITAN!”
Ironically, the tweet came on the same day—June 18, 2023—when news broke of the implosion of the Titan mini-sub and the loss of its five-man crew. The tragedy occurred during a dive to view the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in 1912.
Other memes have depicted Trump—a notorious draft-dodger who received no fewer than five deferments to escape the Vietnam war—as a military hero, clad in full military gear.
One even claimed he had killed Osama bin Laden—an act that occurred when Barack Obama was President and Trump was safely presiding over the TV show, “The Apprentice.”
Other propagandists for Trump have depicted him as beloved by Jesus. This despite the fact that Trump is a notorious liar, egomaniac, adulterer, thief and materialist.
Still others have tried to compare Trump to historical titans—like Winston Churchill.
On May 25, 2020, mass protests erupted across the country following the murder of George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer.
Cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned. In response, President Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”
Death of George Floyd
To drive home his point, on June 1, Trump ordered police, Secret Service agents and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
The purpose of the removal: So Trump—holding a Bible upside down—could have a photo-op in front of the church.
On June 3, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany compared Trump’s photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s visits to bombed British cities during World War II:
“Through all of time, we have seen presidents and leaders across the world who have had leadership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any given time to show a message of resilience and determination.
“Like Churchill, we saw him inspecting the bombing damage. It sent a powerful message of leadership to the British people.”
Kayleigh McEnany
Comparing Trump to Churchill proved a triumph of imagination on McEnany’s part:
Winston Churchill (testing a submachinegun); Walter Thompson (in black fedora)
Donald Trump is by no means the first tyrant to be hailed as a hero.
Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler—who almost certainly never rode a horse—was depicted as an armor-clad knight holding a swastika banner while astride a spirited steed.
And the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin—whose pockmarked face, short stature and widening girth were visible to all who met him—was depicted in posters as handsome, gigantic and trim.
Tyrants pay close attention to how they are depicted. They want to be seen as forever modest, humble, wise and courageous—the embodiment of virtue and patriotism.
To depict them as they usually are—vain, arrogant, stupid, cowardly—they consider a personal affront and a challenge to their absolute rule.
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