Posts Tagged ‘WORLD WAR 11’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 5, 2023 at 12:12 am
Russian President Vladimir Putin has won acclaim within American conservatives by attacking those they detest—such as gays. And he has extolled Russia’s “traditional values” and assailed the West’s “genderless and infertile” liberalism.
In 2015, Russia-–a secret police state utterly opposed to private ownership of firearms—hosted a delegation from the National Rifle Association.
Both the American Right and Putin reap huge benefits from the propagandistic efforts of the Fox Network. Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are big hits in Russia, routinely getting huge airtime as they attack liberalism generally and President Joe Biden in particular.
James Kirchick—a conservative American reporter, foreign correspondent, author, and columnist—has analyzed the turn-about of the Republican party from staunchly anti-Communist to rabidly pro-Putin.
James Kirchick
In a July 27, 2017 essay, “How the GOP became the Party of Putin,” he wrote:
“How did the party of Ronald Reagan’s moral clarity morph into that of Donald Trump’s moral vacuity?
“Russia’s intelligence operatives are among the world’s best. I believe they made a keen study of the American political scene and realized that, during the Obama years, the conservative movement had become ripe for manipulation. Long gone was its principled opposition to the ‘evil empire.’
“What was left was an intellectually and morally desiccated carcass populated by con artists, opportunists, entertainers and grifters operating massively profitable book publishers, radio empires, websites, and a TV network whose stock-in-trade are not ideas but resentments….
“Surveying this lamentable scene, why wouldn’t Russia try to ‘turn’ the American right, whose ethical rot necessarily precedes its rank unscrupulousness?
“Why wouldn’t a ‘religious right’ that embraced a boastfully immoral charlatan like Donald Trump not turn a blind eye toward—or, in the case of [evangelical pastor] Franklin Graham, embrace—an oppressive regime like that ruling Russia?“
Republicans have become a party fueled by hatred and lusting for absolute control—not just of their own members but Americans who totally disagree with their methods and goals.
What Ronald Reagan once said about the leaders of the Soviet Union applies just as accurately to the leaders of his own party: “The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
The ultimate proof of this came in the Right’s attempt to violently overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election—and to install Donald Trump as a dictatorial “President-for-Life.”
Donald Trump
On November 3, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 81,283,495 votes, or 51.4% of the vote, compared to 74,223,755 votes, or 46.9% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.
In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.
From the moment Biden was declared the winner, Trump tried to overthrow that verdict. He ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud.
From November 3 to December 14, 2020, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases for lack of evidence or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
Even so, 17 Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—supported a Texas lawsuit to overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
The vast majority of House and Senate Republicans refused to publicly acknowledge Biden as President-Elect of the United States. They feared being turned out of office by Trump’s fanatical base.
By January 6, 2021, Trump had run out of options for illegally staying in power for the next four years. So that day he incited a fanatical mob of his supporters to intimidate Congressional members counting Electoral College votes to reject the election’s results.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol Building—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police. More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers
Although House Democrats moved to impeach Trump for his treasonous attack on democracy, Senate Republicans refused to convict him.
Almost two years later, Trump remains free and living a privileged life at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. He has even declared his candidacy for President in 2024.
And millions of Right-wing voters remain convinced by his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. During the 2022 midterms, many Republican candidates for state and federal offices campaigned on that “Stop the Steal” premise.
Republicans won the House, but their failure to win the Senate has led to a civil war within the party. Trump remains the favorite of many. But others blame him for the defeat of many candidates.
They don’t want a candidate who displays moral clarity and compassion. They want a Fuhrer who appeals to their hatreds and craving for a Fascistic dictatorship—and who can make that a reality.
They will remain a constant threat to democracy—and to those Americans who don’t want to live under a Right-wing tyranny.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 3, 2023 at 12:10 am
“Ladies and gentlemen, Americans, in two days we will celebrate Christmas. Maybe candlelit. Not because it’s more romantic, no, but because there will not be—there will be no electricity. Millions won’t have neither heating nor running water. All of these will be the result of Russian missile and drone attacks on our energy infrastructure.
“We’ll celebrate Christmas, and even if there is no electricity, the light of our faith in ourselves will not be put out. If Russian missiles attack us, we’ll do our best to protect ourselves.
“If they attack us with Iranian drones and our people will have to go to bomb shelters on Christmas Eve, Ukrainians will still sit down at the holiday table and cheer up each other. And we don’t have to know everyone’s wish as we know that all of us, millions of Ukrainians, wish the same: Victory. only victory.”
The speaker was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And his audience was a joint session of the Congress of the United States.
Volodymyr Zelensky
President Of Ukraine from Україна, PDM-owner, via Wikimedia Commons
Zelensky—a former comic elected President of Ukraine in 2019—has led his country against Russia’s unprovoked invasion of February 24.
After risking his life in a secrecy-shrouded caravan from Kiev to the Polish city of Rzeszow, Zelensky boarded a United States Air Force jet bound for Washington, D.C.
Arriving there on December 21, he met with President Joe Biden before addressing Congress—in English—that night.
Instead of the traditional business suit, Zelensky wore the famous green shirt he has worn on visits to the front as Ukrainians fiercely resist Russian assaults with troops, tanks, drones, missiles and bombs.
And his bid for additional aid from the United States—which has already committed billions to Ukraine’s defense—paid off: President Biden pledged $1.85 billion of military aid for Ukraine—including the Patriot anti-missile system to repel Russian attacks.
Commentators have compared Zelensky’s address with that of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940.
At that moment, Great Britain faced imminent invasion from the seemingly invincible Third Reich. British troops had been forced to evacuate from France at Dunkirk. And Adolf Hitler’s Luftwaffe (air force) was known to be many times larger than that of Britain.
Even so, Churchill hurled only defiance at Hitler:
“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
Winston Churchill
Britain depended on the United States for material help in defending itself against an aggressive dictatorship—as Ukraine does now. But Britain enjoyed an advantage denied to Ukraine.
During Britain’s hour of maximum peril, the United States Congress was not dominated a political party in thrall to Nazi bribes.
By contrast: Many Republicans have accepted “campaign contributions”—bribes—from Russian oligarchs linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Putin’s money has been well spent: About 90 House Republicans—out of a total of 213—attended Zelensky’s address, according to CQ Roll Call. Some who did spent much of the speech on their phones.
In 2022, the Biden administration and Congress directed nearly $50 billion in assistance to Ukraine. A November 3 Wall Street Journal poll found that nearly half of Republicans—48%—believe the country is sending too much support to Kyiv.
But they didn’t object to the $2 trillion resulting from President George W. Bush’s needless war on Iraq.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA.) spoke for many of these when she promised, at a Save America rally in Sioux City, Iowa, what would happen if the GOP gained control over Congress: “Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine.”
So did Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-ARIZ.): “Ukraine is not our ally. Russia is not our enemy.”
One major Russian contributor to Republicans is Len Blavatnik. During the 2015-16 election cycle, he proved one of the largest donors to GOP Political Action Committees (PACs).
Blavatnik’s net worth is estimated at $20 billion. In 2016, he gave $6.35 million to GOP PACs.
In 2017, he gave millions of dollars to top Republican leaders—such as Senators Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Marco Rubio (Florida) and Lindsey Graham (South Carolina). Specifically, Blavatnik contributed:
- A total of $1.5 million to PACs associated with Rubio.
- $1 million to Trump’s Inaugural Committee.
- $1 million to McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund.
- $3.5 million to a PAC associated with McConnell.
- $1.1 million to Unintimidated PAC, associated with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
- $200,000 to the Arizona Grassroots Action PAC, associated with Arizona Senator John McCain.
- $250,000 to New Day for America PAC, associated with Ohio Governor John Kasich.
- $800,000 went to the Security is Strength PAC, associated with Senator Lindsey Graham.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 11, 2022 at 12:16 am
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator.
“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims….
“If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.”
What Payne wrote about pro-Hitler Germans holds equally true for the supporters of Donald Trump.
On November 8, 2016, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans elected a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance to the Presidency.
Yet Americans had fewer excuses for turning to a Fascistic style of government than the Germans did.
Adolf Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in 1919—the year after World War 1 ended.
Adolf Hitler
In 1923, he staged a coup attempt in Bavaria—which was quickly and brutally put down by police. He was arrested and sentenced to less than a year in prison.
After that, Hitler decided that winning power through violence was no longer an option. He must win it through election—or appointment.
When the 1929 Depression struck Germany, the fortunes of Hitler’s Nazi party rose as the life savings of ordinary Germans fell. Streets echoed with bloody clashes between members of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers and those of the German Communist Party.
Germans desperately looked for a leader—a Fuhrer—who could somehow deliver them from the threat of financial ruin and Communist takeover.
In early 1933, members of his own cabinet persuaded aging German president, Paul von Hindenburg, that only Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor could do this.
Paul von Hindenburg
Hindenburg was reluctant to do so. He considered Hitler a dangerous radical. But he let himself be convinced that he could “box in” and control Hitler by putting him in the Cabinet.
So, on January 30, 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor (the equivalent of Attorney General) of Germany.
On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died. Hitler immediately assumed the titles—and duties—of the offices of Chancellor and President. His rise to total power was complete.
It had taken him 14 years to do so.
In 2015, when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President:
- The country was technically at war in the Middle East—but the fate of the United States was not truly threatened, as it had been during the Civil War.
- There was no draft; if you didn’t know someone in the military, you didn’t care about the casualties taking place.
- Thanks to government loans from President Barack Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
- Employment was up. CEOs were doing extremely well.
- In contrast to the corruption that had plagued the administration of Ronald Reagan, whom Republicans idolize, there had been no such scandals during the Obama Presidency.
- Nor had there been any large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil—as there had on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.
Yet—not 17 months after announcing his candidacy for President—enough Americans fervently embraced Donald Trump to give him the most powerful position in the country and the world.
.jpg/220px-Donald_Trump_August_19,_2015_(cropped).jpg)
Donald Trump
The message of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign had been one of hope: “Yes, We Can!”
The message of Donald Trump’s campaign reflected hatred toward everyone who was not an avid Trump supporter: “No, You Can’t!”
Older whites comprised the majority of those at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”
Birthrates among non-whites were rising. By 2045, whites would make up less than 50 percent of the American population.
The 2008 election of the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.
Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might actually be followed by a woman: Hillary Clinton.
Since Trump became President, he:
- Allowed a deadly virus to ravage the country, infecting (to date) 9.2 million Americans and killing 230,000.
- Attacked medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
- Urged his followers to illegally vote twice for him in the 2020 Presidential election.
- Fired an FBI director for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
- Repeatedly and enthusiastically defended Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Russia, America’s mortal enemy.
- Attacked and alienated America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
- Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen.
- Shut down the United States Government, imperiling the lives of 800,000 Federal employees, to extort money from Congress for a worthless wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
- “Joked” that the United States—like China—should have a “President-for-Life.”
- Attacked the free press as “the enemy of the people.”
- Used his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
On November 3, 2020, Americans decided to repudiate this despicable legacy—and reclaim their nation’s status as a democracy.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on November 4, 2022 at 12:17 am
Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States—and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany—–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler—made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States;
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear—barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson long ignored by the liberals of the Democratic Party. As a result, Republicans now may capture both houses of Congress and—in 2024—the Presidency.
An example of this occurred on March 25, 2018.
On CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” former President Jimmy Carter said that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that President Donald Trump had broken the law, “my own preference would be that he not be impeached.”
Instead, Carter would want Trump to “be able to serve out his term, because I think he wants to do a good job. And I’m willing to help him, if I can help him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You know, I have confidence in the American system of government. I think ultimately the restraints on a president from the Congress and from the Supreme Court will be adequate to protect our nation, if he serves a full term.”
Jimmy Carter
By March 25, 2018, Trump—having held office for little more than a year—had:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty—and for investigating documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign;
- Threatened to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to take over that investigation after the Comey firing;
- Repeatedly attacked the nation’s press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people”;
- Contemptuously dismissed the warnings of American Intelligence agencies that Russia subverted the 2016 Presidential campaign—and planned to do the same for the upcoming mid-term elections in November, 2018.
- Repeatedly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and refused to enforce Congressionally-mandated sanctions against Russia for its subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Trump, in short, had only contempt for the humility of a Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama, like Carter, believes in rationality and decency. He feels more comfortable responding to attacks on his character than attacking the character of his enemies.
As a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was one of the most academically gifted Presidents in American history.
Yet he failed—like Carter—to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Obama’s failure to recognize the truth of Machiavelli’s lesson allowed Republicans to thwart many of his Presidential ambitions—such as picking a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton.
They fully expected to win the White House again, and thought they might retake the Senate—and maybe even the House of Representatives.
Michelle Obama’s mantra of “When they go low, we go high” proved no match for Trump’s millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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In Business, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 2, 2022 at 12:14 am
On October 3, former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN for defamation.
Seeking $475 million in punitive damages, he charged the network with conducting a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
Trump is claiming that CNN had used its influence to defeat him politically.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit focuses largely on CNN’s use of the term, “The Big Lie,” to describe Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 2020 Presidential election.
The phrase dates from Adolf Hitler’s use of it in his autobiography, Mein Kampf: People “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Trump’s lawsuit claims “The Big Lie” has been used in referring to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January, 2021.
In addition, the lawsuit cites instances where CNN compared Trump to Hitler. In a January, 2022 report, Fareed Zakaria provided footage of Germany’s dictator.
So what are his odds of winning? Far less than your own of finding loose change in sofa cushions.
First: Donald Trump is a public figure—arguably the most public figure in the world. Plaintiffs who are public figures or government officials must prove themselves victims of actual malice to collect damages.
In the landmark case, New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) the Supreme Court declared that actual malice occurs when a statement is made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
This is a more stringent standard than private citizens have to meet, which is negligence.
Second: Truth is an absolute defense against libel (unless the plaintiff is suing for invasion of privacy). And Trump’s history as a liar, criminal and traitor has been thoroughly established.
Liar:
- He created the lie that Barack Obama—whose birth certificate states unequivocally that he was born in Hawaii—was not an American citizen. The reason: To de-legitimize Obama as a Presidential candidate and President.
- Throughout 2020, he repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID-19—attacking medical experts who urged citizens to mask up and social distance. As a result, by the time he left office, 400,000 Americans had died of COVID.
Donald Trump
Criminal:
- He has been forced to shut down his Trump Foundation and forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Foundation for political purposes.
- He was also forced to close his unaccredited Trump University for scamming its students. He had promised to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivered nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement with many of those students.
Traitor:
- On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of his Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists who had ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The reason: To obtain “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
- On July 27, 2016, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
These incidents were nothing less than treason—inviting a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
Third—and perhaps the most important of all: In a libel suit, the plaintiff must answer—under oath—all questions put to him by the defendant’s attorneys.
Trump, better than anyone, knows the depths of his own criminality. Just as Al Capone knew his notoriety for evil would make it impossible for him to win a libel suit, so does Trump.
On August 10, he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination nearly 450 times during a deposition at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, in its probe into the Trump Organization’s business practices.
He would not be allowed to do so as a litigant in a libel suit.
Moreover, he has a history of threatening to file lawsuits—and then failing to do so.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, at least 12 women publicly accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior—if not assault.
Trump’s reaction: “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”
Six years later, he has not filed a single lawsuit for defamation.
So why has he filed a defamation suit against CNN?
Money—not by winning an impossible lawsuit, but by raising it from his gullible and Fascistic followers.
He will claim—once again—that he’s being persecuted and that “they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you.”
And his millions of media-hating followers will gladly pony up money they will never see again.
If he loses the lawsuit—or pulls out of it—he will claim he’s the victim of “the deep-state establishment.”
And ask his followers for even more money—which they’ll cough up.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 28, 2022 at 12:11 am
Ask the average person, “What do you think of Niccolo Machiavelli?” and he’s likely to say: “The devil.”
In fact, “The Old Nick” became an English term used to describe Satan and slander Machiavelli at the same time.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The truth, however, is more complex. Machiavelli was a passionate Republican, who spent most of his adult life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
The years he spent as a diplomat were tumultuous ones for Italy—with men like Pope Julius II and Caesare Borgia vying for power and plunging Italy into one bloodbath after another.
Florence, for all its wealth, lacked a strong army, and thus lay at the mercy of powerful enemies, such as Borgia. Machiavelli often had to use his wits to keep them at bay.
Machiavelli is best-known for his writing of The Prince, a pamphlet on the arts of gaining and holding power. Its admirers have included Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.
But his longer and more thoughtful work is The Discourses, in which he offers advice on how to maintain liberty within a republic. Among its admirers were many of the men who framed the Constitution of the United States.
Most people believe that Machiavelli advocated evil for its own sake.
Not so. Rather, he recognized that sometimes there is no perfect—or perfectly good—solution to a problem.
Sometimes it’s necessary to take stern—even brutal—action to stop an evil (such as a riot) before it becomes widespread:
“A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good. And therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.”
His counsel remains as relevant today as it did during his lifetime (1469 – 1527). This is especially true for politicians—and students of political science.
But plenty of ordinary citizens can also benefit from the advice he has to offer—such as those in business who are asked to give advice to more powerful superiors.
Machiavelli warns there is danger in urging rulers to take a particular course of action: “For men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment.”
This puts would-be counselors in a difficult position: “If they do not advise what seems to them for the good of the republic or the prince, regardless of the consequences to themselves, then they fail to do their duty.
“And if they do advise it, then it is at the risk of their position and their lives, for all men are blind in thus, that they judge of good or evil counsels only by the results.”
Thus, Machiavelli warns that an adviser should “take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.”
The person who asked for the advice may follow it, or not, as of his own choice, and not because he was led or forced into it by the adviser.
Above all, the adviser must avoid the danger of urging a course of action that runs “contrary to the wishes of the many.
“For the danger arises when your advice has caused the many to be contravened. In that case, when the result is unfortunate, they all concur in your destruction.”
Or, as President John F. Kennedy famously said after the disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April, 1961: “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”
John F. Kennedy
By “not advocating any enterprise with too much zeal,” the adviser gains two advantages:
“The first is, you avoid all danger.
“And the second consists in the great credit which you will have if, after having modestly advised a certain course, your counsel is rejected, and the adoption of a different course results unfortunately.”
Finally, the time to give advice is before a catastrophe occurs, not after. Machiavelli gives a vivid example of what can happen if this rule is ignored.
King Perseus of Macedon had gone to war with Paulus Aemilius—and suffered a humiliating defeat. Fleeing the battlefield with a handful of his men, he later bewailed the disaster that had overtaken him.
Suddenly, one of his lieutenants began to lecture Perseus on the many errors he had committed, which had led to his ruin.
“Traitor,” raged the king, turning upon him, “you have waited until now to tell me all this, when there is no longer any time to remedy it—” And Perseus slew him with his own hands.
Niccolo Machiavelli sums up the lesson as this:
“Thus was this man punished for having been silent when he should have spoken, and for having spoken when he should have been silent.”
Be careful that you don’t make the same mistake.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 24, 2022 at 12:10 am
From the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it would have been unthinkable for a Republican Presidential candidate to find common cause with a Soviet dictator.
This was particularly true during the early 1950s—as illustrated by the career of Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery—and lie-filled—speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Joseph McCarthy
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
But that utterly changed when Donald Trump won, first, the Republican Presidential nomination and, then, the White House. Trump lavishly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin—and even called on him to directly interfere in the 2016 Presidential race.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
“Russia, if you are listening,” Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida, “I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing—I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
This embrace of a despotic Communist regime has “trickled down” to Right-wingers generally.
On February 20, 2018, a purge of Russian “bots” by Twitter sparked outrage by—yes!—Right-wingers.
Bots are fake accounts used to spread propaganda or advertising campaigns. Investigations by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have uncovered massive efforts by Russia to throw the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump.
Their weapon of choice: Swamping “social media” sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter with genuinely fake news.
The Twitter purge came a week after then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in that election. The indictments detailed an elaborate plot to wage “information warfare” against the United States.
Right-wingers suddenly found thousands of their Russian bot followers had disappeared—and accused Twitter of secretly deleting like-minded accounts.
“Twitter is currently purging the followers on conservative accounts only. I just lost 3000 followers in one minute,” tweeted Candace Owens, director of urban engagement for Turning Point USA. This is a student organization promoting limited government and free markets.
Bill Mitchell, a Right-winger known for his controversial tweets defending then-President Donald Trump, claimed that he lost roughly 4,000 followers overnight.
“This is a damn joke,” tweeted Mike Zollo. “Twitter is absolutely censoring conservative and right wing speech for no damn reason other than their disagreement with it. But, liberals can write vile comments and threaten us with no punishment.”
The last time dictator-worshiping Fascists found common cause with dictator-worshiping Communists was in August, 1939.
Germany’s Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin agreed to end—at least temporarily—their years of violent rivalry and personal slander.
The reason: Hitler planned to invade Poland, and feared he would have to fight its allies, France and England, if he did. He didn’t want to have to fight the Soviet Union, too.
And Stalin saw Hitler’s warlike ambitions as useful to his own dreams of conquest: He wanted—and got—the eastern half of Poland, while Hitler’s legions occupied the western half.
So why would Donald Trump–––the arch capitalist––find common cause with Vladimir Putin––-the arch Communist?
Simple: Each had something the other wanted.
Putin wanted a President who would withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—thus rendering that alliance worthless. And Trump had repeatedly accused NATO of being a financial drain on the United States.
Trump wanted to be President—to enrich himself and his family, to become the center of the world’s attention, and to destroy anyone who dared confront or contradict him.
And Putin could—and did—make that happen.
According to a January, 2017 report by the Office of National Intelligence:
“President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”
For four years, Trump held the most powerful office in the Western world. And Putin had an ally who gladly did his bidding.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 10, 2022 at 12:10 am
Vladimir Putin believes himself to be a serious student of history. If so, he has drawn the wrong lessons from the past.
During the American Revolution (1775-1783) and the War of 1812 (1812-1815) Great Britain encouraged Indian attacks on American settlers.
One of the worst of these attacks occurred on August 30, 1813, when over 700 Creek Indians destroyed Fort Mims, near Mobile, Alabama. About 500 militiamen, settlers, slaves and Creeks loyal to the Americans were slaughtered or captured.
Fort Mims massacre
Inflaming the Indians against settlers didn’t help the British on the battlefield—in the American Revolution or the War of 1812. But it did incite long-lasting hatred by the vast majority of Americans against the British—and even greater hatred of the Indians.
To cite one example: The Fort Mims massacre inspired General Andrew Jackson to take the field, eventually destroying the Creeks as a nation and wresting Florida from Spain for the United States.
The British lost their American colony. And the Indians were gradually driven from their dominance of the continent.
Similarly, Vladimir Putin has turned to Chechen mercenaries for help in conquering Ukraine. They are known as “Kadyrovtsy” or “Kadyrovites” after their leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin strongman.
Human rights groups, witnesses and survivors have for decades accused them of murders, kidnappings and the torture of Kadyrov’s rivals and critics.
Just as the Indians hoped to use their alliance with the British to defeat their Anglo-American enemies, so, too, do Chechen mercenaries hope to ingratiate themselves with the Kremlin.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Yet that alliance has not advanced Russia’s fortunes on the battlefield, just as the British-Indian alliance did not gain victory for the British.
As Niccolo Machiavelli, writing more than 500 years ago in The Prince, warned: “[Mercenaries] have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to man, and destruction is deferred only as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”
Moreover, the atrocities committed by Indians and Chechens only inflamed their enemies to seek revenge.
In his masterwork, The Discourses, Machiavelli offered a lesson on the power of mercy even in the midst of war.
“Marcus Furius Camillus, a Roman general, was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it. A teacher charged with the education of the children of some of the noblest families of that city decided to ingratiate himself with Camillus by leading those children into the Roman camp.
“Presenting them to Camillus the teacher said to him, ‘By means of these children as hostages, you will be able to compel the city to surrender.’
“Camillus not only declined the offer but had the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back. Then he had a rod put into the hands of each of the children and directed them to whip the teacher all the way back to the city.
“Upon learning this, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense.”
Summing up the meaning of this, Machiavelli writes: “This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity. It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.
“…History also shows us how much the people desire to find such virtues in great men, and how much they are extolled by historians and biographers of princes….Amongst these, Xenophon takes great pains to show how many victories, how much honor and fame, Cyrus gained by his humanity and affability, and by his not having exhibited a single instance of pride, cruelty or luxuriousness, nor of any of the other vices that are apt to stain the lives of men.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
Then there has been Putin’s use of terror-attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Using bombers and long-range artillery, Putin has tried to compensate for losses on the battlefield by terrorizing Ukrainians into surrender.
Adolf Hitler applied the same tactic against an equally stubborn Great Britain during the Second World War. in 1940-41.
Unable to invade England because the British Navy controlled the sea, Hitler turned to terror-bombing.
He believed he could terrorize Britons into demanding that their government yield to German surrender demands.
From September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe subjected England—and especially London—to a ruthless bombing campaign that became known as The Blitz.
The undamaged St. Paul’s Cathredal, December, 1940
During 267 days—almost 37 weeks—between 40,000 and 43,000 British civilians were killed. About 139,000 others were wounded.
But the terror-bombing only inflamed Britons to fight Germany even more stubbornly.
Vladimir Putin has learned nothing from these historical lessons.
He has employed mercenaries and terror-bombing against patriotic Ukrainians—who continue to sweep Russian forces from their country.
If he employs even “small” tactical weapons, he risks triggering a fullscale NATO response—thus destroying the Russian empire he hopes to re-create.
Finally: Even if he conquers Ukraine, he will inherit a hate-filled population thirsting for revenge at every opportunity.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 6, 2022 at 12:29 am
In the United States, World War II—at least, that part of the war fought in Europe—used to be celebrated in movies and TV shows like “Combat!” and “The Rat Patrol.” Today, it’s largely forgotten, except by veterans groups and the conflict’s rapidly aging veterans.
But in the Soviet Union, “the Great Patriotic War” against Nazi Germany is still celebrated as the triumph of Soviet strength and determination against horrific odds and losses.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to be remembered so fondly.
On April 28, 2006, Putin publicly stated that the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.
“As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.”
Putin was sounding a warning: He saw himself as Russia’s savior who would restore its lost empire.
Vladimir Putin
His invasion of Ukraine—officially called a “special military operation”—was intended as an important step toward that restoration.
Begun on February 24, the invasion targeted the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in an attempt to overthrow the democratic government of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukrainian troops were outgunned and outnumbered. As in the case of the Soviet Union in 1941, Western military analystss expected the attack to quickly succeed. The Biden administration offered to evacuate Zelensky to safety.
Zelensky refused: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
But after weeks of combat, Russian forces retreated, stymied by ferocious Ukrainian resistance.
In July, the last city under Ukrainian control in Luhansk fell to Russia after weeks of artillery bombardment and street fighting. But the Russians made little progress as they tried to conquer the remainder of Donbas.
In late August, after weeks of buildup, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in the southern region of Kherson. Ukraine deployed newly arrived missile systems supplied by the United States and other Western countries to destroy Russian ammunition dumps and a Russian air base in Crimea.
By September, Ukrainian forces launched a rapid offensive, recapturing much of the northeastern Kharkiv region, including the city of Izium. Previously, the Russians had been using this as a key logistics hub.
Volodymyr Zelensky
On September 21, with Russian forces bogged down or retreating, Vladimir Putin announced the partial mobilization of 300,000 military reservists. All male citizens below 60 are now eligible to be drafted.
There are exceptions: Employees in IT and telecommunications, finance, “systemically-important” mass media outlets and interdependent suppliers, including registered media and broadcasters.
Still, the announcement set off a massive exodus of at least 194,000 Russian men (and their wives or girlfriends) to such neighboring countries as Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
During World War II, this would have been unthinkable: Whether driven by patriotism or a desire for vengeance on their German tormentors, Russians at all levels threw themselves into the conflict.
On the same day Putin announced the mobilization, he threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend not simply Russia but the Ukrainian territory his forces had captured:
“Our country possesses various means of destruction. When the territorial integrity of our nation is threatened, we, of course, will use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people.”
To underscore his threat, he added: “Those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them.”
Putin’s threats have heightened world tensions and triggered speculation as to whether he would use nukes—against Ukraine or NATO countries, including the United States.
Volodymyr Zelensky thinks Putin is not bluffing.
President Joe Biden initially assured Americans there was no cause for concern. But since then the United States has stated that it has warned Putin that any use of nuclear weapons would trigger a catastrophic (non-specific) response against Russia.
Seen against the backdrop of Russia’s titanic victory in “the Great Patriotic War,” Putin’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons actually underscore Russia’s weakness, not its strength.
Consider:
- “The Great Patriotic War” lasted almost four years—from June 22, 1941, to May 7, 1945.
- Russia’s opponent, Nazi Germany, was the most-feared military power in Europe.
- The war cost the Soviet Union at least 26 million lives before ending with the Red flag flying over Berlin.
- Almost the entire western half of the Soviet Union was devastated—first as the Germans overran territory from the Polish border to the gates of Moscow, and then again as the Soviets slowly pushed them back to Germany itself.
- For Russians, this was truly a “people’s war,” won through massive sacrifice and heroism—and without the use of nuclear weapons, which did not then exist.
Seventy-seven years after the end of World War II:
- Against the smaller and initially ill-equipped Ukrainian army, Russia has enjoyed a huge advantage in manpower and material.
- Yet so low is Russian morale that Putin has been forced to offer huge bribes to foreign mercenaries and even convicted criminals to refill his dispirited legions.
- Ukrainians, fueled by patriotism and a desire for vengeance, are fighting—and winning—their own version of “the Great Patriotic War.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 5, 2022 at 12:21 am
On June 22, 1941, with 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin, the longtime Soviet dictator, was stunned. The invasion had come less than two years after Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
On August 23, 1939, Stalin had signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.
The reason: Each dictator got what he wanted—for the moment. Hitler was planning to invade Poland in a matter of days—and he wanted to avoid a war with the Soviet Union.
And Stalin got what he wanted: The eastern half of Poland.
Joseph Stalin
The agreement stunned the world. Since 1919, Nazis and Communists had fought bitter battles against each other in the streets of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
When this was replaced in 1933 by the Third Reich, German Communists were rounded up and imprisoned, if not murdered, by Hitler’s ruthless secret police, the Schutzstaffel (“Protective Squads”).
For the moment, however, all of that was conveniently forgotten.
And, surprising as it might seem, each dictator harbored a secret respect for the other.
After Hitler launched a blood-purge of his own private Stormtroopers army on June 30, 1934, Stalin exclaimed: “Hitler, what a great man! That is the way to deal with your political opponents!”
And Hitler was equally admiring of Stalin’s notorious ruthlessness: “After the victory over Russia,” he told his intimates, “it would be a good idea to get Stalin to run the country, with German oversight, of course. He knows better than anyone how to handle the Russians.”
Adolf Hitler
But Hitler hadn’t forgotten his life’s ambition to conquer the Soviet Union and utterly destroy “the scourge of Jewish-Marxism.”
Stalin received numerous warnings from the United States and Great Britain about the coming invasion. But he dismissed them as efforts by the West to trick him into violating the pact and turning Nazi Germany into his mortal enemy.
When informed of the attack, Stalin at first believed it was being made by rogue German forces. He refused to order an immediate counterattack.
Upon being convinced that the Wehrmacht intended to wage all-out war, he went into a funk in his dacha and shut himself off from everyone. To his closest associates he wailed: “Lenin left us a great inheritance and we, his heirs, have fucked it all up!”
Meanwhile, the Red Air Force was destroyed on the ground by the awesome Luftwaffe. And the Wehrmacht was advancing at a rate of 25 miles a day.
German soldiers marching through Russia
On July 3, after 10 days of brooding (and probably drinking heavily) in his dacha, Stalin finally took to the airways across the Soviet Union.
Never a spellbinding orator, Stalin spoke in slow and faltering tones. Nevertheless, his opening words were startling: “Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Men of our army and navy! I am addressing you, my friends!”
Stalin had never addressed an audience this way, and he never would again.
He said the “peace loving” Soviet Union had been attacked by “fiends and cannibals” who wanted to restore the rule of the landlords and Czars. He claimed the non-aggression pact with Germany had given the army much-needed time to rearm and reorganize its forces.
This was accompanied by orders unprecedented in any other army: Those taken prisoner by the Germans were to be considered traitors—and shot or imprisoned. Those suspected of wounding themselves to avoid combat were also subject to summary execution. So were soldiers who had been legitimately wounded in battle but were suspected of inflicting those injuries.
The first two years of the war—1941 to 1943—proved disastrous for the Soviet Union.
During the first six months—June to December, 1941—German armies lured huge Soviet forces into gigantic “cauldron battles,” surrounding and exterminating them. An estimated 5.7 million prisoners of war (POWs) fell into German hands. Of these, at least 3.5 million died in custody.
But then the infamous Russian cold and snows of winter halted the Wehrmacht before Moscow.
In the summer of 1942 German forces once again mounted a ferocious offensive, driving all the way to the Volga—and Stalingrad.
But they became bogged down in bitter house-to-house fighting. With the arrival of winter, Soviet forces surrounded the Wehrmacht’s powerful Sixth Army. The besiegers became the besieged. On February 2, 1943, Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrendered what remained of his army. The battle cost Germany 500,000 men, including 91,000 taken prisoner.
As the Red Army finally began to go over on the offensive, Stalin relaxed the iron controls that had long stifled creativity on the part of his commanders.
The infamous political commissars were removed from control over Russian generals. Gold braid and fancy uniforms were manufactured and rushed to the front as morale boosters.
The war would last another two years—costing the Soviet Union at least 26 million citizens—before it ended with the Red flag flying over Berlin.
Almost the entire western half of the Soviet Union was devastated—first as the Germans overran territory from the Polish border to the gates of Moscow, and then again as the Soviets slowly pushed them back to Germany itself.
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DEMOCRACY’S THREATS: RUSSIANS AND REPUBLICANS – PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 5, 2023 at 12:12 amRussian President Vladimir Putin has won acclaim within American conservatives by attacking those they detest—such as gays. And he has extolled Russia’s “traditional values” and assailed the West’s “genderless and infertile” liberalism.
In 2015, Russia-–a secret police state utterly opposed to private ownership of firearms—hosted a delegation from the National Rifle Association.
Both the American Right and Putin reap huge benefits from the propagandistic efforts of the Fox Network. Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are big hits in Russia, routinely getting huge airtime as they attack liberalism generally and President Joe Biden in particular.
James Kirchick—a conservative American reporter, foreign correspondent, author, and columnist—has analyzed the turn-about of the Republican party from staunchly anti-Communist to rabidly pro-Putin.
James Kirchick
In a July 27, 2017 essay, “How the GOP became the Party of Putin,” he wrote:
“How did the party of Ronald Reagan’s moral clarity morph into that of Donald Trump’s moral vacuity?
“Russia’s intelligence operatives are among the world’s best. I believe they made a keen study of the American political scene and realized that, during the Obama years, the conservative movement had become ripe for manipulation. Long gone was its principled opposition to the ‘evil empire.’
“What was left was an intellectually and morally desiccated carcass populated by con artists, opportunists, entertainers and grifters operating massively profitable book publishers, radio empires, websites, and a TV network whose stock-in-trade are not ideas but resentments….
“Surveying this lamentable scene, why wouldn’t Russia try to ‘turn’ the American right, whose ethical rot necessarily precedes its rank unscrupulousness?
“Why wouldn’t a ‘religious right’ that embraced a boastfully immoral charlatan like Donald Trump not turn a blind eye toward—or, in the case of [evangelical pastor] Franklin Graham, embrace—an oppressive regime like that ruling Russia?“
Republicans have become a party fueled by hatred and lusting for absolute control—not just of their own members but Americans who totally disagree with their methods and goals.
What Ronald Reagan once said about the leaders of the Soviet Union applies just as accurately to the leaders of his own party: “The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
The ultimate proof of this came in the Right’s attempt to violently overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election—and to install Donald Trump as a dictatorial “President-for-Life.”
Donald Trump
On November 3, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 81,283,495 votes, or 51.4% of the vote, compared to 74,223,755 votes, or 46.9% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.
In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.
From the moment Biden was declared the winner, Trump tried to overthrow that verdict. He ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud.
From November 3 to December 14, 2020, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases for lack of evidence or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
Even so, 17 Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—supported a Texas lawsuit to overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
The vast majority of House and Senate Republicans refused to publicly acknowledge Biden as President-Elect of the United States. They feared being turned out of office by Trump’s fanatical base.
By January 6, 2021, Trump had run out of options for illegally staying in power for the next four years. So that day he incited a fanatical mob of his supporters to intimidate Congressional members counting Electoral College votes to reject the election’s results.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol Building—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police. More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers
Although House Democrats moved to impeach Trump for his treasonous attack on democracy, Senate Republicans refused to convict him.
Almost two years later, Trump remains free and living a privileged life at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. He has even declared his candidacy for President in 2024.
And millions of Right-wing voters remain convinced by his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. During the 2022 midterms, many Republican candidates for state and federal offices campaigned on that “Stop the Steal” premise.
Republicans won the House, but their failure to win the Senate has led to a civil war within the party. Trump remains the favorite of many. But others blame him for the defeat of many candidates.
They don’t want a candidate who displays moral clarity and compassion. They want a Fuhrer who appeals to their hatreds and craving for a Fascistic dictatorship—and who can make that a reality.
They will remain a constant threat to democracy—and to those Americans who don’t want to live under a Right-wing tyranny.
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