On the precipice

 

 

 

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne

In a recent essay by Bill Kristol, he shares his fears that many of us have as we watch the formation of a fascist autocracy in the nation’s capital.  He hopes that we’re not on the precipice of “going … the way of Germany in the last century.  The slope toward lawlessness is a slippery one, and we have an administration that is eagerly leading us down it.”

In just a matter of a few days, Trump has demonstrated that the rule of law will not apply to him or his coterie of devotees who have willingly acquiesced to the cult of one man.  An American citizen of Palestinian origins was arrested “[for helping} lead Columbia’s student protest movement demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.”  He was then cuffed and deported to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, without any sign of due process.

Last Friday, March 14th, Trump gathered a crowd of Justice Department staff who were favorable to him and let them know, in no uncertain terms, that he is “the chief law enforcement officer in our country” – a title traditionally used to refer to the attorney general.  In his ramblings he threatened retribution not only against his political enemies but all the networks that didn’t emulate FOX’s presentation of him.

These two instances reflect on how dictators begin their process that removes constitutional restraints and limitations and gives control of the narrative to deceive the voters, always portraying themselves as righteous and his political enemies as evil. He demeaned members of the Biden-era Justice Department as  “scum,” judges “corrupt” and the prosecutors who investigated him “deranged.”  His unfounded claims that the “radical liberal press” is corrupt and illegal sets the stage for suppression of our free press’s 1st amendment rights.

In 1926, Joseph Goebbels, after being elected to the Reichstag as one of the first 12 National Socialist delegates, said that “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the means to its own destruction.”  Goebbels would go on to become Hitler’s Minister of propaganda.  

At his 1946 trial in Nuremberg, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring cynically observed that “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.  All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

These observations by two of Hitler’s top lieutenants are at play today with the Trump administration.  Those who still deny this are either beyond seeing Trump as anything other than second coming or those who lack the spine to denounce behavior that is leading us down that lawless slippery slope Bill Kristol alluded to.

Many are being transformed by what Anne Applebaym referred to in her book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism:  “Authoritarianism appeals, simply, to people who cannot tolerate complexity.  There is nothing intrinsically ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing’ about this instinct at all.  It is allergic to fierce debates.  Whether those who have it ultimately derive their politics from Marxism or nationalism is irrelevant.  It is a frame of mind.”

We are indeed standing at the precipice of a significant cultural change where billionaires will have sway over government policies and citizens will no longer be able to choose who should lead us. Nor will we be able to be critical of those who align themselves with Trump, without fear of being swept by what will become Trump’s Schutzstaffel, better known  as Hitler’s SS

A Fool and His Money

 

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.” - Mahatma Gandhi


The duel presidency of Trump/Musk is making alarmingly unfounded claims that there is waste and fraud within the Social Security system.  They claim millions of people older than 100 (some as old as 200 or 300) are collecting Social Security benefits.  The fact is there are just 89,106 people aged 99 or over who are collecting benefits as of December, 2024.  This scare tactic is being used to set the stage for wealthy people like Trump and Musk to get their greedy hands on this money for their own self-interest.

The idea of privatizing Social Security (SS) has been around for years by conservatives in our financial markets, but these efforts have always been met with failure.  Mainly because Democrats have put up roadblocks to prevent this and also because most Social Security recipients do not want the government to alter what it’s been doing for nearly 90 years unless it’s to insure that benefits keep pace with inflation and that the fund doesn’t dry up.  


Musk has called it a great Ponzi scheme which only shows he knows not what a Ponzi scheme is.  What is a scheme on Trump and Musk’s part is to see this money flow into unstable markets leaving recipients uncertain of their financial future

Large random cuts to personnel or SS funds by Musk will inevitably “make it harder for people to access Social Security services, apply for benefits and resolve issues. If these cuts continue, long wait times and service disruptions are expected to grow.”  Depending on which report you use, anywhere between 20% and 40%  of Americans 65 and over received at least 90% of their total incomes from Social Security.  What percentage of their income is a combination of SS and other sources such as savings, with their SS benefit being the larger of all other sources, could have a significant economic impact that would likely lead to a recession

The image seen by millions of Elon Musk gleefully swinging a chainsaw in the air to represent his out-of-control federal employee cuts demonstrates that Trump has put a thoughtless incompetent in charge of his reform plans for the federal government.  But that really doesn’t worry the wanna be dictator because as he previously stated “I'm not a schmuck. Even if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I won't lose a penny.”

Strongman or Bully: Will our fear be what leads to a fate that almost everyone doesn’t want.

We’re all familiar with the schoolyard bully.  We either grew up knowing one, willingly or not, or we’ve seen their characters played out in films like Back to the Future I, II & III, Carrie, Bad Reputation, Accepted and hundreds more with bullying themes.  Many of them terrifying.

If, after watching Trump’s meltdown in the Oval office scolding the democratically-elected leader of Ukraine and his follow up State of Union name-shaming everyone he’s ever disliked in his political career, you find yourself convinced that he was the “political colossus of our time and our nation” as Trump’s Rapid Response videos cast him as, then stop and take a closer look.  

Trump has all the earmarks of the school yard bully-type and has been for most of his life.  It’s no coincidence either that all authoritarian leaders are bullies and Trump has a special relationship with one of the worst in Vladimir Putin. The State of the Union Speech was very short on fact or serious policy initiatives and more of a cavalcade of Trump’s wildest codswallop ideas of which Joe Biden more mercifully referred to them as, “malarkey".  

What leads me to view Trump is farthest thing from a serious leader that has the best interest of the voters at heart?  If one cannot seriously see the forest for the trees, let’s just cite one recent example to give legs to this claim.  Great leaders (which trump wants so desperately for us to see him as) are level headed and don’t allow critics to rattle them in public.  They don’t engage in petty slurs that are meant to demean and dehumanize people.  They unite people under common causes as opposed to divisive tactics meant to find commonality with only those who  also may suffer from low self-esteem.  

Trump is the antitheses of great leadership.  He constantly demonstrates publicly four of the five most common personality traits of bullies, as noted by the staff expertise  at Neurolaunach, the website that provides “high-quality information about all things related to psychology, human brain function, and behavior.”  The one that isn’t so obvious but records show likely exist, is his low self-esteem.  A condition rendered out of his father’s assessment of “losers”, that drove Donald to act out in every way to show he was no loser.

In her Book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,”  Mary Trump, Donald’s niece, who grew up around the man that essentially ignored his youngest son most of his early life.  “When he [did] receive his father’s attention, his father constantly yelled at, criticized or punished him.”

Dictators thrive when there is chaos, which often they deliberately effect and claim “Only I can fix it”.  To claim that the Biden Economic policies were “an economic nightmare” at his SOTU speech, was not only ludicrous but an excellent example of how dictators lie to create doubt among those earnestly looking for a father figure/strongman to ease their own fears that they have cultivated over the years.

The threat of fear and chaos are tools of fascists authoritarians that lead poorly informed people to make choices, that when fulfilled, are hard to come back from.  If we could go back in time to 1945 and ask those people in Germany and Italy if their choices for leadership were a tragic mistake, odds are that most of them would  shamefully concede   

Voters remorse can be partially resolved by ensuring that when we go to the ballot box, future candidates for public office will not be fans of Trump’s Big Lie, which helped display him as a victim, a card he plays frequently.  There was time when Uncle Sam fit the image of a strong leader who would protect us, for better or worse.  It is the “worse” aspect of this image that now confronts us.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” -  Mark Twain