We're very much living in a changed world.
A running theme of this blog has been the speech and language patterns of the President*. I'm naturally drawn to the subject, being a speech and language expert, and it's such a hallmark feature of this person. We return to this subject today, in a slightly different way.
A while back, I compared Don SCROTOLONE's statements to those of other mob bosses, both real and fictional. It was kinda funny, how he talked like a mob boss. An article this month in The Atlantic compares him to wannabe Fredo Corelone.
But more and more, he is has gone beyond mere Mob Boss speech and is having bouts of sounding more like a dictator. Yet then at other times, he sounds like a spoiled child. And none of it is funny.
SCROTUS is increasingly sounding like a despot.
Within the last few weeks he has indicated that he wants to bend the Justice Department to his will. He has called the DOJ "deep state;" he has threatened to fire Mueller; he is antagonistic against the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Li'l Elf Sessions.
He has both shown distrust of the DOJ and FBI and also indicates that he has the right to bend them to his will. To my mind, these concepts cannot live together, but we're living in an alternate reality, so they are married in the mind of Bonkers Man.
Some of his antagonistic language against the DOJ and against justice in general:
"Crooked Hillary Clinton's top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others." (Tweet, January 2, 2018)
Crooked Hillary colluded w/FBI and DOJ and media is covering up to protect her. It's a #RiggedSystem! Our country deserves better! (Tweet, October 17, 2017)
“I have (an) absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department." (interview with the New York Times, December 28, 2017)He is extremely angry with Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not recusing himself from the Russia investigation, and seems to think that the AG is his own personal attorney. He has said the wants the li'l elf to "protect him" a la Roy Cohn, asking a New York Times reporter, "Where's my Roy Cohn?" It's a super scary concept for him to have his "own Ray Cohn." Roy Cohn was Senator Joseph McCarthy's protector during those dark, dark days of the communist paranoia, and moved on to advise and protect other power players, including mob boss Carlo Gambino as well as Donny Trump back in the day.
SCROTUS wants to bend the Justice Department to his will. And he has! He complained that the case against Hillary Clinton was closed, and they reopened the case.
He has been openly hostile to the Li'l Elf Sessions. He has said:
This week it came to light that he tried to fire Special Investigator Robert Mueller. He simply wants to make his enemies disappear.
He thinks he has absolute power.
A huge red flag that fully demonstrates his dictator ways is his hostility to a free and open press. He is openly contemptuous of the institution of the free press and the people who inhabit that world. There are so many quotes to cite, and you know them well, but some of them are:
In August at a rally in Phoenix, he called members of the press "sick people" that the press is a "source of division in our country" and that the media is "trying to take away our history and heritage" with their reporting of the protestors marching against the events in Charlottesville and removing Confederate statues.
And then this month there was this:
SCROTUS doesn't want to know that the media isn't a hostile foreign power, it is us. The press is a citizen's ears and eyes. They are Americans, they are citizens, and they are vital. Like a dictator, he sees transparency as the enemy. He may have an imagined war with the media, and truthfully it's getting to be dangerous for them. But he won't win.
A dictator has many enemies, and feels the ever-present need to silence or eliminate them. A dictator moves to jail his political opponents. SCROTUS has another imagined domestic enemy, and that is Hillary Clinton. He can not let go of the election; he can not let go of the fact that any of her supposed wrong-doings were investigated and dismissed. He continues to want to have her punished. He wants her jailed. From the campaign, when he vowed to "lock her up" to now, he is bent on having her punished.
He strong-armed the Department of Justice into re-opening the Clinton email case, as well as investigating the Clinton Foundation and the people who prepared the SCROTUS dossier. It's dangerous and it's tyrannical.
And just today, the deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, another fine lawman, quit. Speculation is that SCROTUS shoved him out.
He had taunted him in tweets repeatedly, things like:
He also reportedly asked McCabe how he voted. Stinky, stinky. Dictator-y, dictator-y!
As I have written in an earlier post, SCROTUS is a bully, publicly railing against most everyone. He does not descriminate. Even former allies, if they dare to speak against him or stand up to him, come under his Twitter thumb. He insults and bullies just about everyone. Everyone, that is, except other dictators. Those people, he tends to praise.
He has said about China's strongman Xi:
Likewise, he is smitten with the Philippines' strongman Rodrigo Dutarte. SCROTUS praises him, too, saying in a Whitewash House memo after a telephone conversation,
Though he has taunted North Korea's Kim Jong-un with schoolyard insults, he has also sung the praises of the brutal Korean dictator.
And of course, he has never dissed his bestie, his sweetie, his snookums, Putie. I wrote a post several months ago about his love affair with his Co-Dictator of the USA, Vladimir Putin.
Words matter.
If you wanna know why he is chummy with these and other world despots, you might want to follow the money. Some call it conflict, he calls it the love of money.
There are some excellent articles looking deeper at Combover Caligula's dictator behaviors.
Here's a nice write-up from NPR of the concerns about SCROTUS's chumminess with other dictators.
A Washington Post article, which annotates Senator Jeff Flake's (R- AZ) speech comparing SCROTUS to Stalin.
A Newsweek article that quotes a foreign policy expert as saying TЯUMP would be a dictator by now in any other country.
The Independent (UK) showcases Tony Schwartz, SCTROTUS's ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal, who says that the President* wants to be a dictator.
A Politico article, which talks about the fashion and design sense that smacks of authoritarianism.
A video on Business Insider, which directly compares the Mango Mussolini to three world dictators.
Here is Trevor Noah recapping the Dictator-y Behaviors, better than I have:
....But let's just give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Perhaps he's not a Dictator Wanna Be. Maybe he's just being a childish bully. As I've examined before, his language is very child-like, and he throws schoolyard taunts at anyone who he perceived has wronged him. And his behavior is positively infantile. You don't need me to tell you that.
The sensational book Fire and Fury reveals that "everyone" said Trump is "like a child."
Just last week, when the government shut down briefly over a partisan disagreement, the outgoing message on the Whitewash House voicemail showed his childishness. You wanna bet on anyone other than SCROTUS directing this poor woman to record that message?
You can listen to the outgoing voicemail message along with other funny stuff with Jimmy Kimmel:
and Stephen Colbert:
;
And remember when the UCLA basketball players were arrested in China and SCROTUS used his influence to nudge for their release? What was his reaction when he felt that not enough credit and thanks and boot-licking was done? He literally screamed, "IT WAS ME!"
Here is an excellent write-up from The Atlantic, The Infantilization of a President. Within that essay is a link to a brilliant catalogue of observations from insiders into the childlike behaviors of the Toddler-in-Chief.
So what is the worse scenario? That he is a chldish, ignorant narcissist who wants to surround himself with yes-men and doesn't-matter-if-she-says-no women and who thinks that he can fire anyone who displeases him? Or that he is a calculating cold dictator bent on rising to power and destroying the foundations of the Republic?
It's most likely "A" but we cannot discount the possibility of "B" - - and we must diligently protect our Democracy's institutions, her checks and balances, her very core values in either case. Because either man is capable of eroding her greatness. He already has.
I have always had a great appreciation for our forefathers, those brilliant men who set up a brand new government from scratch with the deepest ideals. The appreciation is being renewed. Those ideals are what is keeping us afloat. We must all be the soldiers who lift Lady Liberty across these dangerous waters to the other side.
Keep resisting. Stay strong. Have hope. Speak Up. Act on your ideas.
And change the world!
He has been openly hostile to the Li'l Elf Sessions. He has said:
A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post,this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions.These illegal leaks, like Comey's, must stop! (Tweet, July 22, 2017)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers! (Tweet, July 25, 2107)He is particularly quite angry that Sessions recused himself, and publicly chided him repeatedly, including telling the New York Times:
"Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else." (interview with the New York Times, July 19, 2017)It came out this month that he tried to directly stop Sessions from recusing himself from the Russia Investigation.
This week it came to light that he tried to fire Special Investigator Robert Mueller. He simply wants to make his enemies disappear.
He thinks he has absolute power.
A huge red flag that fully demonstrates his dictator ways is his hostility to a free and open press. He is openly contemptuous of the institution of the free press and the people who inhabit that world. There are so many quotes to cite, and you know them well, but some of them are:
I use Social Media not because I like to, but because it is the only way to fight a VERY dishonest and unfair “press,” now often referred to as Fake News Media. Phony and non-existent “sources” are being used more often than ever. Many stories & reports a pure fiction! (Tweet, December 30, 2017)
Very little discussion of all the purposely false and defamatory stories put out this week by the Fake News Media. They are out of control - correct reporting means nothing to them. Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed...a stain on America! (Tweet, December 10. 2018)
In August at a rally in Phoenix, he called members of the press "sick people" that the press is a "source of division in our country" and that the media is "trying to take away our history and heritage" with their reporting of the protestors marching against the events in Charlottesville and removing Confederate statues.
And then this month there was this:
The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated! (Tweet, January 7, 2018)
SCROTUS doesn't want to know that the media isn't a hostile foreign power, it is us. The press is a citizen's ears and eyes. They are Americans, they are citizens, and they are vital. Like a dictator, he sees transparency as the enemy. He may have an imagined war with the media, and truthfully it's getting to be dangerous for them. But he won't win.
A dictator has many enemies, and feels the ever-present need to silence or eliminate them. A dictator moves to jail his political opponents. SCROTUS has another imagined domestic enemy, and that is Hillary Clinton. He can not let go of the election; he can not let go of the fact that any of her supposed wrong-doings were investigated and dismissed. He continues to want to have her punished. He wants her jailed. From the campaign, when he vowed to "lock her up" to now, he is bent on having her punished.
So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday “interrogation” with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times...and nothing happens to her? Rigged system, or just a double standard? (Tweet, December 2, 2017)
Many people in our Country are asking what the “Justice” Department is going to do about the fact that totally Crooked Hillary, AFTER receiving a subpoena from the United States Congress, deleted and “acid washed” 33,000 Emails? No justice! (Tweet, December 2, 2017)
He strong-armed the Department of Justice into re-opening the Clinton email case, as well as investigating the Clinton Foundation and the people who prepared the SCROTUS dossier. It's dangerous and it's tyrannical.
And just today, the deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, another fine lawman, quit. Speculation is that SCROTUS shoved him out.
He had taunted him in tweets repeatedly, things like:
How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation? (Tweet, December 23, 2017)
He also reportedly asked McCabe how he voted. Stinky, stinky. Dictator-y, dictator-y!
As I have written in an earlier post, SCROTUS is a bully, publicly railing against most everyone. He does not descriminate. Even former allies, if they dare to speak against him or stand up to him, come under his Twitter thumb. He insults and bullies just about everyone. Everyone, that is, except other dictators. Those people, he tends to praise.
He has said about China's strongman Xi:
My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan! (Tweet, November 9, 2017)
Looking forward to a full day of meetings with President Xi and our delegations tomorrow. THANK YOU for the beautiful welcome China! @FLOTUS Melania and I will never forget it! (Tweet, November 8, 2017)
"He certainly doesn't want to see turmoil and death. He doesn't want to see it. He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well." (Reuters interview, April 28, 2017)
Likewise, he is smitten with the Philippines' strongman Rodrigo Dutarte. SCROTUS praises him, too, saying in a Whitewash House memo after a telephone conversation,
President Trump enjoyed the conversation and said that he is looking forward to visiting the Philippines in November to participate in the East Asia Summit and the U.S.-ASEAN Summit. President Trump also invited President Duterte to the White House to discuss the importance of the United States-Philippines alliance, which is now heading in a very positive direction.
Though he has taunted North Korea's Kim Jong-un with schoolyard insults, he has also sung the praises of the brutal Korean dictator.
At a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie." (CBS, April 30, 2017)
I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” Mr. Trump said in the Thursday interview. “I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised. (Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2018)
And of course, he has never dissed his bestie, his sweetie, his snookums, Putie. I wrote a post several months ago about his love affair with his Co-Dictator of the USA, Vladimir Putin.
Words matter.
If you wanna know why he is chummy with these and other world despots, you might want to follow the money. Some call it conflict, he calls it the love of money.
There are some excellent articles looking deeper at Combover Caligula's dictator behaviors.
Here's a nice write-up from NPR of the concerns about SCROTUS's chumminess with other dictators.
A Washington Post article, which annotates Senator Jeff Flake's (R- AZ) speech comparing SCROTUS to Stalin.
A Newsweek article that quotes a foreign policy expert as saying TЯUMP would be a dictator by now in any other country.
The Independent (UK) showcases Tony Schwartz, SCTROTUS's ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal, who says that the President* wants to be a dictator.
A Politico article, which talks about the fashion and design sense that smacks of authoritarianism.
A video on Business Insider, which directly compares the Mango Mussolini to three world dictators.
Here is Trevor Noah recapping the Dictator-y Behaviors, better than I have:
....But let's just give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Perhaps he's not a Dictator Wanna Be. Maybe he's just being a childish bully. As I've examined before, his language is very child-like, and he throws schoolyard taunts at anyone who he perceived has wronged him. And his behavior is positively infantile. You don't need me to tell you that.
The sensational book Fire and Fury reveals that "everyone" said Trump is "like a child."
Just last week, when the government shut down briefly over a partisan disagreement, the outgoing message on the Whitewash House voicemail showed his childishness. You wanna bet on anyone other than SCROTUS directing this poor woman to record that message?
You can listen to the outgoing voicemail message along with other funny stuff with Jimmy Kimmel:
and Stephen Colbert:
;
And remember when the UCLA basketball players were arrested in China and SCROTUS used his influence to nudge for their release? What was his reaction when he felt that not enough credit and thanks and boot-licking was done? He literally screamed, "IT WAS ME!"
Here is an excellent write-up from The Atlantic, The Infantilization of a President. Within that essay is a link to a brilliant catalogue of observations from insiders into the childlike behaviors of the Toddler-in-Chief.
 |
| Paul Hands |
So what is the worse scenario? That he is a chldish, ignorant narcissist who wants to surround himself with yes-men and doesn't-matter-if-she-says-no women and who thinks that he can fire anyone who displeases him? Or that he is a calculating cold dictator bent on rising to power and destroying the foundations of the Republic?
It's most likely "A" but we cannot discount the possibility of "B" - - and we must diligently protect our Democracy's institutions, her checks and balances, her very core values in either case. Because either man is capable of eroding her greatness. He already has.
I have always had a great appreciation for our forefathers, those brilliant men who set up a brand new government from scratch with the deepest ideals. The appreciation is being renewed. Those ideals are what is keeping us afloat. We must all be the soldiers who lift Lady Liberty across these dangerous waters to the other side.
Keep resisting. Stay strong. Have hope. Speak Up. Act on your ideas.
And change the world!
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