Last Friday on his HBO show, Real Time, Bill Maher touched again on what he claimed in 2017 was a, "slow moving Trump coup," which is taking over America. Despite the democrats winning a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives last week he said the coup has, "started moving a little faster."
Then he updated his, "Are you a dictator wannabe check list." In no particular order and paraphrasing some, the list went like this:
You are a narcissist who likes to see his name and face on buildings.
You appoint family members to positions of power.
You hold rallies even when you're not running, and they are scary.
You talk about jailing the press and political enemies.
You force out independent minded officials and replace them with toadies.
You appoint your personal protectors into important positions of law enforcement and the judicial branch.
You like and want military parades.
You have what amounts to a state television network which constantly claims you can do no wrong and incessantly attacks your critics.
You like other dictators.
You like the idea of having a president for life.
Yes, Maher's list is impressive and not just a little frightening. Of course Donald John Trump hasn't accomplished some of the items on the check list, but we know he loves to, as Maher says, talk about them. Let's face it, he hasn't actually jailed a member of the press, or Hillary Clinton, but he's quite fond of calling the media, "the enemy of the people," which is the first step toward that goal. And now, two years in, he has appointed an, "acting," Attorney General, who has advocated for a DOJ investigation into Clinton's emails, while at the same time condemning the ongoing investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign. You know, the one he is now in charge of.
We also know the president spent the last two months demonizing a caravan of would be immigrants and asylum seekers. While numbering slightly less than the population of Alva, OK our man in the Oval Office likened them to an army of foreign invaders, then dispatched regular army troops to the border to defend against them. In other words he pulled an old trick used by tin horn despots across several continents. He created an outside threat to the nation in order to distract people's attention from the real issues at hand, like, say, health care and republican promises to slash medicaid, medicare, and social security.
Finally, we know he will say any election which doesn't go his way is illegitimate. This dark trend began during that 2016 election when he railed about hundreds, if not thousands of liberals from Massachusetts busing themselves over the border into New Hampshire in order to make sure Secretary Clinton carried the state. It continued when he asserted then, as he still does, he lost the popular vote that year because three million illegal ballots--almost the precise number he lost by--were cast in places like California.
Neither actually happened, but when you want to convince a jingoistic mob of rubes there is a vast left wing conspiracy out to destroy both you and them, the truth isn't, as Rudy Giuliani so eloquently put it, the truth.
On Friday, Arizona republican senate candidate Martha McSally fell behind democrat Kyrsten Sinema as mail in ballots were counted. In response to the news, Trump tweeted, "Just out--In Arizona, SIGNATURES DON'T MATCH. Electoral corruption--Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!" Later in the day he whined to the media, "...all of a sudden, out of the wilderness, they find a lot of votes." He had no proof of what he was saying and it's obvious he has no knowledge of how Arizona conducts elections.
All the alleged chicanery was news to republican AZ Governor Doug Ducey who won re-election last Tuesday. After Trump's tirade he tweeted, "Let's follow the law, count the votes, prevent any cheating, and heed the will of the voters." Arizona GOP Senator Jeff Flake, who Sinema will replace, tweeted, "There is no evidence of 'electoral corruption' in Arizona, Mr. President..." The republican secretary of state, Michele Reagan basically said the same thing.
As for Martha McSally? Well her 2014 congressional race was tight enough she wasn't declared the winner until mid-December of that year, so she knew these things could take a while. She also knew Flake was right. A little while ago she graciously conceded the race to Sinema.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump went before the press and told them, all the republicans who lost in the mid term elections did so because they failed to, "embrace me."
You might not like Bill Maher, but you have to admit the fucker is right. God only knows what Don Trump will say, or do if he isn't re-elected in 2020. He certainly has gone out of his way to convince his devotees--to set the precedent as it were--that the only way he can lose is if democrats commit criminal fraud, thus creating an invalid result which must then be overturned.
Indeed, he has set the stage. The only question which remains is, does he have the will, the guts, and the guns to end the American republic? Ladies and gentlemen we are all going to find out in a mere 24 months.
11-13-18
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