OMNI
TRUMP AUTHORITARIAN, TOTALITARIAN, AUTOCRACY,
FASCISM, NAZISM ANTHOLOGY #3, May 16, 2025
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace,
Justice, and Ecology
Https://omnicenter.org/donate/
What’s
at Stake: For over a hundred years the people of the
United States of America have struggled to realize the idea of democracy initiated
by its revolution against the King of England.
It was a bare beginning: blacks
and women were excluded from the vote.
The Constitution has been amended 27 times. “The Supreme
Court typically decides around 80 cases each year, with a significant portion
of those cases involving constitutional interpretation“ (google). People who dislike learning
and hate even the idea of democracy, hate the freedom and equality of the Declaration
of Independence seek to befuddle the public by labelling lovers of knowledge
and large awareness as “woke,” and seek to suppress them. Diversity, equity (fairness), inclusiveness (DEI)
are denigrated. And some of our greatest
institutions are staggering. But
countless people are defying the autocrats, the dictators, by exposing them, by
affirming their commitment to the ideas of democracy, and by building resistance
to those who would destroy them.
Books and Films Cited
in Nos. 1-3:
Giroux. The Terror of the Unforeseen.
Hett. The Death of Democracy:
Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar
Republic.
Hitler. Mein Kampf.
Levitsky and
Ziblatt. How Democracies Die.
McChesney and Nichols, People Get Ready.
Merlan. Republic of Lies.
O’Shaughnessy. The Führer.
Palast. How Trump Stole 2020.
PBS. Rise of the Nazis.
Renton. Fascism.
Ronson. Elephant in the Room.
Rosenbaum. Explaining Hitler.
Rosenblum
and Muirhead. A Lot of People Are
Saying.
Sanders’
Our Revolution.
Sharp. Books and articles on nonviolence.
Stanley. How Fascism Works: The Politics
of Us and Them.
Stone. The Fascist Revolution in Italy.
Ulrich. Hitler: Ascent,
1889-1939.
Wolf, The End of
America.
CONTENTS (37items in chronological order from 2007
to 2020)
Naomi Wolf. The End of America. A "fascist shift" accelerated
by the Bush
administration.
Robert W. McChesney, John Nichols. People Get Ready. Decay of representative gov. caused particularly by bankers and billionaires.
Leslie
Salzillo. Ken
Burns on Trump.
Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die.
Benz. Journalistic Defiance v. Normalizing
Nazism.
PBS Documentary, Rise of
the Nazis. Destruction of the Weimar
Republic, 1930-33.
Charles Blow. Trump: The white racist, sexist, xenophobic patriarchy at the
beginning of a soft, civil war.
Robert Weissman, Public Citizen. “Fascism in America.” Proud Boys,
MAGA
Faithful.
Linda Farrell.
“Saving our Democracy.” An
informed public.
Ryan Devereaux . Trump’s
Demonizing from immigrants to leftists.
Elie Mystal.
“Trump Steal the election? We're not prepared.”
MSNBC
(4 items):.
False Accusation: “Christian TV Host
Warns Rachel Maddow Will Lead Coup ....”
If Biden Wins, Will Trump Leave Office? (See Gessen below).
Mary Trump. Her uncle must be defeated.
Laurence Tribe. Trump must leave office
Amy
Goodman. Democracy Now.
Dick. Trump’s Base—an Example?
Dick. Trump’s Base Diverse, Grassroots Resistance.
Left Net. Police State in Portland.
PHR: More on Portland.
Frontline: Alex Jones, Trump, and
Lying
Four Books:
Jon Ronson. Elephant in the Room.
Ann
Merlan. Republic of Lies.
Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead.
A Lot of People Are Saying.
Marisa
Mormile. Sanders’ Our Revolution
v. Trump.
Bernie
Sanders. “Portland.”
Masha
Gessen. “What Could Happen If Trump
Rejects Election Defeat.”
Jonathan Greenberg. “’Dictator Trump….’”
John
Bellamy Foster (interviewed). “The Storm
of Protest in the U.S.”
Bob Brigham (reporting George Conway).
“Trump Is a Soulless Man with a Broken Mind.”
Dick, Letter to Rep. Tlaib Demanding Trump’s Resignation.
Bill
McKibben. Remembering Gene Sharp and
Call for Civil Disobedience.
Van
Gosse. Warning: US Becoming an
Authoritarian State.
Greg
Palast. How Trump Stole 2020. [If not right then, he is now. –D]
TEXTS From Hitler to Trump 2020
2007 - 2019
Naomi Wolf. The End of America. Chelsea Green, 2007.
Reviews and Praise
Library Journal (starred review)-
This latest offering from best-selling author Wolf, The Beauty Myth,
is a harbinger of an age that may finally see the patriarchal realm of
political discourse usurped. Here is Wolf's compellingly and cogently argued
political argument for civil rights, not women's rights. She contributes this call
to action to a canon that from Plato and Aristotle to Hobbes and Locke and
forward, with a few exceptions (e.g., Hannah Arendt), has been largely
populated by men. Wolf's work is actually closer to the agitated, passionate
polemics of Emma Goldman than the ponderous, philosophical musings of Arendt.
Readers will appreciate her energy and urgency as she warns we are living
through a dangerous "fascist shift" brought about by the Bush
administration. Her chapters outline the "Ten Steps to Fascism"
citing historical corollaries (as well as the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm),
with headings like "Invoke an External and Internal Threat,"
"Establish Secret Prisons," and "Target Key Individuals."
In other words, fascism can exist without dictatorship. Her book's publication
through a small press in Vermont that is committed to "the politics and
practice of sustainable living" rather than through a large trade house is
itself a political act. Highly recommended for all collections.
More Reviews and
Praise
Robert W.
McChesney, John Nichols. PEOPLE GET READY. 2013.
Post WWII
struggle for equity and democracy defeated by stronger drive for Cold War,
corporate profits, inequity, and authoritarianism/autocracy. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-w-mcchesney/people-get-ready/ 2013. [My emphases in bold.]
An
energetic if grim discussion of inequality and the coming era of
underemployment, viewed through the lens of the forgotten American progressive
narrative.McChesney (Communications/Univ. of Illinois; Digital
Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, 2013,
etc.) and Nation Washington, D.C.,
correspondent Nichols bring clear urgency to this sprawling polemic, which
encompasses politics, the cybereconomy, the decline of critical journalism, and
historical movements beginning with America’s founding. They describe the
post-2008 recession era as a “maelstrom” of inequity, pointing toward
worse times in the labor market: “the debate about where technological change
is headed is already settled in the circles of those who intend to profit from
that change.” This pessimism is linked to what the authors convincingly portray
as the decay of representative governance. Both parties, they argue,
have pursued tax and trade policies that have stealthily undermined blue-collar
jobs and middle-class stability. “This is the means,” they write, “by which unelected
bankers and billionaires most effectively and steadily define the popular
discourse.” Such dire chapters contrast with a vividly rendered history of the
development of a now-tattered “democratic infrastructure,” beginning with the
state constitutional conventions of the late 18th century, more populist than
what ultimately became the U.S. Constitution. The authors follow this thread
through the Progressive Era and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, portrayed as
the precursor to an ambitious “Second Bill of Rights,” forgotten at the
dawn of the Cold War. Similarly, a fascinating chapter documents a
forgotten progressive coalition poised to achieve great gains during the 1970s,
only to be thwarted by the recession and a cunning pro-business lobby:
“There was a tenfold increase in corporate federal lobbying by the 1980s.” [Fighting Back for Economic Justice] McChesney and Nichols conclude with a
lengthy proposition for how the ranks of the underemployed could similarly
regroup to protect workers’ interests. “Economic planning needs to be
democratized and popularized and made accountable,” they write. An authoritative account of the challenges
facing progressives wishing to fuse better governance with economic
justice. [Despite the advances of
anti-democratic forces, Nichols continues his inspiritng advocacy of the Idea
of Democracy. –D]
Leslie Salzillo. “Documentarian Ken Burns warned Trump's rise would
be 'Hitler-esque'—here's what else he predicted.” Sunday February 16,
2020 .·
“...He (Trump) represents
the greatest threat to American democracy since the Second World War. He is so
fundamentally un-American...” — Ken Burns on Donald
Trump, 2016 Variety Interview
The above quote is
by award-winning filmmaker and documentarian Ken Burns. Millions
have enjoyed his many acclaimed films on PBS. Some of those
documentaries include The Civil War, The Central Park
Five, The Roosevelts, The Vietnam War. . . .. To date,
Burns, 66, has made over 30 historical films/documentaries.
In a Variety interview in 2016, Ken Burns discussed
a work-in-progress called, “Defying the Nazis.” During the discussion,
Burns was asked by Variety writer Brett Lang why he had
become so outspoken about Donald Trump, who had not yet been elected
president. Here are some excerpts from that interview with foreboding
accuracy by Burns as to what would happen if Trump took
office. . . .
I refer you to Michiko Kakutani’s review of the Hitler biography two weeks ago in the Times, in which she didn’t
mention the contemporary situation, she just put the bullet points of Hitler’s
rise and every single one of them was exactly what Trump has done. . . .
2018
How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt. Penguin Random House, 2018.
How Democracies Die is about how elected leaders gradually
subvert the democratic process to increase their power. Here is the publisher’s description: https://penguinrandomhousesecondaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9781524762940
2019
Dorothee Benz. “Nazi-normalizing barf journalism: A
brief history.” Mronline.org
(11-8-2019). Originally published: FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy
in Reporting) on November 1, 2019 (more
by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy
in Reporting). Fascism, Imperialism, Media, StrategyUnited StatesCommentaryFeatured
The article was met
with howls of protest across Twitter, but among the many apt responses, Bess
Kalb’s description (11/25/17) captured my heart and gave me the single most
useful phrase of the Trump era: “Nazi-normalizing barf journalism.” Source
The historian concludes by
recalling the final months of the Munich Post — before it was shut down by Hitler. “The era of normalization had begun
everywhere else, but the Munich Post resisted,” he writes. “Soon
their office was closed. Some of the journalists ended up in Dachau, some
‘disappeared.’ But they’d won a victory for truth. A victory over
normalization.”
“They never stopped fighting the lies, big and small, and
left a record of defiance that was heroic and inspirational,” Rosenbaum
states. “They discovered the truth about ‘endlösung’ [the Nazi plan for the
extermination of the Jews] before most could have even imagined it. The truth
is always worth knowing. Support your local journalist.”
PBS’ DOC. ON “ RISE OF THE
NAZIS.” A series of four, beginning in 2019. (Members of AR PBS can see this via
Passport). “RISE OF THE NAZIS,” Segment
#2, “THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF POWER.” From Dick’s notes:
The mode is docudrama,
actors portraying historical characters by voice-over.
Final destruction of the Weimar Republic in
1933 took 6 months, Göring and Himmler doing most of the merciless, vicious
work: With Sovietphobia fanatical
and widespread, the takeover of the Reichstag and of the elected Parties moved
quickly. The Reichstag building was
burned, and the Communist Party was blamed, 5000 of whom were imprisoned in two
weeks mainly at Dachau, and many tortured and murdered.
Hitler forced President Hindenberg
to declare martial law.
The courts permitted civil liberties
to be abolished for “security.”
Himmler’s SS paramilitary
anti-democratic, anti-Semitic storm troops took control of the provinces
and cities.
As in segment #1, one heroic resister
to the smashing of the Republic is highlighted: Bavarian state prosecutor Hartinger,
who gathered evidence of murders of Jews at Dachau, which his boss dismissed
and filed away, until the file was discovered by US troops at war’s end and
used at the Nuremberg trials.
As with Segment #1 last week, I think parallels
with Trump are suggested, but significant differences too. For example, Hitler and his 2nd
and 3rd in power—Göring and Himmler—employed power violently and ruthlessly
to destroy Germany’s democracy, whereas almost half of the US electorate in
2020 voted for Trump. (If you see any
errors in my thumbnail notes from the film, please let me know. Dick)
REPLIES
…the
people who should be watching that movie won’t. This is what is so scary
about our country right now. The ignorance is pervasive and
frightening.
2020
The white, racist,
sexist, xenophobic patriarchy at the beginning of a soft, civil war.
Charles Blow.
“Trump’s Army of Angry White Men.”
NY Times,
Oct 25 2020 .
This group will
continue to fight for Trump and he knows that.
[Forwarded to me by Bob
Billig.] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/opinion/trump-white-men-election.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
This
election will test the country’s core. Who
are we? How did we come to this? How did this country elect Donald Trump and does it have the
collective constitution to admit the error and reverse it?
At the moment, Joe Biden is leading in the polls, but the fact that Trump is
even close — and still has a chance, however slim, to be re-elected — is for a
person like me, a Black man, astounding. I assume that there are many women,
Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans and people from Haiti and African nations he
disparaged who feel the same way.
Trump is the president of the
United States because a majority of white people in this country wanted him to
be. Perhaps some supported him
despite his obvious flaws, but others undoubtedly saw those flaws as laudable
attributes. For the latter, Trump’s racism was welcome in the coven. Still, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, more white people support Trump than Biden.
This is primarily a function of white men who prefer Trump over Biden 57
percent to 36 percent. Most white women support Biden, which is a reversal from
the last election, when a plurality voted for Trump.
The white racist, sexist, xenophobic patriarchy
and all those who
benefit from or aspire to it are in a battle with the rest of us, for not only
the present in this country but also the future of it.
The Republican Party,
which is now without question the Party of Trump, has become a structural
reflection of him. They see their majorities slipping and the country turning
brown with a quickness, and they are becoming more tribal, more rash, more
devious, just like him.
Like Trump, the
Republican Party sees a future in which the only way they can win is to cheat.
That is why they are stacking the courts. That is why they openly embrace
tactics that are well known to result in voter suppression. That is why they
gerrymander. That is why they staunchly oppose immigration.
Trump’s base of mostly
white men, mostly without a college degree, see him as the ambassador of their anger,
one who ministers to their fear, consoles their losses and champions their
victimhood. Trump is the angry white man leading the battle charge for angry
white men. . . . MORE
Robert Weissman, Public
Citizen. “Fascism in America.” 10-11-20 [Note the date!].
Things are happening in our country that most
of us have, at least until now, considered the stuff of foreign dictatorships. Please take a minute to read through my
previous note, copied below in case you missed it.
And then add your name in support of Governor
Whitmer and in condemnation of the domestic terrorists who were plotting to
kidnap her.
Thank you. - Robert
On Thursday, 13 “militia” members were arrested for plotting to kidnap and
possibly execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It would, unquestionably, have been one of
the worst acts of domestic terrorism in our lifetimes. But — after four years of Donald Trump and
nine months of the coronavirus — even something this monstrous doesn’t quite
seem to be generating the outrage it should.
Fascism is gaining ground in America, right before our eyes. Governor Whitmer has an op-ed in The Washington Post that is worth
reading.
Here’s a little bit of what she says:
When I addressed the people of Michigan on Thursday to comment on the
unprecedented terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges against 13 men, some of
whom were preparing to kidnap and possibly kill me, I said, “Hatred, bigotry
and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan.” I meant it. But
just moments later, President Trump’s campaign adviser, Jason Miller, appeared
on national television accusing me of fostering hatred.
When our leaders encourage domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions.
When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit. And when a
sitting president stands on a national stage refusing to condemn white
supremacists and hate groups, as President Trump did when he told the Proud
Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the first presidential debate, he
is complicit. Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a
rallying cry. As a call to action.
Things are happening in our country — with outright encouragement from Donald Trump
and his MAGA faithful, including many other politicians and government
officials — that most of us have, at least until now, considered the stuff of
foreign dictatorships. . . .
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
P.S. Public Citizen — like many nonprofits and small businesses — is feeling
the financial strain of the coronavirus emergency. If you can, please make an emergency donation to support the
critical work we’re doing together or even join our popular Monthly Giving
program.
Thank you. Public Citizen | 1600 20th
Street NW | Washington DC 20009
2016 to 2020, External to Internal Threats
Ryan Devereaux . “Trump’s turn from immigration to the enemy within.” The Intercept (October 13, 2020). Mronline.org (1-8-20)
Trump’s shift from
demonizing immigrants to targeting leftists is straight out of the fascist playbook.
| more…
Originally published: The
Intercept on October 13, 2020 by
Ryan Devereaux (more by The Intercept) | (Posted Oct
07, 2020). Fascism, Immigration, Inequality, State RepressionUnited StatesNewswire
LISTENING
TO Donald Trump describe the U.S. in 2016
was to hear a story of a nation in peril of losing its identity to waves of
brown-skinned invaders. Immigration and the border, particularly the
urgent need to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, dominated
Trump’s campaign rhetoric. . . . So it
may have come as a surprise to some that immigration hardly came up at all in
the first presidential debate of 2020. . . .Without question, the
anti-immigrant machinery marches on. In July, the Migration Policy Institute
catalogued more than 400 executive actions the administration has taken on
immigration since Trump’s inauguration. . . . But with those efforts
simultaneously in motion, the Trump administration has increasingly and
prominently centered purported threats posed by leftists, anarchists, and
anti-fascists in its bid to hold onto power. This widening of the threat
aperture is straight out of the authoritarian playbook, said Jason Stanley, a
professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of How
Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. . . . MORE
T v. US Electoral Democracy
“We Still Aren’t Prepared for the Fact That Trump May Steal the Election” By Elie Mystal, The Nation, Sept. 30, 2020. As the threat grows, the question becomes, what will we do to resist?
Forwarded
by Bob Billig Oct. 3.
. . .People who have
been paying attention understand that we’re losing. They get that the elevation
of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is functionally unstoppable. They
understand that Donald Trump has an infrastructure in place to suppress the
vote in the upcoming election—or get his handpicked justices to hand him the
election, or have Electoral College voters steal the election, or even use
military force to keep himself in power after losing the election. They know
the document leak that shows that Trump has been avoiding paying taxes, or
outright defrauding the American government, will cost him no tangible support
among his base. Everybody honest knows
that last night’s debate didn’t matter to most voters. Trump’s ignorance and
incompetence have contributed to over 206,000 American deaths; if you’re still
willing to vote for Trump, there’s nothing he can say in a two-hour “debate”
that’s going to change your mind.
What’s harder for
people to wrap their minds around is the fact that we’ve already lost. . . .
Democracy Now! Daily Digest
A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman &
Juan González. democracynow.org
Friday, September 25, 2020
"The Election That Could Break
America": Inside How Trump & GOP Could Steal the Vote
As President Trump refuses
to commit to accepting the results of the upcoming election, we speak to
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, whose latest ... Read More →
Bernie Sanders on How to Block Trump from
Stealing Election & Preserve American Democracy
In an address to the
country, Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders
has issued a stark warning about the threat posed by President Trump's refusal
to commit to a ... Read More
[Google Barton Gellman on Trump for his many analyses. –Dick]
Trump’s “base” 10-14-20 in
the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.
How typical is this
example?:
I was checking out my groceries at Harp’s
when the man behind me slapped down a magazine with Trump on the cover,
declaring “that’s a MAN.!”
I turned to him and asked what first came
to mind: why did he think that.
Instead of replying to me he turned
around to the couple behind him and asked: did you know Pres. Trump had given
XX million dollars to ??? (I didn’t have my note pad in hand).
The cashier tallied my bill, and I
departed.
The incident suggested to me that some
of his middling base:
1) were drastically
ignorant regarding the role of the Pres. and of Donald Trump
2) needed a hero no matter
how anti-social, even sociopathic
3) confused individual acts
of charity with adequate responses to urgent global problems
4) caved when confronted.
The incident also reminded me of
Hillary’s ridicule of his base in 2016: the deplorable. She overstated, if my one example can be
generalized. This man at this instant
seems now regrettable, maybe wretched, but not “very bad.” Look up the synonyms for “bad” in your
thesaurus. I anticipate some of my
friends will find him more pitiable than execrable, in that one quick
behavior. He was certainly not a
Hitlerian Brown Shirt beating up Jews and smashing their windows. That is, he can be talked with.
And these reflections lead me to urge us
all to be teachers always and speak up to people like the man at the
checkout. That’s a type of grassroots
resistance!
I’d like to read a good book on
Trump’s—and Hitler’s (and Mussolini’s, Duterte’s, Gen. Montt’s, the Greek
colonels’, Gen. Pinochet’s) -- base.
Dick
Rachel Maddow Show. “Trump’s refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power....” Asked what he'd do if
he loses, Trump hedges, despite earlier ...
www.msnbc.com › rachel-maddow-show › asked-what-...
Jul 20, 2020 - If he refused to honor the election results, it had no practical
significance: the peaceful
transition of power would continue whether the defeated ...
Mary
Trump Says 'Crushing Defeat' of Her Uncle Needed to ...
www.commondreams.org ›
news › Jul 17, 2020
- As Maddow noted, a number of political
observers have expressed fears that Trump will refuse to
leave the White House even if Biden wins the ...
MSNBC
- Laurence Tribe on Pres. Trump not leaving office if ...
www.facebook.com ›
msnbc › videos › laurence-tribe-...
Jul 31, 2020 - Laurence Tribe
says there's a “fail safe” built into the U.S. Constitution if Pres. Trump loses
the election and refuses to leave office: “On Jan. 20,.
PORTLAND REPRESSION AS WATERSHED
“Portland” by Bernie
Sanders 7-23-20
Dick -
We are in a very dangerous moment in American history.
Last month, as you’ll recall, Trump had
peaceful protestors outside of the White House in Washington, D.C. viciously
attacked by federal agents who wore no identification. As we speak, in Portland, Oregon, federal
agents in combat gear and unmarked vehicles are pulling protesters off the
streets and jailing them without charges, despite opposition from local and
state officials. What Trump and his allies are now doing is "normalizing" the
use of federal troops to patrol and make arrests of American citizens in
communities throughout the country. Today it is Portland, Oregon. Tomorrow,
Trump is suggesting it could be New York City, Chicago or Philadelphia. Next,
your hometown.
This
is what a police state is all about.
Make no mistake about it:
Donald Trump does not believe in democracy, our Constitution or the rule of
law.He is working aggressively to suppress the vote and, in the midst of this
terrible pandemic, is vigorously opposing the right of citizens to vote by
mail. He has ignored decisions of Congress, which is why he was impeached. He
has contempt for a free press and has called the media “an enemy of the people.”
He has used his office for blatant personal and political gain, running the
most corrupt administration in modern American history. He has ruptured our
relationships with long-time democratic allies around the world while he
embraces right-wing authoritarian leaders in Russia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia,
Brazil, the Philippines and elsewhere.
Yes. We must all come together to defeat Trump in November, but we must
also act right NOW to stop the movement toward authoritarianism and a police
state. That is why I am introducing
legislation with Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon which would greatly curtail the
activities of federal military forces in our communities. This bill would limit
their ability to conduct crowd control to properties immediately surrounding
federal buildings without the invitation of the Governor and Mayor, require
federal agents to wear visible IDs, and ban them from making arrests or
detentions in unmarked vehicles. . . .
In solidarity, Bernie Sanders
“Demand Chad Wolf’s Resignation.” [This entry is out of date re our action, but it reminds us of
early warnings.] ]LeftNet team@leftnet.org via email.actionnetwork.org 8-1-20Jul 31, 2020, Dick,What happened in Portland is unacceptable. Federal agents without identification in
unmarked cars were grabbing protestors off the street for what was effectively
interrogation. Make no mistake: That is a fear tactic. Trump’s claim was that deploying these
troops was to protect federal property. But local leaders in Portland have
repeatedly reported that these federal agents were operating far outside the
bounds of their deployment. Finally,
after a massive national outcry, these federal agents left Portland. But we
can’t forget that the head of DHS allowed this to happen – and it could
happen again.
|
Physicians for Human Rights. Portland Human Rights Abuses. From: Donna McKay, Executive Director,
Physicians for Human Rights I’m on the ground in Portland, Oregon, where
I’ve spent the last week working with PHR’s team of experts and local health
professionals to document the aggressive tactics and use of dangerous
crowd-control weapons against protesters by local police officers and federal
agents. In short: I’m appalled by what I’ve seen.
Demonstrators and medics alike are being subjected to human right abuses with
serious health consequences as they exercise their fundamental rights to
freedom of assembly and speech. What we’re seeing in Portland should alarm
you, especially as it doesn’t end here. We are gravely concerned about the
likelihood of similar abuses occurring in Chicago and Oakland. As a doctor, an American, and Physician for
Human Rights’ (PHR) medical director ‒ I’m appalled by what I’m seeing here
in Portland, Oregon this week. For more than two decades, I’ve traveled the
world for PHR to document horrific human rights abuses perpetrated by
governments against their own citizens. Today, I write not from a conflict
zone thousands of miles away, but from Portland, Oregon, where local police
officers and federal agents have been hammering protesters – and medics
trying to help the wounded – with sustained and shocking levels of violence.
Broken bones. Blunt force trauma to the face. Traumatic brain
injuries. Government agents bloodying protesters in the
streets of our cities is unacceptable, not in the United States, not
anywhere. We can’t sit by while these human rights
abuses are perpetrated against demonstrators exercising their fundamental
rights to freedom of assembly and speech. As you read this, a team of PHR experts and
local health professionals are on the ground in Portland, using the
unassailable methods of forensic medicine and scientific investigation to
help local medics, volunteers, and advocates document the aggressive tactics
of federal officers against protestors, including excessive use of force and
the dangerous misuse of crowd-control weapons. We will expose the truth about these crimes,
and make sure that those who commit them are held accountable The militarized federal
forces in Portland are wielding batons and pounding protesters and volunteer
medics alike with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and flash-bangs –
dangerous weapons that have already caused widespread injuries. The past few months have devastated countries
all over the world – and the United States has been particularly hard hit.
From a complete lack of U.S. federal leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic,
to record-breaking coronavirus deaths in the United States, to increased and
unregulated force rained down on people protesting against racism and police
violence, we are living in unprecedented times. But even in this time of uncertainty, you can
depend on one thing: PHR will be there, documenting crimes,
supporting survivors, and advocating for a more just world. We cannot do this work without you. Please, make a gift today at From:
Daily Kos 150,000 Americans dead, 30
million unemployed, federal agents terrorizing major cities, and no end in
sight. Donald Trump is incapable of meeting the challenges of the day—indeed,
he is responsible for creating or making worse many of the crises we face today.
But he is not alone in that. |
FRONTLINE. “uNITED
sTATES OF CONSPIRACY.”
7-20-20 [I viewed it on arpbs 7-29-20. –D]
https://www.pbs.org/video/united-states-of-conspiracy-1phat1/exami
Mainly about Alex Jones’ endless conspiracy of lies and subversion of
facts and reality to create chaos, and gain power and money (or he was a
pathological liar), concluding with his influence on Trump.
Connecting with Hitler’s lying July 2020: The first two chapters of Benjamin Hett’s book
on Hitlersuggest Trump, the Republicans, and the possible downfall of our own
republic. In these opening pages, although
he doesn’t allude to the rise of our Republican far right during the past 40
years, culminating in Trump, the many parallels with the Nazis seem clear,
including Hitler’s desire to make Germany great again and his endless lies and
subversion of reality. (My letter to
Hett asking if he had written on Hitler and Trump was not answered.) Also, unfortunately, Hett’s Index fails to include one of his major topics in Hitler’s quest for
totalitarian control--lying; see pp. 38-9 and passim.
Fellow graduates or
instructors of UAF: From its
inauguration and its motto, the UAF has taught the importance of
truth-telling: - VERITATE DUCE PROGREDI:TO ADVANCE WITH TRUTH AS
OUR LEADER. --Dick
Inside
the Trump Campaign
The Elephant in the Room by Jon Ronson.
Kindle Ed. 57pp. Goodreadswww.goodreads.com ›
In The
Elephant in the Room, Jon Ronson, the New York Times-Bestselling
author ... Books To Explain Trump, European Politics, And The
World In Late
In The
Elephant in the Room, Jon Ronson, the New York Times-Bestselling
author of The Psychopath Test, Them, and So
You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, travels to Cleveland at the height of summer
to witness the Republican National Convention. Along the way, he reunites with
an old acquaintance—the influential provocateur and conspiracy talk-show host
Alex Jones—who draws him, unexpectedly, into one of the most bizarre
presidential campaigns in American history.
From the private Winnebago where conspiracy
theorists and fearmongers discuss key campaign decisions, to a chance encounter
with notorious political operative Roger Stone, Ronson’s picaresque journey
into Donald Trump’s atmosphere introduces us to the people who orbit the
campaign machine, and discovers what makes them tick—and what ticks them off.
Whimsical, hilarious and often downright terrifying, The Elephant in
the Room captures a defining moment in our time as only Jon Ronson
could see it.
4 Books on Lies and Conspiracies
Anna Merlan. Republic of Lies. Macmillan,
2019.
us.macmillan.com ›
books A riveting tour through the landscape and
meaning of modern conspiracy theories, exploring the causes and tenacity of
this American malady, from Birthers to ...
“Anna
Merlan's Republic of Lies Explores Society's Fixation with Conspiracy
Theories.” ...www.npr.org ›
2019/04/20 › republic-of-lies-explores-th...Apr 20, 2019
- Anna Merlan, a journalist at Gizmodo Media Group, explores
our contemporary fixation with conspiracy theories of all political stripes
in Republic ...
press.princeton.edu › books ›
hardcover › a-lot-of-peo...
Conspiracy theories are as old as politics.
But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without
theory. And the new conspiracism has ...
Book
Review: A Lot of People Are Saying: The New ...blogs.lse.ac.uk › lsereviewofbooks › 2019/06/13
› boo...Jun 13, 2019.
Marisa Mormile. “Less than 100 days to Stop the Rise of an
American Dictator.” <info@ourrevolution.com> 7-30-20
President Trump’s racist
and fascistic behavior is getting worse every day.
If we don’t stop him in less than 100 days, we could be facing an unthinkable
future of sustained economic depression, secret police flooding our streets,
and tens of millions more Americans losing health care.
That’s why Our Revolution groups around the country are going all-out to stop
Trump and his Republican enablers up and down the ballot by investing in
progressive candidates who will fight to get big money out of politics,
guarantee health care as a human right, and more.
Rush a donation now, before our end-of-month
deadline, to help us close our budget gap so that we can invest in beating
Donald Trump and uplifting progressive champions to elected office from coast
to coast!
Marisa Mormile,
Director of Operations, Our Revolution
[Bernie’s 2016 campaign book of 450pp., entitled Our Revolution: A Future to
Believe In, sets forth an expansion of the Democrats’ 1930s New Deal. If Bernie had been nominated and his “Agenda
for a New America” had been campaigned for, he would have been elected
president and the Republican Project 2025 would have been prevented. Possibly not, because unfortunately, Our
Revolution does not include a chapter on US imperial aggressions nor the
Israeli/US genocide against the Palestinians.
–Dick]
|
Trump’s 12 Fascist Features
Jonathan Greenberg. "’Dictator Trump’ is no idle fantasy. “
The Washington Post, July
10, 2020.
Jonathan Greenberg is an
investigative financial and legal journalist .
People
have debated whether Donald Trump is fascist since he announced he was running for president. In 2015, Jamelle
Bouie wrote in that Trump, in his campaign speeches and
Twitter utterances, exhibited seven of the 14 characteristics identified by the
Italian novelist Umberto Eco in his defining essay “Ur-Fascism.” In 2016, the Georgetown professor John
McNeill assessed Trump’s fascist tendencies on a scale of zero to four “Benitos,” after the father of fascism, Benito
Mussolini. As an amateur, Trump fell short.
That was then. What
about now? And, more important, what about the Trump of a potential second term
in the White House?
On June 1, as
demonstrators gathered and marched in Washington and around the country to
protest the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, President Trump,
in a brief speech in the White House Rose Garden, called
for states to use the National Guard to “dominate the streets” and promised
that if they didn’t, “I will deploy the United States military and quickly
solve the problem for them.” Federal forces then used tear gas and stun
grenades on peaceful protesters to clear a path for him to walk from the White House to
nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op with a Bible as prop.
“The fascist speech
Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American
citizens,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tweeted. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) — noting in
an opinion column three days later that the president’s “attempt
to use chaos to shred democratic safeguards and consolidate authoritarian power
is deadly serious” — put it this way: “This is our own Reichstag fire and, yes,
Trump is playing the role of would-be Fuehrer, proclaiming a ‘God-given signal’
to seize more power.”
I first reported on
Trump in 1982, when he conned me into putting him on the Forbes 400 rich
list. That Trump was just a younger version of this Trump,
and now I worry that what happened in June was a mere prelude; he’s certainly
capable of a far worse Reichstag-fire-like event that would allow him to steal
the 2020 election. And if he does win a
second term, legitimately or not, his words and actions of the past four years
provide 12 indicators that he would seek to replace our democracy with a
fascist dictatorship.
1. Trump uses military
power and federal law enforcement to suppress peaceful political protest. In June, he deployed the National Guard
and federal officers to violently evict protesters in Washington, terrorizing them with two military
helicopters flying
low near the crowd. Trump also had 1,600 members of the 82nd Airborne on standby outside the capital and
readied tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. It’s reported that he wanted
to deploy 10,000 troops to Washington alone. Gen. Mark Milley,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took this so seriously that he got into
a shouting match with the president over the prospect of
deploying active-duty troops on U.S. soil.
2. Trump persistently
lies about voter fraud, setting the stage for him to use emergency powers to seize
control of the election or challenge the results if he loses. During a recent special election in
California, for example, after a Republican mayor requested the opening of an
additional polling station, Trump tweeted falsely that the Democrats “have just
opened a voting booth in the most Democrat area in the State. They are trying
to steal another election. It’s all rigged out there. These votes must not count. SCAM!” Trump has repeatedly tweeted that mail-in voting will lead to
fraudulent and rigged elections. After winning the 2016 presidential election
while losing the popular vote, he claimed a landslide victory and said that
Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote was due to “millions of people who voted illegally.”
3. Trump has
repeatedly suggested that he might remain in office after a second term and has offered reason to
doubt he’d leave peacefully after this first term. “Under the normal rules, I’ll be out in
2024, so we may have to go for an extra term,” he said at a rally last
September. A year earlier, he remarked, “President for life . . . maybe we’ll have to give that a
shot someday.” It’s a joke he’s tossed off on several occasions, and the power
of suggestion is so strong in Trump and his followers that Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen have all expressed serious concern that Trump
may try to steal the election or contest the results, and not leave the White
House if he loses.
4. Trump appears to
believe he has the power to outlaw speech critical of him, and he calls the
free press “the enemy of the people.” He tweeted of the New York Times and The Washington Post:
“They are both a disgrace to our Country, the Enemy of the People.” Former national
security adviser John Bolton, in his new book, claims that Trump said of
journalists: “These people should be executed. They are scumbags.”
5. With Fox News
promoting Trump’s lies as truth, the president controls one of the most
powerful propaganda machines ever created. During the impeachment trial, for
example, Fox hosts repeatedly attacked the character and mental faculties of
Democratic representatives and sworn witnesses, while focusing almost
exclusively on the testimony of pro-Trump Republicans. When it did show footage
of Democrats and witnesses, the network frequently used voice-overs to explain
or interpret what was being said, rather than broadcasting what was actually
being said.
6. Trump believes that
he has the power to do what he wants, regardless of Congress or the courts. “I have an Article II, where I have the
right to do whatever I want as president,” he has said. He has also
claimed to have the “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice
Department” and, in the event the judiciary branch disagreed, “the absolute
right to PARDON myself.” His attorney general, William Barr, and his own lawyers have made clear that
this is the administration’s position as they have rejected both congressional
and criminal subpoenas for information during the past few years. Their
arguments — including an assertion to a federal appellate court last October
that the president could shoot someone in the middle of New York’s Fifth Avenue
and still be immune from prosecution until he left office — came crashing down
with a Supreme Court decision Thursday. “We cannot conclude that absolute
immunity is necessary or appropriate under Article II or the Supremacy Clause,”
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
7. Trump acts as if he
owns our government and can fire any official who defends the law. He has dismissed an FBI director and a
deputy FBI director, as well as five inspectors general and U.S. attorneys, all
of whom were investigating or considering either his abuse of power or the
alleged crimes of his cronies. This past week, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who
served as a national security aide at the White House until earlier this year
and was up for a promotion, resigned from the military, citing “bullying,
intimidation, and retaliation” after he testified under oath to Congress
counter to Trump’s interests.
8. Trump uses federal
prosecutorial powers to investigate his opponents and anyone who dares scrutinize him or
his allies for the many crimes they may have committed. After the Mueller investigation of
Russia’s role in the 2016 election, Trump’s Justice Department began a criminal probe into the origins of the inquiry — to, in
Trump’s words, “investigate the investigators.” He tried to get the Justice
Department to prosecute former FBI director James Comey and
Hillary Clinton.
9. Trump viciously
attacks his critics and has publicly implied that the Ukraine whistleblower
should be hanged for treason. During a speech to diplomatic staffers in New York last
September, Trump said: “I want to know who’s the person who gave the
whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we
used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we
used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
10. Trump has
messianic delusions that are supported with religious fervor by millions of his supporters. He has “jokingly” looked up to the sky and said, “I am the chosen one” in relation to negotiations with China.
Then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry echoed other evangelicals who’ve said that
Trump was sent by God to do great things when he seriously proclaimed that
Trump is the “chosen one.” A Guardian report described the evangelical response to
Trump’s photo op in front of Lafayette Square’s St. John’s Episcopal Church,
which many viewed positively: One evangelical supporter was so moved that she
began speaking in tongues when she saw the footage, according to her son.
11. Trump subscribes
to a doctrine of genetic superiority and incites racial hatred to scapegoat
immigrants and gain power. He has rallied his base with dog-whistle attacks, calling
Mexicans rapists and criminals. When he attacked a group of progressive members
of Congress from diverse backgrounds, he stated that they should go back to the places they came from. Over the years Trump has
frequently praised his “winning” genes, at one point telling an interviewer, “I’m proud to have that German blood — there’s no question about it.”
12. Trump finds common
ground with the world’s most ruthless dictators while denigrating America’s
democratic allies. The oppressive leaders he has praised include North
Korea’s Kim Jong Un (“He gets it. He totally gets it”); the
Philippines’s Rodrigo Duterte (“What a great job you are doing”);
Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin
Salman (“You have done a
spectacular job”); and, of course, Russia’s Vladimir Putin (“You know what? Putin’s fine. He’s
fine”). Meanwhile, he has attacked traditional U.S. alliances and allies, like
NATO and Germany’s Angela Merkel (“Stupid”). Forwarded by Bob Billig.
Neo-Fascist Trump
“The
Storm of Protest in the United States.” Mronline.org (7-3-20). “Neofascism
has its source in monopoly-finance capital, at the apex of the system, but
depends for its existence on the ability to mobilize, with the help of a
führer-like figure such as Trump, a very considerable part of the overall
population.” MORE
“The
storm of protest in the United States: Interview [of John Bellamy Foster] by
Ömür Şahin Keyif for BirGün (Istanbul) conducted on June 23, 2020.” By John Bellamy Foster (Posted Jul 02,
2020)
Originally published: BirGün (Istanbul) on July 2, 2020 (more by BirGün (Istanbul)) |
Media, Movements, Protest, RaceAmericas, Global, United StatesInterviewBirGün, Featured
. . .ÖŞK: U.S. President Donald Trump revived his
re-election campaign and one of his main targets is the ‘left’. What does the
November election mean for working class people that are facing dire economic
and social situations and unemployment with the pandemic? Will Trump answer to
the unemployment, economic collapse, the broad crisis of capitalism with
neofascist methods? What will Trump do to overcome the crisis? What will his
agenda be?
JBF: Trump is a gangster who was able to take
advantage of a developing political formation that we can call neofascism,
involving an active alliance of monopoly-finance capital with the white
lower-middle class and white evangelicals. Meanwhile, the Democrat
leadership used their corporate ties and control of the primary process to
ensure that Bernie Sanders, who represented a genuine alternative, was
pushed out of the race. The consequence is that the U.S. electorate has the
“choice” between a right-wing, neoliberal Democrat in Biden and a
gangster-neofascist in Trump. This situation, marking the growing crisis of
the U.S. state apparatus, is a factor in the widespread uprisings. So far, the
loser, as far as the political process goes, appears to be Trump, whose
popularity has fallen in the last few months and who has recently been losing
some of his support white evangelicals. The combination of a disastrous
handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic depression, and an
unprecedented revolt against racial capitalism in the country, led by Black
Lives Matter, has finally punctured the white supremacist electoral strategy of
the Trump administration.
Under the
circumstances, it is at least conceivable that Trump’s support from big capital
will recede as well, despite the vast handouts he has given to the wealthy and
too-big-to-fail corporations. The Biden campaign strategy has thus been to make
doubly sure the corporate interests understand that nothing will change for
them financially or in any other way if he were to be elected. Hence, Biden
went so far as to assure a gathering of wealthy donors at a ritzy New York
fundraiser in mid-June (in the midst of the mass protests): “We can disagree in
the margins but the truth of the matter is that it is all within our wheelhouse
and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change,
nothing would fundamentally change.” This was a promise to maintain the status
quo for the wealthy and the corporations. It may be that Trump will be seen by
the billionaire class and their hangers-on as having gone too far and they will
shift the bulk of their support to the neoliberal right-wing Democrats represented
by Biden as better securing their long-term interests. But it is too soon to
arrive at such a conclusion.
Neofascism has its source in monopoly-finance capital,
at the apex of the system, but depends for its existence on the ability to
mobilize, with the help of a führer-like figure such as Trump, a very
considerable part of the overall population, constituting its political base:
namely, the lower-middle class, which in the United States constitutes some
25-30 percent of the population and represents a much higher percentage of
those who vote. This is coupled with the backing obtained from some of the more
privileged sectors of the white working class. With the vast majority of the
white electorate of the U.S. South in rock-bottom support of Trump, he is
hardly out of the picture. Meanwhile, the U.S. ruling class has seen its share
of wealth skyrocket under his administration and thus leans toward Trump and
the Republicans. Plus, there is the enormous power of the presidency, the
ability to start a war to get people to gather around the flag. Moreover, if
Biden were to win the election, it would only mean electing the lesser evil. At
this point the evil represented by the leadership of both political parties is
vast. . . .
About John Bellamy
Foster John
Bellamy Foster,
professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, is editor of Monthly
Review,
an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. … He has
published numerous articles and books focusing on the
political economy of capitalism and the economic crisis, ecology and the
ecological crisis, and Marxist theory: Visit johnbellamyfoster.org for a collection
of most of Foster's works currently available online.
Subject: An existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul…better be prepared.
Bob Brigham. “Trump
is ‘a soulless man with a broken mind’.”
Raw Story, June 5, 2020.
Forwarded by Sonny San Juan.
George Conway, the
prominent Republican attorney married to White House counselor Kellyanne
Conway, blasted his wife’s boss in a new Washington Post op-ed
published online on Friday evening. . . .
“So much of Trump’s inaptness and ineptness in these and
other matters stems from his exceptional narcissism, and the empathic deficit
that attends it,” Conway explained. “But it’s more than just narcissism that
drives this failing, flailing president. However difficult they can be, even
extreme narcissists can have consciences. They don’t necessarily cast aside
behavioral standards or laws, or lie ceaselessly with reckless abandon.”
“Trump’s behavior is conscienceless, showing utter disregard for
the safety of others, consistent irresponsibility, callousness, cynicism and
disrespect of other human beings. Contempt for truth and honesty, and for
norms, rules and laws. A complete inability to feel remorse, or guilt. As a New
Yorker profile of Trump put it nearly a quarter-century ago, Trump lives
‘an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.’ That’s Donald Trump’s problem yesterday, today and tomorrow,” he
wrote.
“It’s our problem, too, for now: We remain governed by a soulless
man with a broken mind. The damage will continue, and it won’t stop until
voters end it. Come November, it will be up to the eligible human population of
this country to look to their souls, their consciences, their humanity — and to
cast their votes for one of their own,” he concluded.
Rashida Tlaib 6-20-20
House of Representatives
Ms Tlaib,
Thank you for your letter
calling for evicting Trump. Britain
faced a similar decision at the beginning of WWII.
Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, about the
first year of WWII in Europe, opens at the moment when the German blitzkrieg
was rapidly overwhelming British troops in Norway and was invading the Low
Countries. Opposition to Britain’s PM,
Neville Chamberlain, and support for Winston Churchill , first lord of the
Admiralty, were intensifying. Supporters of Churchill demanded
Chamberlain’s resignation. One, Leopold
Amery, a member of Parliament, denounced Chamberlain in these words: “’You have sat too long here for any good you
have been doing! Depart, I say, let us
have done with you! In the name of God,
go!’”
Now you have demanded the resignation of President Trump. “Trump must resign
immediately.”
The situation is dissimilar, for
Britain’s enemy was Nazi Germany, another country, while the enemy of the United States is internal, the President
himself. But the stakes are equally
high—the destruction of democracy by “a soulless man with a broken mind” (George Conway). As you say: “he’s violated our Constitution numerous
times in service of white nationalism. . . .That’s why I
led the charge to impeach Trump, which we won. . . .It’s time to end his reign
of terror.”
Thank you
Ms. Tlaib, Dick Bennett
The Shalom Report
“If Trump Goes Even Lower, We’d Better Be Prepared” [Remembering
Gene Sharp and Call to Civil Disobedience] By Bill McKibben, June 3, 2020.
Events are now moving at high speed in this country—every day,
President Trump and his crew gallop past new lines, so that the morning’s
flagrant usurpation is legitimized by the evening’s even more outrageous
improvisation. (Firing tear gas at a crowd in order to be able to stand
menacingly in front of a church holding a Bible is hard to top, but I wouldn’t
bet against it.) A danger of this is that we’re always reacting to what came
before. So perhaps it’s worth skipping a few steps ahead, to places where we
haven’t gone yet but very well may.
What I’d like to talk about is civil
disobedience, and its uses in authoritarian states. I’m not talking about
what’s going on in this country this week—I have no more interest in telling
people currently in the streets that they shouldn’t be destroying property than
they have in listening to me. If you live a life, as black Americans clearly
do, in which a police officer could kill you for allegedly passing a
counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, or if you live a life in which the incompetence
of the nation’s leaders has helped precipitate an economic crisis that has left
you with no job and no prospect of one—well, I’ve been impressed with how
peaceful the vast majority of the people in the streets have been. In fact, Tuesday
night may turn out to have been significant. Unintimidated by Trump’s
heavy-handedness and local curfews, lots of people once again took to the
streets, and a frequent chant—“Why you got your riot gear? We don’t see no riot
here”—was both a powerful taunt and accurate reporting.
What I’m talking about is what happens if Trump, indeed, goes further
still, and manages to make himself a full-on tyrant. It wouldn’t take
much. The Justice Department seems to have become his Justice
Department. Congressional Republicans seem unwilling to stand up to him
about anything; and, at the moment, some of them, such as Senator Tom
Cotton and Representative Matt Gaetz are egging him on. The courts
are ever more packed, and the Pentagon seemed willing to funnel troops
and materiel to D.C., then participate in Trump’s political stunt on Monday,
which is a bad sign. The President’s constant shout-outs to “the Second
Amendment people” are not a dog whistle—they’re a clarion call. Even as Trump
keeps escalating, one keeps hoping that he’s merely trying to impress his
base—but as we near an election in which he trails in the polls, the
danger seems to mount. It’s hard to know what, precisely, a coup looks like
if the leader is already the President. Try to imagine troops ordered to use
live rounds rather than rubber bullets, no social media on which to talk about
it, and Fox News as the only sanctioned TV channel.
It seems a stretch, but such things are commonplace in many parts of the world.
(Indeed, if you’re black, facing live ammunition is already an outsize reality
here.) If they came to pass, Americans would be in a difficult predicament:
whether to submit to that rule or stand up to it. And that’s where civil
resistance comes in. I’ve spent much of my adult life organizing a certain
kind of nonviolent action—I’ve been in handcuffs more times than I might have
imagined—and it’s had some real effect on the paths of pipelines and the flow
of money. (As it happens, the first big civil-disobedience actions I helped
organize were staged from Lafayette Park, the same place that Trump cleared for
his photo-op stroll.)
But the kind of civil disobedience that I know how to practice
happens in the relatively open society that we’ve been living in (and is much
harder for people of color). Other people in other places have worked with far
less freedom, and accomplished far more—and their faithful chronicler was a man
named Gene Sharp, who died two winters ago, at
the age of ninety. I first wrote about him thirty-six years ago, when he was already
well into his life’s work of cataloging and explaining all the “methods of
nonviolent action” that people had used to stand up to authority.
He eventually came up with a list
of a hundred and ninety-eight, and could describe in
great detail how they had been used, singly or in combination. Some of them are
dated—skywriting as a form of resistance—and his list doesn’t stretch to cover
the myriad possibilities that the Internet presents. But most of them suggest things that could be tried now: walkouts, silence,
selective boycotts, student strikes, wildcat strikes. Some have been made
harder by the pandemic (it’s hard to stay away from sports and cultural events
if there aren’t any taking place), and some have been made easier (people are
already experimenting with rent strikes in many cities). Sit-ins are on the list
(and stand-ins, wade-ins, mill-ins, pray-ins); so are alternative markets and
transportation systems, the “overloading of administrative systems,” and fasts.
. . .
Prophecy 
"An 'Illiberal Democracy' If Trump Wins
Again" By Van Gosse, Organizing Upgrade, posted May 14. H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 5/27/20: Jim O'Brien via
H-PAD <h-pad@lists.historiansforpeace.org>
Warns that the US is in danger of joining the
worldwide trend of formally democratic authoritarian states seen in nations
such as India, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Poland, and Hungary. The author teaches
history at Franklin and Marshall College and is co-chair of Historians for
Peace and Democracy.
Greg
Palast.
How Trump Stole 2020: The
Hunt for America's Vanished Voters.
Seven Stories P, 2020.
"No one has told our story of
our missing voters like Greg Palast" - Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Follow investigative reporter for Rolling Stone, The
Guardian and Democracy Now! Greg Palast as he hunts for the
vanished voters of Trump's America. Yes,
the election's stolen but Palast shows you how to steal it back!
"Read this book. It might just save us! Greg Palast is the most incisive
journalist on elections. Plus he's @##$% hilarious." —Josh Fox, The
Young Turks
Palast lets you in on the nasty secrets of Trump-merica's democracy:
• One in five mail-in ballots are never counted.
• The chance of your vote being thrown in the
garbage is 900% higher if you're Black than if you're white.
• 16.7 million voters were purged from the rolls
in the past two years. Guess their color.
In How Trump Stole 2020, you meet the scamps, scoundrels and
grifters (or "Governors" as we call them in America) doing the dirty
to voters of color. Check out the photo of Palast confronting GOP Governor
Kemp of Georgia whom Palast catches under a neon pig at a bar-b-que joint to
ask Kemp if he's wiping away Black voter registrations to steal the election.
The response: Palast gets busted.
The book includes an exclusive interview with Stacey Abrams on vote thievery—and
a 48-page comic book from the piercing pen of Ted Rall.
You may know Palast as the fedora-wearing gum-shoe old-school investigative
reporter who busted the theft of Florida in 2000 for The Guardian and
in his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy
Money Can Buy.
"Palast is one of our great investigative reporters. If you are not
outraged by what Palast has uncovered, you have no heart. A searing indictment
of our rigged electoral system." —Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize
winning journalist.
“Palast, one our great investigative reporters, exposes one of the many
mechanisms the corporate state uses to keep us enslaved. If you are not
outraged by what Palast has uncovered you have no heart.” – Thom Hartmann.
[I ordered the book from B&N. –D]
CONTENTS TRUMP
AUTHORITARIANISM ANTHOLOGY #2
CONTENTS
2007
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti. “Pity the Nation.”
Naomi Wolf. The End of America.
2008
Myerson and
Roberto. “Fascism and the Crisis of Pax American.”
2016
John
Broich. We Asked Sixteen Historians.
Noam Chomsky
Heather Saul. Noam Chomsky’s Assessment of
Trump.
Josh Jones. Chomsky on Trump and Weimar
Republic 1930s.
2017
Awareness in the 1930s.
Michael Roberto. “The Origins of American Fascism.”
Two Articles by John Bellamy Foster.
“Neofascism in the White House.”
“This Is Not Populism.”
David Edwards. “Trump Uses Mein Kampf.”
John Diaz. Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook.
Ron Leighton. Study the Context of US Authoritarianism of Last 50
Years.
2018
Benjamin C. Hett:
Interview and Review The Death of Democracy.
Robin Lindley. The Fate of the Weimar Republic.
Timothy
Snyder. Review of Hett’s book. “How Did the Nazis Gain
Power in Germany?”
Heather Gray. Intro. to Richard Frankel. “German
History and Trump's Enablers.”
Juan Cole. Trump and Erdogan.
Robert Reich. Trump and the “Deep State”: A Second Civil War?
Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Trump Orders More Arms.
2019
Christian
Fuchs. On Henry Giroux’s Book The Terror of the
Unforeseen.” See articles above by Frankel, Snyder, Leighton.
Ref. Henry Giroux. “Neoliberal
Fascism.”
2020
David Renton. Fascism.
2025
Chris
Hedges. Collapse of Universities and Suppression of Speech.
Volker Ulrich. Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939. Dick’s Comment.
END TRUMP FASCISM ANTHOLOGY
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