Dictator – Greg Laden's Blog https://gregladen.com/blog Sun, 02 Dec 2018 18:25:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 https://i0.wp.com/gregladen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Greg_Ladens_Blog_Favicon_black_GLb.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Dictator – Greg Laden's Blog https://gregladen.com/blog 32 32 77525483 Trump The tank Engine Goes Off The Rails https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/11/07/trump-the-tank-engine-goes-off-the-rails/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/11/07/trump-the-tank-engine-goes-off-the-rails/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2018 19:44:36 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=30849 Continue reading Trump The tank Engine Goes Off The Rails →]]> This is how we usher in a new era.

The observant will have noticed that over the last several days, during the closing six weeks of an intense campaign season, I posted as my Facebook banner an image representing each of the United States Presidents, starting with George Washington. There have been several interesting comments and observations made on these images. Special Thanks to Jim Crider, presidential historian, for his added insight on those Facebook posts.

This is the image that follows President Obama:

These are the official face shots of Congresspeople Waters, Sanchez, Conyers, Cummings, Neal, and Schiff. Depending on what happens over the next few weeks, these individuals are likely to be heading up the various committees of the House most directly involved with oversight of the POTUS. The pressure is on, and I’m not convinced Trump will be able to handle it. I thought he might quit the job, or have an aneurism, or something, when he was first elected. But he has remained isolated enough and oblivious enough for that to have not happened. Starting now, or really, when the new Congress is sworn in in January, we can resume the “How Will Trump Leave The White House” Bingo game.

2019 is going to be an interesting year!

The very first thing Trump did after his embarrassing defeat at the ballot box is captured in the following video. This came so close to Trump striding into the press gaggle and socking a reporter with his fist …

Can you imagine a mix of these reporters, a pro-Trump crowd, and this kind of encounter happening all at once?

While we’re at it:

After his ballot box humiliation, Trump loses it.

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/11/07/trump-the-tank-engine-goes-off-the-rails/feed/ 142 30849 Murderous dictator stands by Trump https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/06/murderous-dictator-stands-by-trump/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/06/murderous-dictator-stands-by-trump/#comments Thu, 06 Sep 2018 13:28:49 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=30384 Continue reading Murderous dictator stands by Trump →]]> I have no words.

Here, the President casts Americans — the citizens, the elected government, the appointed and hired civil servants — aside and aligns himself with a nefarious foreign leader.

There is a pattern emerging here. Trump likes foreign dictator that hack America.

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/06/murderous-dictator-stands-by-trump/feed/ 3 30384 The two pronged attack by Republicans: Happening now, and look for more of it https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/25/the-two-pronged-attack-by-republicans-happening-now-and-look-for-more-of-it/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/25/the-two-pronged-attack-by-republicans-happening-now-and-look-for-more-of-it/#comments Thu, 26 Jul 2018 00:21:53 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=29963 Continue reading The two pronged attack by Republicans: Happening now, and look for more of it →]]> Just as we are moving slowly past Trump’s attempts to order eleven of his enemies (who are mostly public servants with excellent records) to be rounded up and handed over Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, we now see the House Freedom Caucus, aka Teabagging Asses, calling for the impeachment of Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation of the Trump-Russian scandal.

From the Washington Post:

Conservative lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a resolution calling for the impeachment of Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, in a move that marks a dramatic escalation in the battle over the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The effort, spearheaded by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), also sets up a showdown with House Republican leaders, who have distanced themselves from calls to remove Rosenstein from office. But Meadows and Jordan stopped short of forcing an immediate vote on the measure, sparing Republican lawmakers for now from a potential dilemma.

This only gets worse. It gets worse about every three and a half days.

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/25/the-two-pronged-attack-by-republicans-happening-now-and-look-for-more-of-it/feed/ 23 29963 Americans Should Not Be On an American President’s Enemies List https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/24/americans-should-not-be-on-an-american-presidents-enemies-list/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/24/americans-should-not-be-on-an-american-presidents-enemies-list/#comments Tue, 24 Jul 2018 16:26:29 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=29937 Especially if the “enemies” on the list are mainly enemies of a hostile foreign autocrat (Vladimir Putin).

Some commentary and details:

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/24/americans-should-not-be-on-an-american-presidents-enemies-list/feed/ 1 29937 This is what dictators do https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/23/this-is-what-dictators-do/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/23/this-is-what-dictators-do/#comments Mon, 23 Jul 2018 20:16:23 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=29925 Continue reading This is what dictators do →]]> According to the Washington Post:

President Trump plans to revoke the security clearances of … former CIA director John Brennan; former FBI director James B. Comey; former CIA director Michael V. Hayden; former national security adviser Susan E. Rice; former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.; and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.

“The president is exploring these mechanisms to remove security clearances because they’ve politicized and, in some cases, actually monetized their public service and their security clearances in making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia,” Sanders told reporters at a regular press briefing.

She added: “The fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.”

The move came shortly after Trump met with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who said earlier Monday that he planned to ask the president to revoke Brennan’s clearance. The former Obama administration CIA director last week used the word “treasonous” to describe Trump’s performance at his summit with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin in Helsinki, saying it showed he was “wholly in the pocket of Putin.”

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/07/23/this-is-what-dictators-do/feed/ 47 29925 How Trump Gets To Be Dictator https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/04/08/how-trump-gets-to-be-dictator/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/04/08/how-trump-gets-to-be-dictator/#comments Sun, 08 Apr 2018 22:13:26 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=29526 Continue reading How Trump Gets To Be Dictator →]]>
Mobut Sese Seku Kuku Kibombe
When you see an election result like “98%” for a sitting president who is actually a dictator do not assume that this dictator would have lost the election had the election been fair.

I lived in Zaire. Mobotu Sese Seku Kuku Kibombe, the arch-typical syphilitic dictator, the model for all the other African dictators found in real life and fiction, would win by 99% every time he ran. He did that because of two things.

Flag of the Movement Popular de Revolution (MPR)
1) The method of election. Everyone could vote. To vote, you pick up a ballot. There are two choices. One ballot is bright Kelly green, the color of the Movement Popular de Revolution, Mobutu’s party. The other was some other color, for the other candidate. Then, you would take this large and visible ballot and walk past some soldiers, then the soldiers would direct you to one of two locations. The first location, visible and right nearby, was the ballot box that you would put the green MPR-Mobutu ballot in. If you had the other ballot, you’d go around the back of the building where there would be a clay pot to put the non-MPR ballot in. Oh, and there would be some drunk solders back there and they would beat the crap out of you.

For half a century before Mobutu, Congolese were routinely enslaved, chained, maimed, and executed.
2) Everybody actually loved Mobutu because he brought peace to Zaire and kept the repressive outsiders out. Remember, Zaire had gone through the worst colonial period of any African colony. The Belgians in Zaire were as bad as Hitler in Poland, except for many decades. Sure, there were small wars now and then, but mostly it was peace. Mobutu brought dignity to Zaire. Most of the Zairois I encountered there, and got to know well and to trust, were either pro-Mobutu because he had stopped the wars and got rid of the whites, or ambivalent, knowing he was an evil dictator, but recognizing that nothing ever happened under Mobutu that was as bad as what happened under the Belgians.

Slaves being executed under Stanley in the Eastern Congo, not far from my study site. Pre-Mobutu. People living there when I was there were fond of saying, “Bring me Stanley’s children. I’ll kill them.” But every other moment of the day, they were all the nicest people you’d ever meet.
I was once at a party (in the US) where there were about 100 Africans, all academics, many were faculty, many were grad students or post docs. They were part of a one of the largest African Studies programs in the US.

I was there to give a talk on some irrelevancy in African archaeology, but they were all there because they were becoming experts on governance, or already were. The host asked for everyone’s attention to give a toast to somebody (there was a reason for the party, somebody getting hired, or retiring, or something, I don’t remember).

As part of his toast, he correctly said, “right now in this room is all the talent you need to assemble the executive branch including a full cabinet for no fewer than five African countries. If only they’d let that happen.”

Asshole American or European mercenaries menaced the Congolese during the post-independence wars.
Those people would not have voted for Mobutu or any other dictator. Those people understood that having a fascist dictator running your country was bad. Those people were standing by and quite ready to lead and govern and run things in their native countries of Nigeria, Zaire, wherever, as soon as the bad guys could be put aside. And, those people were all in Gainesville, Florida, not their native countries. (Many of them were exiled under pain of death or imprisonment).

But the average person living in Zaire, at the time, was not what we could call today “woke” in any way, or only barely so. Had there not been a threat of violence for failing to vote for Mobutu, there is a good chance that he would have won by a landslide anyway.

Ready to be led by a dictator.
Of course, and I fully recognize this, if there was not a threat of violence against opposition to the dictator, there would have been viable alternative parties. People would have gotten political. It would not have been so easy for Mobutu to get a large majority of votes just because he once threw out the whites, and later, put down a bloody rebellion or two.

But, still, most people were not of the mind that the young men and women at that African Studies center were of. Not even close. Most people remained ready to be led by a dictator. Even a bad one. Even one of the worst of the worst, like Mobutu Sese Seku Kuku Kibombe

Today in America, something over 30% of Americans, by my estimate, couldn’t possibly care less about democracy. They would take a Trump dictatorship if it was offered to them. Most of them would probably not fight for such an option, but they would not fight against it, either. And, over time, more and more will probably be likely to fight for it.

A kuku kibombe. If Mobutu knew what his name meant in English, he never let on.
I see a lot of talk about people remembering to recognize a dictatorship when they see one, but this talk is fairly useless because it happens among people who care about whether or not we live in a dictatorship. This talk is not happening among the double digit percentage of people (though still a minority) in the US who would not mind, and may even prefer, a Trump-led, Republican dictatorship.

Does this mean that we must somehow convince the soy and corn farmers, the anti-union workers, the white supremacists, and others, that they are dragging themselves, their children, and the rest of us, into a world led by fascists, with no democracy?

I don’t think so. I don’t think they care, I don’t think it is in their culture to even have that conversation, let alone to grasp the salient points, let alone to care, let alone to act.

We are in this fight despite them. We are, in many ways, in a fight against them. Nobody wants to hear that, but closing your ears does not actually work to close off possibilities.

(The photo at the top of the post is the fictional dictator from The Gods Must Be Crazy.)

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/04/08/how-trump-gets-to-be-dictator/feed/ 115 29526 Trump Gives CDC List of Verbotene Wörter https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/12/15/trump-gives-cdc-list-verbotene-worter/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/12/15/trump-gives-cdc-list-verbotene-worter/#comments Sat, 16 Dec 2017 01:05:01 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=28554 Continue reading Trump Gives CDC List of Verbotene Wörter →]]> The Trump administration has sent the CDC a list of words that they are verboten … er, sorry, forbidden, not sure why I keep reverting to the language of the FATHERLAND! … anyway, words that the CDC if forbidden to use in describing their budgetary needs.

The list includes these words:

fetus
trangender
vulnerable
entitlement
diversity
evidence-based
science-based

The response from people at the CDC is, pretty much, WTF, this has never happened before, how can this be happening?

Das machen Diktatoren.

Source

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/12/15/trump-gives-cdc-list-verbotene-worter/feed/ 28 28554 The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy (Book Note) https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/11/16/despots-apprentice-donald-trumps-attack-democracy-book-note/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/11/16/despots-apprentice-donald-trumps-attack-democracy-book-note/#comments Thu, 16 Nov 2017 21:12:23 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=27899 Continue reading The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy (Book Note) →]]> The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy by Brian Klass. It is the current Amazon best seller in the category … wait for it … “facism.” Here’s the details:

An ex-US campaign advisor who has sat with the world’s dictators explains Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian tactics and the threat they pose to American democracy.

Donald Trump isn’t a despot. But he is increasingly acting like The Despot’s Apprentice, an understudy in authoritarian tactics that threaten to erode American democracy. Whether it’s attacking the press, threatening rule of law by firing those who investigate his alleged wrongdoings, or using nepotism to staff the White House, Donald Trump is borrowing tactics from the world’s dictators and despots. Trump’s fascination for the military, his obsession with his own cult of personality, and his deliberate campaign to blur the line between fact and falsehood are nothing new to the world of despots. But they are new to the United States. With each authoritarian tactic or tweet, Trump poses a unique threat to democratic government in the world’s most powerful democracy.

At the same time, Trump’s apprenticeship has serious consequences beyond the United States too. His bizarre adoration and idolization of despotic strongmen?from Russia’s Putin, to Turkey’s Erdogan, or to the Philippines’ Duterte?has transformed American foreign policy into a powerful cheerleader for some of the world’s worst regimes.

The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy will explore how Trump uniquely threatens democracy?and how to save it from him.

Here is a discussion with the author.

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/11/16/despots-apprentice-donald-trumps-attack-democracy-book-note/feed/ 21 27899 Trump went full on dictator this morning https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/07/01/trump-went-full-on-dictator-this-morning/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/07/01/trump-went-full-on-dictator-this-morning/#comments Sat, 01 Jul 2017 13:44:18 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24262 Continue reading Trump went full on dictator this morning →]]> I’ve made the point several times now. We live in a constitutional democracy, but many of the first line (and last line) protections are not enforceable laws, but rather, agreements made among people who all want to live in and respect a constitutional democracy.

But if a large enough cadre of members of Congress, a gaggle of highly placed judges, or a President decide to act in a way that conflicts with those conventions, they can actually get away with quite a bit.

The US Congress is run by such a cadre, pretending to engage in a democracy but willing to break the non-enforceable laws whenever that suits them. Since the Congress is a key check on the President, this lets the President get away with whatever he wants. In this case, this means that the Congressional overisight of the Executive is non existent or hampered, faked, or even compliant with the Executive’s agenda. We are seeing that now with Congress attacking the investigators.

Over the last few months it has become apparent that the only powerful force, other than the people themselves (and they are powerful) putting a check on Trump is the press, and Trump has been acting to wear that down. Plus, women. The women were the first to march against Trump, and he’s going to put them down too.

And so, this morning’s tweets:

And, on a related and very disturbing parallel path, Trump is working on getting a list of Democrats, via voter data, in order to … do what?

This is what a dictatorship looks like, people. They are coming for you.

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/07/01/trump-went-full-on-dictator-this-morning/feed/ 86 24262 Trump Dictates To The Press: Mika, Obamacare, Bullying the Press Corp https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/06/29/trump-dictates-to-the-press-mika-obamacare-bullying-the-press-corp/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/06/29/trump-dictates-to-the-press-mika-obamacare-bullying-the-press-corp/#comments Thu, 29 Jun 2017 15:40:12 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24251 Continue reading Trump Dictates To The Press: Mika, Obamacare, Bullying the Press Corp →]]> Trump is reportedly pressuring public news media and other outlets to not distribute information about Obamacare, as they normally would, in an effort to sabotage the n-Law. This is what dictators do.

Trump’s people in the “press” room have bullied the press to the point that they are finally starting to lash out. This is what dictators do.

Trump has attacked another female journalist, this time Mika Brzezinski, with another enigmatic blood coming out of her body parts comment.

This is what dictators do.

Reminder: Back during the campaign, Trump called Ms. Brzesinski “crazy and very dumb”

“Just heard that crazy and very dumb @morningmika had a mental breakdown while talking about me on the low ratings@Morning_Joe. Joe a mess!”

Is anybody going to do something about this?

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/06/29/trump-dictates-to-the-press-mika-obamacare-bullying-the-press-corp/feed/ 49 24251