Crowds cheered for Mussolini. Italy still is recovering. So shall we, if we turn away from Trump’s rallies, and remember who we believe we are.

Donald John Trump | Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Sanayana, as stated in his work, The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense.

The Seattle Times
Trump displays his inner Mussolini
Oct. 23, 2020 at 3:32 pm
By David Horsey

The FBI has arrested 14 right-wing, gun-toting, pseudo-patriots who are alleged to have been plotting to kidnap and, perhaps, execute Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. President Donald Trump’s response to this chilling example of domestic terrorism has been to attack and denigrate Whitmer.

Trump has demolished all sorts of presidential norms, but this violation of decency and dereliction of duty may be the most vile.

Can you imagine any other president in our history leaning in on the side of thugs who have threatened dire harm to an elected official who provoked their ire simply because she asked them to wear masks to prevent the spread of a pandemic?

This week at a campaign rally in Michigan, Trump slammed Whitmer again. In response, the crowd began to chant, “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

Trump let the chant roll on as he stood at the podium looking grim. Finally, he said, “Lock ’em all up.”

Some Trump apologists will say he was just having fun, just joking.

But that argument is belied, not only by the president’s angry demeanor but by his continuing quest to see his political enemies thrown into prison.

In recent days, Trump has been very upset with his usually sycophantic attorney general, Bill Barr, because Barr has resisted prosecuting Joe Biden based on a bogus, Russian-inspired fairy tale brought home by the president’s loony lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

In his heart, Trump is a proto-Mussolini who would happily jail anyone who dares oppose him, including all the journalists he calls “enemies of the people.”

At least for now, he can only dream about having such power.

The truly disturbing thing is that far too many of the people cheering for him at his rallies seem eager to let Trump follow his dark heart.

Italians thought, “It can’t happen here.” Germans thought the same. Then came the 50+ million deaths of WWII.

Yet, today, as votes still are being counted, America stands on the precipice. A few votes in one direction could send this nation tumbling down to the horrors of Trump’s fascism, from which not only America, but the whole world will have difficulty recovering.

Yes, yes, I know. I am being overly dramatic and concerned.

Tell that to Germany and to Italy (and to China, and to Russia, and to North Korea, and to a dozen African and South American nations).

It can’t happen here. Except for one thing:

It already has.

The LA Times
Column: Even if he loses, Trump has won
Nicholas Goldberg

This is going to drag on now. There will be challenges and counter-challenges, lawsuits and recounts. Maybe protests, maybe violence. It’s been almost 24 hours since the polls closed and it’s uncertain when we’ll know for sure who will occupy the White House on Jan. 20.

But this much is clear: On one level, Donald Trump has already won. He’s won because he has sown exactly the kind of discord he thrives on.

He’s won because he’s divided us still further in ways that will stay with us long after he has left office. He’s turned adversaries into enemies, undermined our democratic institutions and convinced us we’re cheating one another.

At the moment, he is continuing to undermine the electoral system itself with unsubstantiated charges of voter fraud. When there’s chaos and confusion, he flourishes.

Even if Joe Biden ultimately becomes president — and he appears as I write this to have a pretty strong path to 270 electoral votes — millions and millions of people will have again pulled the lever for the incumbent.

For the United States to have elected Donald Trump once can perhaps be written off as an aberration, a dreadful mistake. Maybe voters in 2016 — a more innocent time! — thought he wouldn’t really follow through with his irresponsible campaign promises, or that he’d be sobered by the awesome responsibilities of the office or held in check by others.

But for tens of millions of people to double down and vote for him again in 2020 is entirely different. It is an assertion by those voters that, yes, this is who we really are — and what the United States has become over the last four years is really what we want it to be. Their votes send a message to the world that this bizarre and untrustworthy man didn’t weasel his way into the most powerful job in the world by fooling the great American people. Rather, he was — and remains — their conscious choice.

Many Trump supporters say they see his character flaws but back him anyway because they trust him on the economy or they like his irreverent style or they’ve been persuaded that Joe Biden is senile.

But the message they send when they vote for him the second time is that they’re OK with self-dealing, bullying and lying. Intentionally or not, they’re giving a big thumbs-up to the way he talks about women, his refusal to denounce Q-Anon, the government dollars flowing into his hotels, his political chicanery in Ukraine, his racial dog whistles.

As I said, it can’t happen here, except for one thing:

It already has.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Social Security for all or a reverse income tax
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY