Thursday, May 9, 2019
Nature of Trump
Trump is a conman and promoter extraordinaire. Having set the American record for tax losses from 1985-1994 at $1.17 Billion he is obviously not a great businessman or entrepreneur, with his success ensured with $400 million from his dad (in today's dollars). He is probably not a Billionaire either. His documented 10,000 lies in office show that he repeats a lie until is accepted as fact by the following that he started with thanks to his long running show "The Apprentice". He admires and believes Putin over his own 17 intelligence agencies making him either an unwitting or witting asset of the former KGB chief, far beyond the useful idiot stage of some of his entourage. He admires other dictators around the world and disparages democratic leaders around the world, preferring the strongman bully over the weak. Having laundered Russian money through the sale of 600 condos (at a guess of $250,000 each that would be about $150 million dollars) and with the prospect of $300 million from a Trump Tower in Moscow, he is heavily financially ingratiated to the Russians. Russian President Putin is the leader of the Russian kleptocrats known as oligarchs. Here are a few of Trump's favorite tools, with the number of Dr. Lawrence Britt's list of fascist characteristics in parenthesis after each of the main tools. Nationalism (1), National Security (7), Militarism (4), Sexism (5), Crime and Punishment (12) and Fraudulent Elections (14) are all aspects of fascism in the Trump playbook.
Control of Mass Media (#6)
Thomas Jefferson said that he would rather have a free press than free elections, because with a free press one could gain elections, but without a free press elections are meaningless. As a master manipulator Trump uses his direct connection to 24 million Twitter followers and 16 million Facebook followers to reeducate his base and then uses that base to control the Republicans in congress who do not want to be "primary-ed" out of office. Personal loyalty is his god, above all else. Fox News is willing to play along and be the state media of the dictator. Trump uses the common dictator's tactic of calling news he doesn't like "fake news" and then openly lying with some whopper that paints him in a good light.
Distain for Constitutional Law (not listed)
In a monarchy, the king is law. In a constitutional democracy, the law is king. No one is above the law, but thanks to endless branding in his tweets and supported by Fox News, Trump negatively brands anyone who dares to oppose him and rewards those who support him. He has called the Mueller probe a witch hunt at least 170 times. He now has the whole Republican establishment behind him starting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham, hence he is determined to be "above the law". Over 900 former prosecutors of both parties have claimed that the 10 or so instances of obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report would be charged against Trump if he were not a president. He has repeatedly downgraded the judiciary, the FBI, Robert Mueller, and the CIA. Now he is stonewalling 81 subpoenas and any testimony at all.
Scapegoats and Enemies as a Unifying Cause (#3)
Trump's first campaign pledge was to build a wall against Mexican immigrants who he claimed were criminals, and one of his first acts in office was to try and ban Muslims from coming to America. Then there was Charlottesville Virginia where Trump tried to exonerate Nazi's and their protesters as "nice people on both sides". White nationalists have openly embraced Trump as one of their own.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption (#13)
Campaigning against the "swamp" in Washington DC Trump has set a modern record for corrupt and indicted appointees to his cabinet, compared to none of that kind for Obama. After refusing to divest himself of his holdings, he has welcomed things like the Saudi's booking over a thousand hotel nights in his Trump hotel near the White House. His inauguration also lavishly paid his hotel for meals and stays for various guests. He even joined in a Saudi blockade of Dubai until they relented and granted a mortgage for his son in law's building and main asset at 666 5th Ave. in New York. China gave financing for a Trump project in Indonesia and got favorable treatment for a Chinese company affected by tariffs.
Putin's Apprentice (not listed)
The secrecy around his meetings with Putin is such that he asked for the translator's notes and promptly destroyed them after one meeting. Helsinki was a disaster where he stood side by side with Putin and contradicted the 17 US intelligence agencies and the Mueller 31 Russian indictments openly doubting that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election. After firing Comey, he met alone with the Russians in the Oval Office and their transcript is the record of his boasting that the Russian hoax was behind him. He is grateful to Putin for putting him in office, and Manafort gave the Russians 75 pages of campaign information to guide them in their targeting along with the target states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Only Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were targeted on the gun issue according to Young Mie Kim of UW Madison journalism school. Those two states were heavily saturated with ads more than any other states. The social media of the 73 Russian sites combined with 200 other independent sites and super Pac sites often posted the same exact material at the same exact time, so there was coordination between Trump allies and the Russians that Mueller failed to pick up on. One book has already come out alleging that Trump is Putin's Apprentice and freeing Russian Oligarch Deripaska from sanctions is just one of many strange pro-Russian acts by Trump and he never says anything bad about Putin personally. This when Trump castigates nearly everyone else around him, friend or foe, at some time or other.
Command Interference (not listed)
Abuse of power includes examples of what the military calls "command interference" when an investigation is pressured into a result higher ups in the chain of command want. Examples include the anger of Trump when he fired Comey that acting FBI director McCabe let Comey return to Washington DC on a government plane. Trump wanted to strand Comey in California and force him to return on commercial aircraft after being fired. Another example includes the haste to fire McCabe 48 hours before he would have been vested in his pension, with the command interference influencing the investigation that claimed McCabe had acted with "less than full candor" about a call to the media he did as part of his job. McCabe claims he was confused by the question and came back immediately with a clarification that would have exonerated him. Another example of command interference is making Rosenstein agree to Barr's weird interpretation of how a president can't be guilty of obstruction of justice for performing a constitutional act with corrupt purpose. Barr may have ended the Mueller probe before it could fully and properly finish to avoid looking into the counterintelligence part of the probe, which is not in the Mueller Report.
Dear Future US President Letter:
https://www.academia.edu/32905059/DEAR_FUTURE_US_PRESIDENT_Spring_2016_3_pages
Please cite this work as follows:
Reuschlein, Robert. (2019, May 9), "Dictatorship Playbook Trump" Madison, WI, Real Economy Institute. Retrieved from: https://www.expertclick.com/NewsRelease/Dictatorship-Playbook-Trump,2019180677.aspx
Dr. Peace, Professor Robert Reuschlein, Real Economy Institute,
Nominated Vetted 2016 (2 Web Looks), Given Odds 2017 (3 Web Looks), Strongly Considered 2018 (48 Web Looks, one million words) for Nobel Peace Prize, a favorite in 2019 (double pace of last year 52 in 7 months) for Nobel Peace Prize to be announced Friday October 4th, 2019.
Contact: bobreuschlein@gmail.com, Info: www.realeconomy.com