Trump as authoritarian dictator. And why the GOP wants it.

[Hume]

At its most basic, authoritarianism is when the executive branch of government domesticates or overwhelms or politicizes the judiciary, critiques and tries to silence the press, and when the leader has a party that he’s made into his personal tool, and in general, seeks to remove or neutralize any threats to his power.

‘Rule of the lawless’: what does the authoritarian playbook look like?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor, on the contemporary threat of authoritarianism in the US

www.theguardian.com

 

[Hume]

As I described them in my book, the tools of rule are one: propaganda, so that the leader can go against the press early on;

two: corruption itself – buying people off and getting a compliant civil service;

the use of violence, which ranges from intimidation and threats to physical harm and the elimination of critics;

and machismo – it’s the leader who’s the man of the people, but he’s also the man above all other men, and he’s the savior of the nation.

‘Rule of the lawless’: what does the authoritarian playbook look like?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor, on the contemporary threat of authoritarianism in the US

www.theguardian.com

Notice the Biden bashers are corrupted by "machismo." They think Biden should be like Trump.

 

[Hume]

Around the world, people have always been unprepared, and thought that their institutions would hold. For example, Germany was one of the most sophisticated nations in the world in the late 20s and early 30s; it had one of the highest rates of literacy, it was known for science, technology, graphic design – it was so advanced, and people didn’t think in Germany that this ranting lunatic, Hitler, could possibly do the damage he did. And then he came in, and he did things very quickly.

 

[Hume]

"When Trump declared he was running for president, many major US media, they didn’t even mention January 6 in the announcement.

I don’t like to blame the media, so I don’t want to overstate it, but there are many ways in which the American public has been encouraged to feel that it’s not an emergency, when in fact it is a democratic emergency.