U.S. President Donald Trump is cheered by supporters as he arrives to speak during a Make America Great Again rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S., March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Donald Trump is really going off the rails. His crazy antics might be funny if he weren’t the most powerful man in the world, who has the codes to America’s nuclear weapons.
As head of both the U.S. military and the U.S. law enforcement agencies, Trump is in a unique position to abuse his power by persecuting (and perhaps prosecuting) people who criticize him.
And last night, in an unhinged rally speech in Michigan, he showed signs of how he might abuse his massive power by starting to create his own personal enemies list.
In other words, our autocratic president, who is a “dictator wannabe” has begun making a list of people and entities who he believes are “enemies of his state” because they have dared to criticize him.
His speech last night was his first since Attorney General William Barr reported that he would not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, and that Robert Mueller had not established the existence of a provable conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
So Trump took the opportunity to list his enemies by name and occupation, and his crowd of right-wing crazies loved it.
It does make you wonder if they will now be motivated to please their leader by committing acts of violence against the “enemies” that Trump has identified. This has certainly happened before.
“Little pencil-neck Adam Schiff,” Trump said of the House Intelligence Committee chairman, who continues to oversee an investigation into Trump collusion.
“Jerry Nadler,” he said, invoking the name of the House Judiciary chairman, who is looking into obstruction-of-justice allegations. “I have beat him many times, and now I have to come here and beat him again,” Trump said of the Manhattan Democrat.
“These people are sick,” Trump said, and then added:
“All of the Democrat politicians, the media bosses, bad people. … crooked journalists, the totally dishonest TV pundits. … And all the current and former officials who paid for, promoted, and perpetuated the single greatest hoax in the history of politics in our country. They have to be — I am sorry, they have to be accountable.”
It is more than a little scary that Trump’s mob of supporters began chanting the solution they want: “Lock them up!”
But perhaps what’s most frightening is that for many these are not just idle words at a campaign rally. For many Trump supporters “locking people up” for daring to criticize their beloved president is a desirable solution to what they see as a big problem.
They want to forget fair trials and due process of law. In fact, they want to forget the entire U.S. Constitution (except the second amendment).
They want to go further and seek revenge against those who they believe are carrying out the “Deep State” conspiracy against Donald Trump.
It’s clear now that Trump is using Barr’s summary of Mueller’s report to claim that he and his supporters are the victims. They seem to believe that all that they hold dear is being threatened by these “Deep State” elitists who are attacking the president unjustly.
Bradley Moss, a Washington lawyer who specializes in national security issues, had this to say:
“The president is absolutely trying to reinforce the feeling among his allies and surrogates that the media went overboard in its coverage of the Russia investigation, that certain lawmakers were reckless in their claims, and that the investigation itself was flawed in its inception.”
“The problem here is that even if the president has legitimate gripes on one or more of those things, his overly-aggressive commentary is doing nothing but exacerbating the situation.”
The contents of Mueller’s full report remain a mystery, and both the public and Democratic lawmakers want to see it.
One fact that has not been much discussed this past week is that Barr’s summary of the Mueller report stated that Russia tried to help him win the presidency.
Kim Wehle, a Baltimore law professor, pointed this out, saying:
“The Mueller report and the two conspiracy indictments against a host of Russians confirm that Russia’s attack on our 2016 presidential election is no hoax.”
“If he respected the office, the president would be calling for accountability for Russia for the safety and security of the United States.”
Instead, Trump has lied by casting doubt on Russia’s role in the election again Thursday night, saying in his speech:
“All of a sudden I hear we were involved with Russia? I said, ‘Russia? What the hell does Russia have to do with my campaign?'”
“You know, I went up to Wisconsin, where Hillary Clinton did not go.”
Trump has always aggressively denied that Moscow even tried to interfere in 2016. And he as he stood next to the Russian President at a press conference following their Helsinki summit last summer Trump said:
“President Vladimir Putin says it’s not Russia, and I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
If Donald Trump believes and follows Putin — a brutal dictator who has his own critics and “enemies” assassinated — then by creating a new enemies list he has shown that he is a real threat to American democracy.
Donald Trump would love to be able to do what Putin does (or what dictators in other countries, like North Korea and the Philippines do). He would love to be able to take his list of critics and enemies and “lock them up.”
To save American democracy and the U.S. Constitution it is imperative that Donald Trump be removed from office as quickly as possible.
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