WE GET THE LEADERS WE DESERVE

Two days ago in a YouTube video I summarized the strategies an authoritarian uses to rise to power. And then I asked if history repeats itself.

That same day, in a speech in New Hampshire, Donald Trump (once again) answered in the affirmative by embracing those very same tactics.

[I am told that some did not realize I posted a video. They did not see a little arrow in the image to click on and thus thought it was only a text blog. Here, again, is a link to YouTube in case you missed it.]  https://youtu.be/bQxeRbFJ-sE

In light of the strategies I outlined in my Saturday video, “The Dictator’s Bible,” Trump – as noted in today’s blog by Heather Cox Richardson – on that same day in New Hampshire boldly aligned his supporters with a global far-right movement to destroy democracy by:

(1) ECHOING Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s attacks on immigrants, saying they are “poisoning the blood of our country” – although two of his three wives were immigrants
(2) QUOTING Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attacks on American democracy
(3) PRAISING North Korean autocratic leader Kim Jong Un
(4) ALIGNING himself with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has destroyed Hungary’s democracy and replaced it with a dictatorship
(5) CALLING Orbán “the man who can save the Western world.” 

Trump skillfully goes on to scapegoat women and minorities and immigrants as seeking to undermine society, and thus – ripping a page straight out of the dictator’s playbook – equates returning white men to power as protecting traditional society.

“It is an astonishing rejection of everything the United States has always stood for,” notes HCR in “Letters from an American.”

🙂 🙂 🙂

When I don my academic cap and gown – i.e., slip into the role of neutral observer – I must admit that if a great democracy is going to fail, it is exciting to have a front-row seat.