Destroying Democracy One Felony at a Time
Trump is closing the Kennedy Center to remake it in his own image.
Trump's authoritarian playbook in action. You were warned.
The Authoritarian Glorifies Himself and Puts His Own Name on our National Institutions
The Authoritarian Glorifies Himself and Puts His Own Name on our National Institutions
The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees has been packed with incompetent, unqualified toadies willing to dishonor the institution's namesake and its noble history by transforming it into a politicized monument to Trump's ego and corruption.
In an inspiring demonstration of integrity and personal courage, many of our nation's most talented artists refuse to allow their names and talents to be appropriated by a conman. These artists are now threatened, demeaned and accused of intolerance by Trump's toadies. Yet, they are the brave few who stand on principle while America's loftier institutions crumble. They deserve our admiration and our support.
Sadly, Trump is closing the Kennedy Center to remake it in his own image. You'll soon be able to watch only right-wing productions in a tacky, gold-plated Mausoleum of the Arts while painfully resting your elbow on Trump's favorite "marble armrests." While this may not be the most direct route to autocracy, it exemplifies the institutional corruption that Trump has implemented across his regime.
Richard Grenell, Trump's former Hypocrite-In-Chief at the Trump center, has been tossed aside and replaced by a younger, prettier MAGA extremist who will complete the desecration of the Kennedy Center. Grenell will always be stained by his blatant hypocrisy and betrayal of his own cause. As a married gay man, he ignores that his own party fought for years against his own right to marry. And they fought to give artists the right to discriminate against the gay community by refusing to lend their "artistic talents" to people they hate. Yet Richard Grenell accused these artists of that same intolerance and attacked his own community for exercising their right to refuse to lend their talents to a cause that violates their closely held beliefs. Richard Grenell, you are a hypocrite and will never be anything more than a puss-filled boil on the ass of MAGA-dumb.
Elect a Convicted Felon, Expect a Criminal Conspiracy
The Authoritarian Glorifies Himself and Puts His Own Name on our National Institutions
This president profits from his every action taken while in office. Prohibition against emoluments? That's now nothing more than a quaint relic from the Constitution to be ignored. His decisions are made solely based on how they benefit him, his brand, his personal wealth, his billionaire donors, and his family's financial interests. The examples of his self-serving actions are endless.
Invest in companies like Netflix and Paramount while his own government is reviewing and interfering in their acquisition plans.
Start a social media platform and then direct the government to use it in order to increase its value, then merge it in a deal worth BILLIONS.
Mix personal business with official duties by pursuing conflicted deals with countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Serbia, and Hungary.
Send family members as government representatives to negotiate trade deals with nations with whom the Trump family does or wants to do business.
Sell pardons, citizenship and visas to the highest bidder
Force traveling government and military employees go out of their way to stay at his properties. He drags a massive entourage with him on his weekly outings at his golf courses and resorts, which funnels millions into his pockets. That includes foreign governments seeking to curry favor. He charges the Secret Service and government employees exorbitant rates for rooms, golf carts, and services while they protect and support him. All to line his pockets with taxpayer dollars.
Launch a cryptocurrency and meme coin, then enact regulations to boost the value of those investments after swindling loyal supporters out of their hard-earned savings.
Accept a $400 million luxury plane from a foreign government with which he and his family have business dealings, then bill American taxpayers over $1 billion to retrofit that plane.
Deregulate his own businesses and those of his billionaire donors.
Sign tax cuts that save himself and his donors billions.
Evict Palestinians from their homes in Gaza to transform it into a gold-plated resort town to be developed by his son in law. And let's not forget what we already know about his attempts to do that in Atlantic City and other locations where it led to bankruptcies, job losses, and billions lost by banks and investors.
Create a Secret Police to Disappear and Murder Citizens and Non-Citizens Alike
Trump and his regime pressured the Iranian government not to suppress protests in their country and told Iranian protesters that the US will protect them against their government's threats. "Help is on the way" Trump said. Meanwhile, at exactly the same time, his government was gunning down U.S. citizens protesting in American cities. What help is on the way to protect them? None.
So now we can add state-sponsored murder to the crimes committed by Trump's thugs. The Trump administration and its right-wing propaganda machine immediately excused and papered over the execution of American citizens in broad daylight. The FBI's non-existent non-investigation will result in nothing more than a cover up unless the American people hold them accountable.
Trump's roving bands of thugs have become roving bands of assassins. They prowl residential neighborhoods, assault and shoot at will anyone unlucky enough to be in the area of an ICE operation.
Agents with accents target and snatch American citizens from their homes and jobs just because they have an accent. They tackle, assault, and drag individuals—including pregnant women and the elderly—out of their homes, workplaces and cars, throw them to the ground, beat them, and detain them, effectively disappearing them into a labyrinth of overcrowded detention centers both domestic and foreign.
Trump's secret police pin US citizens to the ground with a knee on their neck, hold them down and spray chemical weapons directly into their eyes from point blank range.
People are snatched off the street, from gas stations, and while generally just going about their own business. Trump's thugs literally ask for papers from American citizens the exact same way the Gestapo did in Nazi Germany. "Deine Dokumente bitte."
By quickly and repeatedly shipping individuals between multiple detention centers in America and abroad, the Trump administration makes it difficult for the courts, families, and attorneys to locate the detained individuals, thus depriving them of their constitutional rights. The system is so overwhelmed and so poorly run, even DHS can't properly keep track.
When confronted with evidence of citizenship, these thugs respond with dismissive comments like 'I don't care' and 'your documentation is fake,' before consigning citizens to detention center hell holes where they languish until help arrives. Even when courts validate citizenship papers, the DHS drags their feet and continues the illegal detention as long as possible.
To be clear, ANY detention of a U.S. citizen on immigration charges is unconstitutional and illegal. Even for a minute. And we are NOT required to carry citizenship papers with us. But DHS has detention and deportation quotas to meet. They don't care who they catch or how. They believe they are above the law and unaccountable. Any one of us easily could be swept up in such a wide, indiscriminate net.
Subvert the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
James Madison wrote on October 17, 1788, "Altho' it be generally true... that the danger of oppression lies in the interested majorities of the people rather than in usurped acts of the Government, yet there may be occasions on which the evil may spring from the latter sources; and on such, a bill of rights will be a good ground for an appeal to the sense of the community. Perhaps too there may be a certain degree of danger, that a succession of artful and ambitious rulers, may by gradual & well-timed advances, finally erect an independent Government on the subversion of liberty. Should this danger exist at all, it is prudent to guard agst. it...."
Though prescient, the architects of the Bill of Rights like James Madison and George Mason could never construct a Constitutional bulwark sufficient to defend liberty from a narcissistic sociopath like Trump. Aided and abetted by ivory tower sycophants on today's Supreme Court, the autocrat in the White House has attempted to repeal the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th and 14th amendments by executive order. This king is accountable to no person, no law, no check, no balance. The Constitution is now little more than a speed bump on the road to autocracy.
Undermine the Independent Judiciary
In 1789, Thomas Jefferson responded to James Madison with his belief and hope that a Bill of Rights defended by an independent judiciary would act as more than a 'parchment barrier' to safeguard the rights of the political minority from the will of the majority and a tyrannical government. In our constitutional democracy, the Judicial Branch was designed to serve as the ultimate safeguard of our civil liberties against a tyrant. But it is now subservient to the tyrant.
Today, the Supreme Court has become the place where our civil liberties (and voting rights, and personal health decisions, and...) go to die. As Americans despair that the constitution has been reduced to a tattered parchment, Chief Justice John Roberts recently attempted to reassure an appalled citizenry that the Federal Judiciary remains independent and serves as a 'counter-majoritarian check.'
The Chief Justice seemed eager to paper over the court's recent disastrous 'shadow docket' rulings, including the egregiously discriminatory 'Kavanaugh Stops.' That ruling allowed Trump's new police state to wield unfettered power to detain individuals at will, often based on nothing more than the color of their skin or their accent. Even Justice Brett Kavanaugh tried to walk back his own disastrous opinions, but it is too late for him to bemoan the loss of civil liberties that he helped to destroy.
This autocratic president and his vice president are working feverishly to undermine and de-legitimize the independent judiciary. They attack any judgement not in their favor as the work of 'radical left-wing activist judges' who deserve impeachment. He packed the Supreme Court with justices who tremble in fear of the Executive. These justices have become willing accomplices to the desecration of the Constitution.
While lower courts—including some of Trump's own appointees—have labored mightily to protect our civil liberties and stay true to the Constitution, their efforts ultimately fail when they are undermined by the authoritarian-enabling Supreme Court.
As a result, the checks and balances that Madison, Mason, Jefferson, and others crafted with such care have been breached. The courts now find themselves powerless to enforce rulings when the Justice Department, typically responsible for prosecuting violations of court orders, is led by Trump's toadies who gleefully ignore court orders and who ultimately would be prosecuting themselves.
Co-opt the Military into a Tool for Domestic Oppression
This authoritarian president blatantly disregards the Posse Comitatus Act by deploying the military as a domestic police force. This military overreach has transformed the armed forces into a tool of oppression and suppression against U.S. citizens.
He and his boot-licking clown of a Secretary of Defense are using American cities as training grounds for the military. He manufactures fears of an "enemy within" and sends the military into American cities under false pretenses to combat the nonexistent domestic "enemy". Those guardsmen, while following orders and doing their duty, are not trained or equipped for law enforcement missions in U.S. cities. That puts them and everyone around them at risk, as we saw in recent fatal attacks. One person and one person only is responsible for that: Trump.
Weaponized Prosecutions and Extortion
Just as dictator Joseph Stalin's secret police did nearly 100 years ago, this administration employs predetermined guilt and manufactured evidence in a "show me the man and I'll show you the crime" method of attacking his opponents. The Autocrat employs the extensive investigative and law enforcement powers of the executive branch to threaten, retaliate against, suppress, and punish his opponents.
He has a long list of grievances - past and present. While competent prosecutors flee the DoJ, Trump's incompetent cronies dig through private, privileged personal data stored in federal databases to find dirt for weaponized prosecutions. Even if the government's prosecutions ultimately fail in court - which they do when prosecuted by his incompetent DoJ lawyers with invalid appointments - the punishment has already been inflicted.
This administration targets its opponents for financial investigations, aiming to destroy their fundraising capabilities while broadly and falsely labeling them as "antifa" and domestic terrorists. Few individuals and organizations possess the resources to stand against the government. Many will ultimately succumb to the overwhelming pressure of a corrupt executive. Even the nation's oldest colleges, universities, and law firms have surrendered to this regime's shake downs and extortion.
Undermine Freedom of the Press
Create a single source of government controlled propaganda. Build a Truth Social media platform that he controls (and profits from). Force the government to use that platform. Control messaging from the White House. Flood social media with propaganda and blatant lies to convince the People not to believe what they see with their own eyes.
This president practices methods of propaganda first pioneered by Hitler in Mein Kampf. He knows too well that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one. So he lies big and lies incessantly.
He abuses government authority by threatening to strip broadcasters' licenses unless they toe the party line. He sues journalists for billions when they dare to disagree. His toadies kick reporters out of government briefings unless they agree to only publish the government's talking points. The government threatens reporters with prosecution for treason, violation of national security, or state secrecy. They bully. They intimidate. They attempt to subjugate.
Criminalize Freedom of Speech
Conflate the Office with the Person
The autocrat in the White House threatens dissenters with punishment, treason and hanging (just ask the patriot and national hero Senator Mark Kelley about that). The First Amendment, once a cornerstone of our democracy, no longer protects freedom of speech or our right to address grievances with the government.
Across the country, U.S. citizens and our nation's veterans have been arrested by overzealous law enforcement doing Trump's bidding. What was the alleged crime? Posting dissenting comments on social media or engaging in peaceful protest. Even after release, these individuals still spent days in detention, lost jobs, and have to defend their constitutionally protected speech in court at great personal and financial cost.
Conflate the Office with the Person
Conflate the Office with the Person
Inviting a clown into a palace results in the palace becoming a circus, not the clown becoming a king.
The man child in the White House believes that he himself is the institution, aggrandizing the power of the office directly to himself. He will take everything he wants by force if the world doesn't bow to him and his whims.
At a time when his brand is globally reviled, he insists on putting his malignant name on our national institutions thereby further tarnishing America's reputation. He lacks the intelligence to grasp the inconvenient truth that in a nation of laws, the individual is not synonymous with the office or the institution and he is not a king anointed by God.
Consequently, dissent and criticism of the individual are targeted as treason against the state. He treats the People's White House as his own personal property, rebuilding it into a monument to his corruption. He tore down the east wing, paved over the Rose Garden, builds monuments to himself, puts his name on tax refunds, and tarnished the once-venerable Kennedy Center with his name. He sells American citizenship and golden visas with his face and signature on them.
The examples are endless.
Withhold Federal Funding to Punish the President's Opponents
The Autocratic President disburses funds by whim and decree while withholding appropriated funding from any state, city, or organization that didn't vote for him. The anti-deficiency act and laws against misappropriation of funds are ignored. The Authoritarian President uses congressionally appropriated funds to pay off his supporters and suppress his opponents.
Congress no longer wields their constitutional "power of the purse." Appropriations are laws that this president blatantly disregards. And he gets away with it under the current one party system.
As frequent targets to Trump's wrath, states like Maine could use some backup from their representatives. But what they have is a useless senator like Susan Collins who clutches her pearls in feigned outrage only to submit obediently to Trump's every whim.
Just like a corrupt mobster, this president doles out tax payer funds to his supporters and withholds the people's own money from detractors to blackmail them into submission.
Eliminate Independent Oversight
Fire the Inspectors General, auditors, and government legal corps. Replace career civilian leadership with political toady appointees. Violate the law by stripping congressionally mandated independence from the Fed and other boards and commissions. Eliminate any entity that could investigate and expose Trump's corruption. This may sound bureaucratic, but these independent functions were established by Congress to uncover corruption in the executive branch.