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Dictator Trump?
I’ve been genuinely puzzled by the assertion on the part of Trump opponents that Trump is a dictator, wants to be a dictator, is like Hitler, is a threat to democracy, and so on. It makes no sense. You’d think that a President who is trying to shrink the size of government would be regarded as exactly the opposite of a wannabe dictator.
But I think I’ve figured out what the confusion is. Liberals think that a President who enacts policies they don’t like, regardless of how legal and above board and constitutional the process is, must be a tyrant. Just because they don’t like the policy.
So, if Trump signs a lawful executive order limiting immigration, liberals think he’s acting like a dictator even though that is one of the powers granted to the President by the Constitution.
Once you realize this is the way liberals think, it becomes clear that there is not and never has been any basis for saying that there is any threat to the Constitution or to Democracy and that Trump is far from being anything like a dictator.
To the Liberal/Left I say: If Trump lawfully enacts a policy you guys don’t like, he’s not just doing his job, he’s doing what he promised to do when he got elected. That doesn’t make him a dictator.
As for pardoning himself, maybe he can. But it’s a moot point because he can’t duck impeachment that way, and impeachment and conviction by Congress is the lawful way to remove a President. Congress would simply ignore a pardon as being irrelevant.
Published in General
Every president since World War II, whether Democrat or Republican, has been compared to Hitler and/or called a Nazi.
The Bolsheviks have been telling us that all along, but nobody believes them.
Pay little to no attention to the rhetoric, watch actions. On both sides.
As for Mr. Trump, I deeply disdain him as a flawed man, however I applaud most of his actions as President (I’m not talking about tweets but actions). And I’ll take actions over empty words every time.
So why is such a flawed Human doing mostly what I perceive to be correct? Beats me but I’ll take it until we get a better Human doing likewise. I can wait.
As for those who can’t look past the man or just don’t agree with his actions, I must say I find them tedious.
At this point (17 months in) there must be a stronger word for it than tedious. And just imagine how this will feel if/when we start the second half in late January 2021.
thank you. I have worked with and had as employees (and even a Friend or two) who were “flawed” as you say. And I know I am flawed – differently perhaps – but flawed as well. This guy is doing substantially the job I hired him to do. Despite some major obstacles. So I’ll continue to support him, and query his detractors to point out what they want the outcome to be – if different. If they want a different outcome, then they have to convince me that it’s better than the one I seek. So far it hasn’t happened that way.
‘Am I the only one who has hired an employee to execute a distasteful or difficult or specific task and found that the person available to do the task was someone who didn’t fit the standard professional profile?
It’s not because they don’t “get” Trump. It’s because they don’t actually know Hitler, that is, the biography and behavior of the real deal. Possibly because they’ve watched too many movies, they seem to think that a dictator must be a loud, louche, undisciplined, chaotic reprobate who goes around making bombastic, silly remarks, lives in an Evil Lair (with gold toilets) and generally resembles…well… someone from an Austin Powers flick.
Hitler was abstemious to a fault—no alcohol, no tobacco, vegetarian food. He disapproved strongly of adultery and punished subordinates for misbehavior. He made his mistress Eva Braun keep a very low profile so that the German people could indulge themselves in the fantasy that their Leader lived like a sort of Nazi monk, devoted, heart and soul, to them and their well-being. He presented himself as the answer to, not the instigator of, social and political chaos, the one who would restore dignity and order to Germany after a Weimar Era marked by political violence, racial liberality (as exemplified by the popularity of “Negro Music” aka Jazz) and sexual libertinism.
Unlike Trump, whose every stupid remark, business catastrophe and personal peccadillo has been before the public in print and on screen for the last fifty years, often at his own instigation, Hitler’s actual biography was kept on the down-low, with information —especially anything that might have struck an ordinary German as disreputable or bohemian—whitewashed and strictly controlled.
And he was, apparently, charming (hard to imagine, I know).
Maybe that was his problem.
That’s a great line. Once again I find myself thinking of Schlindler, who was a philanderer, a liar and a thief.
A unique skill set, used to do great good.
Not true! We never called Obama a Nazi. We called him a Communist, and rightly so.
He takes 40 states in 2020.
Everything except DC, VT, CA, MD, MA, HI, IL, NJ, NY, RI and CT, which total 154 electoral votes
I’m betting on it now. Hell, he took 30 in 2016.
Speak for yourself.
By my observations, there are no issues with specific policies, but calling the head of the opposing party Hitler is a reasonably effective weapon; hurling a grenade over the transom.
Remember that they used to refer to GWB as Bushitler?
I do recall a local…um…very interested citizen in my vicinity painting plywood signs and posting them on his fence for the delectation of passers-by, among the least* alarming of which was that Obama=Hitler.
P.S. He is either happier now, or he has run out of paint for his plywood sign…or maybe he’s just gotten older. We all do.
*He was very alarmed about a lot of things.
I think it’s usually a mistake to assume that the other side is saying things they know are false. Usually they believe what they say, so I always want to find out what the basis for it is. They might have their facts wrong, or they might misinterpret things. Sometimes they have a good point. When you ask a few of them why they say that Trump is a dictator they actually do point to his immigration policy as one issue. They apparently think it’s wrong not to treat everyone in the world as if they are already American citizens and have all the rights of American citizens. If you point out that Trump is following the law, well then that just makes it that much worse; taking advantage of an unfair law!
Hitler? Really?
I think it’s pretty clear these folks are just repeating the party talking points. The phrasing is remarkably consistent.
But yeah, that makes for a great question to ask: “Do you really feel this way after considering the issues, or are you delivering the talking points?”
That’s just three examples. There are many, many more:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Obama+Hitler&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images
There was at least a scintilla of justification for saying that about Obama in that many thought he was exceeding his authority as President in a number of ways.
There’s probably an after-market photoshop plug-in that Hitlerstaches photos for you.
Just like every single other president since WWII.
Since the depression. FDR abused his authority during the ’30s in ways that would make every other president jealous.
Do any Democrats compare Trump to Stalin?
They don’t dare
To paraphrase Jonah Goldberg: Trump is not a dictator. A dictator could have repealed Obamacare.
Of course not. That’d be a compliment, coming from the Left, and they’d never compliment Trump.
As if being ‘flawed’ made you unfit for public office. Flawed men have sat in the White House before now (think JFK and Bill Clinton, both arguably more flawed than Trump), not to mention at all the other levels of government.
The problem is that those who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, not content with hammering the President’s obvious shortcomings, feel it necessary to decry everything he does or says.
Example: he ‘insulted’ the leaders of the G7, America’s allies. Really? The G7 is a mutual admiration society of limited achievement. And with May (incompetent), Merkel (weak) and Macron (treacherous (i.e. French)) as ‘allies’, who needs enemies? And macho Trump’s disdain for the effeminate Trudeau may be undiplomatic, but diplomacy doesn’t get you very far these days.
They did it when Trump called the media the enemy of the people. (Which they are, btw.)
A progressive friend of mine sent me a long missive in which was the following description of how she sees the world since the election of DJT:
‘Things have not improved for the general good, though some people choose to ignore the deadly cost of the small surface benefits they may feel in their own wallets. Chaos, cruelty, anxiety and loss continue to grow in the larger scale. Children are torn from their parents. The climate heats up. Wildfires have continued through winter. Order unravels, deceit raises its cheery voice in misleading headlines, while Earth groans in her travail.”
Many others, including Mrs. OS, are talking about his affairs, his bragging, etc. when they mentions his ‘flaws’. While those are offensive to me, I’m mostly talking about the way he ‘communicates’ IE: his word salads, nonsensical grammatical construction, apparent lack of knowledge or understanding of history and/or the Constitution, etc. Those were all enough to make me vote against him in the Primaries. And if there were a better choice that I thought had a chance of being elected in 2020, I’d do so again. However, I’ll say again (Warning!! boring redundancy ahead!!) Actions are much, much more important to me than words.
I do think there is a better than 50% chance that our institutions of Representative Democracy can survive his ‘flaws’. I’m not that optimistic about their survival of another dedicated Leftist, though if we get at least one more good Supreme Court appointment the odds are greatly enhanced, maybe 35-40%.
This. Further, by casually tossing out the Hitler comparison at anyone whom we find to be disagreeable, we diminish the the nearly unfathomable evil of a man who brought about the deaths of millions of people.