One of the more amazing, and revealing, statements made by Donald Trump after the Singapore Summit was the following, referring to the relationship between Kim Jong Un and his people, “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”
So now we have proof of what we’ve feared: at heart, Donald Trump is a dictator. He wants everyone to agree with him. He brooks no disagreement. He wants the American people to take his word as gospel and follow it accordingly.
Donald Trump does not have the understanding that when he was elected President, he was not given sweeping powers to do as he will. He did not receive a mandate to remake the Presidency and government in his image. His core supporters may well have given him such a mandate, and that amounts to perhaps 1/3 of voters. Certainly that’s significant, but that does not give him the power and latitude he seeks..
Normally, our system of government … the famous checks and balances … would stop a President like Trump doing what he will. Unfortunately, at this point in time, there is no check or balance because all three branches of government … executive, legislative, and judicial (the Supreme Court) … are in the same hands. Not even the civil service can act as an internal check on the executive because he has placed at the heads of each agency people who are antagonistic to the very mission of those agencies to protect the public.
OMG! It wasn’t until I wrote these words that I realized that Donald Trump has created the core of a dictatorial government … one where all think the same and do the master’s bidding. The people gave him a like-minded legislative majority. He gave the Supreme Court a radical conservative majority through his appointment of Justice Gorsuch to the court. And as I just stated, he has placed at the head of each federal agency people who are determined to change the mission of the agency from one dedicated to protecting the public, to one dedicated to supporting big business.
We as a country are in graver danger than I ever realized, even in the short-term. Viewed in this light, the significance of the upcoming mid-term elections are even more critical. The control of Congress, or at least one of its houses, must pass to the Democrats in order to place a brake on this dictatorial presidency.
As Democrats talk to the people, this needs to be one of the talking points.
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