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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSalman Rushdie, WaPo: I've seen dictators rise and fall. Beware, America.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/03/salman-rushdie-ive-seen-dictators-rise-fall-beware-america/President Trump is, temperamentally, a tinpot despot of this type. But he finds himself in charge of a country that has historically thought of itself by no means always correctly as being on the side of liberty. So far, with the collusion of the Republican Party, he has ruled more or less unchecked. Now an election looms, and he is unpopular, and flails about looking for a winning strategy. And if that means trampling over American freedoms, then so be it.
-snip-
We are so inured to the behavior of this man, so used to his lies, his inexhaustible self-regard, his stupidity, that maybe we are tempted to think of this as just another day in Trumpistan. But this time, something different is happening. The uprising that began with the killing of George Floyd is not fizzling but growing. The man in the White House is scared, and even, for a time, takes refuge in the basement and turns out the lights. What is such a person to do at such a time?
If he is allowed to use the actions of a tiny minority of criminals and white extremist infiltrators to invalidate the honorable protest of the vast majority against the murder of Floyd, the violence of the police toward the black community and the entrenched power of American racism, he will be on his way to despotism. He has threatened to use the Army against American citizens, a threat one might have expected from a leader of the former Soviet Union, but not of the United States.
In my most recent novel, Quichotte, I characterized the present moment as the Age of Anything-Can-Happen. Today I say, beware, America. Dont believe that it cant happen here.
-snip-
We are so inured to the behavior of this man, so used to his lies, his inexhaustible self-regard, his stupidity, that maybe we are tempted to think of this as just another day in Trumpistan. But this time, something different is happening. The uprising that began with the killing of George Floyd is not fizzling but growing. The man in the White House is scared, and even, for a time, takes refuge in the basement and turns out the lights. What is such a person to do at such a time?
If he is allowed to use the actions of a tiny minority of criminals and white extremist infiltrators to invalidate the honorable protest of the vast majority against the murder of Floyd, the violence of the police toward the black community and the entrenched power of American racism, he will be on his way to despotism. He has threatened to use the Army against American citizens, a threat one might have expected from a leader of the former Soviet Union, but not of the United States.
In my most recent novel, Quichotte, I characterized the present moment as the Age of Anything-Can-Happen. Today I say, beware, America. Dont believe that it cant happen here.
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Salman Rushdie, WaPo: I've seen dictators rise and fall. Beware, America. (Original Post)
highplainsdem
Jun 2020
OP
I have feared from day one that Trump might eventually become America's first dictator.
honest.abe
Jun 2020
#3
highplainsdem
(48,968 posts)1. Found this thanks to a tweet this morning from Laurence Tribe:
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)2. And all dictators during history created . .
havoc, destruction, loss of civil rights, and death in their downfall.
honest.abe
(8,677 posts)3. I have feared from day one that Trump might eventually become America's first dictator.
Many don't take Trump seriously and laugh at his antics and crazy comments but he is an extremely dangerous man, capable of anything in his position as President. However, I am pleased many in position of influence and power are now beginning to speak out, finally realizing the danger this man represents.
God help us if he wins in November.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)5. He won't be the dictator of all of America.
Some states will say fuck that noise and secede.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,922 posts)4. K&R
crickets
(25,962 posts)6. He's not wrong. K&R
JI7
(89,247 posts)7. I haven't read the whole article yet but I think Barr is the real threat
without Barr , Trump wouldn't be able to do a lot of the shit he is doing.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)8. K&R