02-18-2017, 10:39 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-18-2017, 01:42 PM by TeacherinExile.
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(02-18-2017, 08:02 AM)David Horn Wrote: The biggest wild card is Trump's use of the military and DHS as enforcement tools domestically. The miltary will resist, but many within the miltary are avid Trump supporters. Whether cooler heads prevail is far from given. DHS is already heading toward extra-legal Trump support -- ICE in particular. I've worked with those guys, and they are pretty RW, top to bottom.
I'm scared, and getting the feeling that my fear is not paranoia.
Me too. Despite my strong opposition to Trump--most especially his appalling lack of civility--I have tried to give him some benefit of the doubt. Have also tried mightily to avoid violating Godwin's Law. But his tweet yesterday, likening some of the broadcast and print media to "enemies of the American people," well, that's simply beyond the pale. I'm beginning to seriously question our 45th president's fitness to serve.
I agree with you that the GOP in Congress will not break with the president anytime soon. Paul Ryan, in particular, has long-dreamed-of legislation that he desperately wants passed with Trump's signature. For the next two years, at least, Trump will serve as a "useful idiot" for enacting a conservative agenda. After the mid-terms, it's anybody's guess as to the continuing fealty of GOP leaders to Trump. You can already see hints of a possible future mutiny among Republicans, like Lindsay Graham and John McCain.
So last night, I tuned in to the PBS Newshour, one of the news sources not singled out by Trump yesterday. When the subject turned to Trump's rant against the press, it was as if David Brooks was reading my mind:
"...But then the attack on the press, highlighted by the tweets today saying that my newspaper, NBC, all these organizations are enemies of the people.
"Well, if you want to draw rhetoric straight out of the fascist playbook, we’re enemies of the vote, the people, that is like — that has so many historical echoes. It’s illiberal and offensive to the way democracy is supposed to work and how one is supposed to just act within the institutions of democracy."
We still have a free press, which has survived the opprobrium of past presidents, with Richard Nixon and his equally disgraced "attack dog," vice president Spiro T. Agnew, as perhaps the worst examples in modern times. Until now.
One author and columnist has long described America as a "tinderbox," and now we have in Trump a president who plays with matches. It seems we're drawing ever closer to the "conflagration" that Strauss and Howe alluded to in The Fourth Turning.