by Mike Tully, LD18 Precinct 88
Reprinted with permission
MAGA has Become a Permission Structure for Tyranny
When Donald Trump was elected for the second time, I most feared the impact of his anti-immigration efforts. Of all his policies, that was the one most likely to trigger violence, unleash his inner tyrant, and cause American soldiers to be deployed against American citizens.
It is happening.
Trump’s Man Crush Fantasies
Something ugly drives Trump. He acts like a man obsessed with compensating for something he lacks by pretending to be something he’s not. He wasn’t a successful businessman, but played one on TV. He’s not a strong man, or a smart man, but plays one on TV. He’s not a good president, but plays one in his mind.
Trump’s role models are not Washington, Lincoln, or Reagan. Instead, visions of autocrats dance in his head. “Look at Putin,” Trump told Larry King in 2007, “what he’s doing with Russia – I mean, you know, what’s going on over there. I mean this guy has done – whether you like him or don’t like him – he’s doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period.”
Earlier this year, U.S. News & World Report listed 34 occasions in which Trump praised Vladimir Putin, usually simultaneously denigrating the American president. In 2014, he posted, “Putin has shown the world what happens when America has weak leaders.” The Russian leader purchased Trump’s soul by complimenting him in 2015. “It is always a great honor,” enthused Trump, “to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.” I’ll bet he keeps a photo of shirtless Putin in a secret hiding place.
Trump also worships Kim Jung Un (“we fell in love”), Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán, Rodrigo Duterte, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Oh, how he wants to be like them.
Trump’s Inner Demons
Donald Trump was a difficult young man, who bragged about giving an elementary school teacher a black eye, and sneaked off to buy switchblades in Manhattan. In 1959, an exasperated Fred Trump sent the unruly child to military school.
Donald Trump resisted the limitations and discipline of military school – until he gained rank. Then, when he was able to order other boys around, he was in his element. “(W)hen Trump became a junior supply sergeant in Company E,” wrote Marc Fisher in The Washington Post, “he relished ordering punishments for younger cadets.”
“When one student broke formation,” noted Fisher, “Trump allegedly delivered whacks on the rear with a broomstick. When another boy left his bed unmade, the young disciplinarian tore the sheets off the bed, threw them on the floor and fought the boy, trying to push him out a second-story window…”
“It made him feel large,” added Fisher. “Many years later, Trump would boast that although he didn’t serve in the military, he believed he had received more military training in high school than actual service members did.”
Trump’s military fantasies escaped the pull of sanity. He told Howard Stern in 1997 that his ability to avoid contracting STDs despite sexual promiscuity was analogous to serving in combat. “It is my personal Vietnam,” he said. “I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
The ICE Age Cometh
The man who leads our nation is still the angry boy who tries to throw people out windows and genuflects before the altar of tyranny. A classic bully, he preys on those he perceives as weaker – especially immigrants. When Joe Biden neglected a migration surge, Trump seized the opportunity. Mad about the high cost of groceries? Blame immigrants. Can’t land a job? It’s those damned immigrants. Concerned about crime? It’s called “migrant crime.”
ICE is just the tip of the spear.
When Trump and his ring-wraith, Stephen Miller, unleashed their deportation force, it was not about securing the border or reducing crime. Immigration is a means to an end: autocratic rule. The immigration raids are intended to provoke protests, which invariably attract lawless interlopers. Once lawful protests are infected by those elements, Trump can claim a run-of-the-mill disturbance is an “insurrection” that justifies deployment of the federal military on the streets of America. The young punk who wanted to throw a fellow cadet out a window has deployed federal troops on the streets of Los Angeles. That should impress Vladimir!
Trump has his minions: the greedy and the weak-minded. The greedy lust for political power (Mike Johnson), economic power (crypto-pushers), or both (Silicon Valley bros). The weak-minded are the legions of easily influenced connoisseurs of right-wing media. They will believe anything. One of them said this on Facebook: “Oh, I suppose the President of Mexico essentially declaring war on the United States was brought on by all the foreign ‘Americans’ living down South…”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, is “essentially declaring war on the United States?” You’re pretty far down the rabbit hole if you believe that nonsense. But this guy – you’d recognize his last name if I shared it – is one of many.
We are in a fight, not only for the soul of America, but for sanity. There is nothing normal, nothing American, nothing good about Trump and MAGA. They must be shouted down, discouraged, and outvoted. There are more of us. We need to make them appreciate that.
Otherwise, I fear our democracy will be left desperately hanging on like the last fingernail in a fourth-floor window sill.
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