The trials and tribulations of Trump assured his triumph, add to this the coining of the term Trump derangement syndrome, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

The two illustrations above on top best describe the primary reasons which assured that Trump would win the election. Add to this a third reason, the coining of the term "Trump derangement syndrome" which has a Wikipedia page here. Trump and his supporters would say George Conway had a serious case of this. With these three added together there was no way he was going to loose. 

All the of the legal cases against him, but especially the E. Jean Carroll trial, and then the bullet whizzing by him and somehow causing a bloody ear, enabling him to raising his fist for what was, pun intended, the triumphant money shot, which made him a shoo-in to win.

The first assassination attempt made him out to be the hero he claimed to be. The raised fist and defiant look was a genius move. After that the time someone was caught supposedly wanted to assassinate him second was only icing on the cake. 

Before this the scowling mugshot taken during his arrest prior to the E. Jean Carroll set him up to be seen as a victim of the deep state, of all that was wrong with the country. It was soon on t-shirts and pro-Trump posters. Any publicity about his criminal activity proved to his supporters that he was being victimized by his enemies in the so-called deep state.

His snoozing through part of the trial only added to the image he wanted to convey that it was all too ridiculous to bother him. As if this wasn't enough, even if there were people in the country that thought he was a misogynistic moral reprobate, there were many men who admired him for treating women as mere objects for their sexual gratification and some women who'd welcome his sexual advances.

Not enough people cared about all the other laws Trump was credibly charged with breaking and the pending cases against him.

These elements alone would have assured that he'd win the election. However, add to that the coining of the psuedo-psychiatric diagnosis of "Trump derangement syndrome" to describe anyone who used negative hyperbole to describe Trump. The most well known exemplar for someone who has this so-called mental disease is George Conway who started the Anti-Psychopath PAC and used his own money plus donations to set up billboards and have trucks at Trump events (see Newsweek article and image on top of this page).

According to Trumpers, as someone who signed George Conway's full page New York Times ad, I am also suffering from a bad case of Trump derangement syndrome. (See HUFFPOST article). I suppose in a way I do have a mental disease of a kind caused by Trump since I woke up with the idea for this blog at 2:00 AM, couldn't fall asleep so I got up, and as I finished writing this it was already past 4:00 AM.

Trump and his defenders used the Trump derangement syndrome comeback the way kids use "I'm rubber, you're glue, anything bad you say about me bounces off me and sticks to you" as an all purpose comeback when someone hits them with an unpleasant truth about themselves.

We see that Trump managed to do the rope-a-dope and come back with stinging one-two punches as well in the ring he was fighting in as well as Muhammad Ali did in his ring. 

"The rope-a-dope is a boxing fighting technique in which one contender leans against the ropes of the boxing ring to draw non-injuring offensive punches in an effort to tire their opponent out and, while they are on the ropes, try to execute devastating offensive punches." Wikipedia

Add to all of this the fact that he had a fan club - some call it a cult - that the Democrats could never come close to putting together for Biden or Harris. These people didn't care that he was putting on a calculated show for them from his perfomances in a literal ring at WWE (below) to his last rally featuring the likes of Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan as well as a comedian who made a joke about Puerto Rico that only offended anti-Trumpers and people from Puerto Rico.

His final rally before Election Day, which was held at Madison Square Garden, was mocked by many but it thrilled his fans. He gave all his critics the finger by returning there a few weeks later with none other then Kid Rock and Elon Musk to watch an Ultimate Fighter event.

Here's a telling excerpt from the article (shown above) After controversial rally, Trump returns to Madison Square Garden for UFC event.

Trump is a longtime UFC enthusiast and frequent attendee of major fights. He made promoting hypermasculine tones a signature of his campaign — as he looked to further widen the gap among male voters between himself and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.Trump and his top supporters embraced alpha-male terms and often accentuated them with vulgar and demeaning language.

Trump knows that he discovered a way persuade people and communicate effectively his message of lies and gross distortions of the truth to low, or virtually no, information people who are among the aproximately 65% of people eligible to vote who will actually bother to vote. 

Trump may not know the actual statistics of literacy in the United States, but 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level). Of all countries the United States ranks at 36. (Reference) Nobody knows what Trump's reading level is although people like former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly have their own opinions. (See article in Politico) This doesn't matter. In fact it may work in Trump's favor because his low-level literacy supporters may like this about him.

Reporters have stopped counting Trump's lies because they realized that it didn't matter once the number hit the tens of thousands. What they could have been counting is his major missteps, the ones that lost him a significant number of votes. That would have been far easier. This number would have been zero.

Addendum:

Excerpts:

When he takes the oath of office in January, Donald J. Trump will make history as the first court-adjudicated sexual abuser to assume the presidency. But if he gets the team of his choice, he will not be the only one in the room whose conduct has been called into question.

Mr. Trump, who was found liable in a civil trial last year of sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, has selected a defense secretary, an attorney general, a secretary of health and human services and an efficiency czar, all of whom have been accused of variations of sexual misconduct and, like the president-elect, deny them.

The rise of the accused to positions of power raises new questions about the future of the #MeToo movement that swept through the country and upended societal expectations in recent years. The kind of accusations that took down titans of Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Washington, the news media, sports and state capitals have proved no obstacle in Mr. Trump’s selection process.

..

Mr. Trump’s ascension comes at a delicate moment for the movement against sexual harassment amid a backlash from those who argue that it has gone too far in tarring some men without sufficient due process. Mr. Trump ran a campaign aimed at tapping into male grievance, punctuated by expressions of machismo and disdain for “woke” sensitivity. Hulk Hogan roared and ripped off his shirt at the Republican National Convention while other surrogates mocked Democrats for not being able to define what a woman is in an era of transgender rights. 

.....

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I can take a break from writing a blog this morning since there's a long quote of mine in Chauncey DeVega's Salon column today, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Instead of writing a blog today I am posting a link to 

Why MAGA won: Anger, resentment and "a sense of betrayal" by Chauncey DeVega

It is well worth reading and I recommend doing this not merely because I am quoted as length.

The article begins:

President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA regime have promised revenge and retribution against a range of targeted groups such as the Democrats, “the deep state” and “the globalists,” “the Left,” “liberals,” “Woke,” the news media, i.e. “the enemy of the people,” nonwhite “illegal aliens," the LGBTQ community (specifically transgender people) and a range of other groups. Trump’s selections for his Cabinet are distinguished both by their personal loyalty to him as well as ferocity in pursuing his personal and political “enemies.” Trump has repeatedly threatened to remove these “enemies within” from society by using the Alien Enemies Act, the Insurrection Act and other means including prison. All indications suggest that Trump’s dictatorial presidency will begin by targeting those groups and individuals who are “the enemy” on day one.

It includes excerpts from  a must-read article at The New Republic by Nina Burleigh and  a Washington Post article by 

Isaac Stanley - Becker

 and 

Ellen Nakashima. Then there are quotes from 

Randolph Hohle a professor of Sociology at SUNY Fredonia and author of "Racism in the Neoliberal Era" and "American Housing Question: Racism, Urban Citizenship, and the Privilege of Mobility," Jason Van Tatenhove who served as the national media director for the Oath Keepers. He documented his experiences with the Oath Keepers in his book "The Perils of Extremism: How I Left the Oath Keepers and Why We Should be Concerned about a Future Civil War," Peter McLaren who is Emeritus Professor of Education at University of California, Los Angeles. He is one of the architects of critical pedagogy and the recipient of numerous international awards for this work in education. He is the author of over forty books and his writings have been translated into twenty-five languages, and your's truly.

Since you can read the article there's no reason to summarize it.

About Salon (from Wikipedia)

Previous list of blogs here.

Primary Hal Brown's Blog website is halbrown.org (if you are reading this anywhere else any additions or corrections will be at this address)

To stop Trump and his equally bloodthirsty henchmen from turning the country into a tyranny Biden could (but won't) do what Trump would do in his place. By Hal M.Brown

Democracy loving Americans, don't deceive yourselves with delusions and denial, Trump and his goons are out for your blood. 

Note that I wasn't the only one to think of monkeys when I envisioned the group of people who will be advising Trump (click here).

 The cartoon refers to this:

Monkey mayhem in South Carolina after 43 primates escape research facility

If Trump intends to, as it so far appears he does plan to do, run his goverment with a group of henchmen (and hench women) as a ruthless dictatorship as soon as possible by making sure Congress goes into recess and making appointments then there's nothing the Democrats or even Republicans can do to stop him except complain.

Once he puts his people in place we will see a vicious juggernaut to upend democracy and make America into a fascist state where only people loyal to Trump will have positions in federal agencies. Congress will become like The Federal Assembly of Russia if Trump decides he even needs a Congress. Congress be damned. He can decide to rule by decree. 

The only way he can be stopped is for Biden to do something now right out of a dictator's playbook. Of course he won't do it, but years from now democracy loving people may look back and wish he had.

If Trump turns the country into a dictatorship he will have to ignore the Constitution. He may have put his hand on some historic Bible and uttered an oath on Jan. 20th but this would have been just for show. 

Every president has taken this oath:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The oath is worded and administered in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution, which requires that “Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:”

Under the Constitution, the old president continues to hold full power through 11:59:59, and then power shifts at noon.  Article II, Section 1 requires that the new president, before executing any duties, take a prescribed oath or affirmation. 

Trump can mouth the words. He' doesn't have to mean them. He won't mean them. 

According to law on Jan. 20th, his day one, he will have the power of the president. That is, if he is actually sworn in to be president. The only way for this not to happen is for President Biden, or possibly President Harris, to have used the power of the presidency that Trump may wish he had used before he left office when Biden was sworn in. I am sure Trump wonders what would have happened if he refused to leave office by using the Insurrection Act. 

Biden possibly could, but won't, say that for the good of the country he isn't leaving office. 

He possibly could, but won't, declare the election null and void because Trump cheated by claiming he was running to be a democratic president loyal to the Constitution, but has shown he plans to be a dictator loyal only to himself.

Biden possibly could, but won't, declare a national emergency of some sort, I don't know what it might be, and suspend the transfer of power. He could effectively become dictator himself. He could order Trump arrested for sedition (or something) and placed in custody where he'd be deprived of the ability to communicate with the outside world. No matter what the Supreme Court ruled about this being illegal he could ignore them. After all, this is what Trump would do, or have attempted to do, in his place.

Of course none of this will happen. I am not even sure any of it is possible. Biden will dutifully attend the inauguration even though Trump didn't attend his. He will put on his show of supporting the peaceful transfer of power as if he is handing over the presidency to someone who intends to be a president and not a bloodthirsty dictator bent on revenge against anyone who opposed him in the past and to bleed dry anyone who dares to oppose him in the present and future. 

Before World War II, World War I was known as The Great War or, with grim retrospection, The War to End All Wars. If Biden attempted a coup the Civil War could end up being called the First Civil War because we might have a second one. Right now I say it is better to live under a tyranny than have a war which turned Americans against Americans. Ask me again in four years if I feel the same way.

We have to live as best we can with what those who bought into Trump's lies have wrought. These are the people who laughed off his saying he'd be a dictator only on day one as just a snide remark which he didn't mean. We now know there is evidence that voters who relied on family and trusted friends instead of traditional media for information voted for Trump rather than for Harris (article).

Now that he's won Trump it has become clear through his Cabinet and other top level nominees that he has always wanted to be a dictator not necessarily for four year but for as long as he damn well wants to.

There is no legal mechanism that can stop this. The only possibilty to stop him would be the hitcherto unthinkable military coup.

Trump enjoys being the center of attention, he enjoys people kowtowing to him, he enjoys women fawning over him, he enjoys playing golf, he can't wait to enjoy flying on Air Force One again, but most of all he enjoys making people suffer and fear him. This is what will earn him the title of bloodthirsty tyrant. 

As Trump implements his version of Project 2025 some members of the public may not even see what is happening. Some will learn about it because they are one of the estimate 50,000 civil service employees fired because they don't pass a loyalty test, others may see goon squads kicking their neighbor's door down, those who live in states like Oklahoma may hear from their children that they had to watch a video announcing a new religious studies department. 

Those who depend of MSNBC for news and opinion may turn on their TV one morning and see a "no signal" message on their screen.

Trump could end up on lists like 

The 10 Cruelest And Most Bloodthirsty Rulers Of All Time

This list begins with Vlad the Impaler:

"Vlad III Dracula, most commonly known as Vlad the Impaler, was the ruthless ruler of Wallachia (in present-day Romania) during the 15th century. And yes, he is the inspiration for the vampire stories we’re so fond today—that’s how bloodthirsty he was. While he was fond of mass murdering, disemboweling, and boiling his enemies alive, his preferred method of torture was impaling his victims (hence the nickname). Stories about his cruelty were spread by friends and rivals alike, so it’s pretty safe to say he earned his reputation."

The list includes Ivan IV of Russia (aka Ivan the Terrible), Hitler, and Stalin. Of course there are longer lists like this one of the 25 deadliest dictators. I chose the shorter list since it has bloodthirsty in the title.

For more about what I think Trump has planned for his presidency read my blog: Trump can make "it" happen here? "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (LINK)"

Previous list of blogs here.

Primary Hal Brown's Blog website (if you are reading this anywhere else any addtions or corrections will be at this address)

Recommended reading related to this blog if you subscribe to The New York Times.

Masha Gessen begins their essay with:

For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”

Here's how they conclude:

As for the specifics, we know less than we may think we know. Had Trump been elected to a second term in 2020, Magyar says he would have expected him to try to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which established a two-term limit for presidents. I think he may still try to do it, clearing the way to run again at the age of 82. Much has been written about Project 2025 as a sort of legislative blueprint for the second Trump presidency. The historian Rick Perlstein, in a series of articles in The American Prospect, has argued that some of this coverage is misleading. Project 2025 is a vast, complicated document full of contradictory recommendations apparently made by people with different beliefs and agendas. Consistent with Magyar’s theory of autocracy, the document is more a reflection of the clan of people who empower Trump and are empowered by him than an ideological document. It is not a blueprint for coherent legislative change, but it is a blueprint still: a blueprint for trampling the system of government as it is currently constituted, a blueprint of destruction.

Trump wants more than shock and awe attacks against illegals and their kin, he wants high profile takedowns of people whose names you know, by Hal M. Brown

This is the Wikipedia definition of shock and awe:

Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight.

Trump won't get over newspaper headlines like those he saw when he was arrested in the E. Jean Carroll case (above) until he has his revenge on those on his enemies list. He wants to see headlines like the one below only with photos of people like Jack Smith on them.

I have no doubt that Trump wants to make a huge show of dominance as soon as possible after he assumes the presidency. 

Trump ran on getting fictional thousands of dangerous rapists, human traffickers, and drug pushers here illegally out of the country. Let's face it, TV coverage of SWAT-type raids on houses is really hohum. Everyone has seen this on news, in movies, and on TV shows. Basically, if you've seen a few of these on TV you've seen them all. Of course Trump wants them becasue he needs them to convince his supporters he is following through on his promise. 

His designee for Border Czar Tom Homan vowed there will be "shock and awe" on day one of President-elect Donald Trump's administration when he takes charge of the border. 

What Trump needs to satisfy his lust for revenge and publicity may begin with a 3 AM SWAT type raid (roll cameras) on a suburban DC McMansion, but the money shots will be from the body cams worn by his goons breaking into the bedroom of one of his well known enemies, dragging them out of bed, cuffing them, and leading them outside in their pajamas where you can be sure there will be high definition cameras to capture every Trump-glorioius moment. Trump wants them to make the morning news on every TV station and be the above the fold picture illustration for the headline story in every newpaper.

I anticipate a day of dual shock and awe forays. It will involve raids on places where people who are known to be here illegally, and one or more raids on the homes of well known people who have gone against Trump. My hunch is that Jack Smith will be in the running to be the first notable person to be arrested. Gen. Mark Milley has also been mentioned as someone Trump may want to punish by recalling him to active duty and having him face a court martial for disloyalty.

I hope Michael Cohen has a top-notch legal team lined up to defend him because he not only played Brutus to Trump's Caesar but went on TV countless times to disparage him. I am sure Trump wants to see him punished.

I resist being crude in describing the visceral rush Trump will get out of seeing pictures like the AI one below. Let's just say this will get his juices flowing.

It wouldn't surprise me it Trump targets this church in my home state of Oregon, a sancturary state, which is offering a safe place to live for undocumented immigrants facing deportation. We know that there's no love lost between Trump and the city of Portland. See: Trump calls Portland a ‘burned down hulk of a city’ during interview.

Since his goons won't get any assistance from Oregon law enforcement he could try to send the Idaho National Guard if he wants to have such a massive roundup. If he does this it could be very interesting since, as I well know because I drive by one of their bases frequently and see long lines of their armored vehicles, we have our own large National Guard. 

I have no doubt that many of Trump's supporters will be as thrilled by his goon attacks as he is by watching him exact revenge on both the faceless people he has demonized and his well known enemies.

For more about what I think Trump has planned for his presidency read my blog from yesterday: Trump can make "it" happen here? "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (LINK)"

Previous list of blogs here.

Primary Hal Brown's Blog website.

Trump can make "it" happen here? "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." By Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

I sleep worrying about what our country was becoming so I was up writing this between 11:30 PM and 3:30 AM.

When we lived near Boston and visited the city frequently we almost always paid our respects at the New England Holocaust Memorial. 

At the New England Holocaust Memorial you walk down a pathway over grates with steam representing smoke rising up and glowing fake coals, and you pass through tall glass towers etched with 6 million numbers representing those killed in the Nazi death camps. Each tower symbolizes a different major extermination camp (Majdanek, Chełmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Bełżec, and Auschwitz-Birkenau), as well as menorah candles, the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust (one million per tower), and the six years that the mass extermination took place, 1939-1945. 

You see the short version of the peom by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller, First They Came (Wikipedia) shown on the top of this page on a monument. The poem is about the silence of German intellectuals and clergy—including, by his own admission, Niemöller himself—following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent incremental  purging of their chosen targets, group after group. (Wikipedia)

Nazi Germany was predicted by the great American novelist Sinclair Lewis in 1935. More about than later. While there are many books written with a similar theme (see a list here) this one stands out to me.

Before I get into the book, let's look at the man just more than half of those who cared enough about the country to vote decided to elect and what, by every indication, he intends to turn this country into and how he is showing this with his nominess for the Cabinet and other top positions.

Trump, unlike Hitler, is not singling out people of a particular religion as his primary focus to demonize and destroy (Muslims aren't a high priority for him.) Like Hitler did, he is designating as enemies anybody who is against him. Aside from this difference, there are many parallels between what Hitler did as he rose to and assumed power and what Trump has done and is clearly telegraphing his intentions of doing once he becomes president.

On the Matt Distraction:

Considering the groundswell developing against Matt Gaetz being confirmed as Attorney General I view his nomination as just a distraction. I am assuming he doesn't make it. Trump won't go to the mat for Matt. I see it as having been a trial balloon for Trump to see just how far he could go. I view it as having been a way to distract from other nominees who would be easier to get confirmed.  

Trump has already shown us what he plans to do as president with his other selections. He does want to be dictator. He  wants to turn the country into a fascist autocracy. The more reasonable seeming nominees will be just as willing to do his bidding but they will be easier to get confirmed. He doesn't care how they follow out his orders. He just wants them to do what he tells them do do without objection.

For every off-the-wall person he picks who is rejected by the Senate you can bet he has someone waiting in the wings who will be as bad or worse.

Whether Trump achieves the implementation of Project 2025 lock, stock, and possibly smoking barrel in its entirety is irrelevant. He doesn't need a playbook passed to him by a bunch of think tank intellectuals who he probably has distain for anyway because of their highfalutin ways. I suspect he'd rather get his ideas from himself and his core of sociopaths like Steven Miller, Boris Epshteyn and whoever else reinforces his malevolent revenge crusade and his belief that only he has what it takes to be a dictator. 

He still may not have learned that he is easily manipulated by people who flatter him. Or he may not care. There seems to be list of those who are doing this for their own gain whether they like or admire him or not. This may include people like Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabard, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and no doubt many others who are vying for postions in his administration. Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon may have hopes of getting some kind of position or he may communicated with them and we know Trump has gotten ideas from them in the past. 

Trump is not that many steps away from being able to achieve his ultimate goals of turning the country into what would be the most prosperous and powerful authoritarian fascist dictatorship the world has ever seen.

It wouldn't take him long to get things underway. The mechanisms exist. There may be things the Democrats and a few Republicans can do to slow him down but there is little if anything that can be done to stop him. 

First, I see Trump getting his Cabinet in place and their begin to eliminate the departments Trump has promised to get rid of. Whoever ends up as Attorney General will start the revenge campaign.

Protests against all the draconian things Trump does will come from both the Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress, from the media, and from members of the public some of whom will be demonstrating in the streets.  Trump, the manic Machiavellian megalomaniac I wrote about yesterday wants to prove he is the all powerful furious fighter of a Führer. His image is vitally important to him. I don't know who he sees when he looks in the mirror or sees recent photos of himself, like those showing him bending over while putting with a visible fat butt , a protruding belly, and what appears to be a Dowager's Hump, it is not along the lines of the images of himself that he has on his trading cards. Looking as he does, not being able to fight off the ravages of aging, will psyschologically exacerbate his need to prove his manliness by behaving more as a ruthless bully.

Because the Supreme Court has given him immunity Trump feels emboldened. For now the Supreme Court thinks they have relevance because they are so niave that they don't think Trump wouldn't hesitate to disband them if it suited him... he may do this anyway because, basically, he won't need them if he gets the goverment he wants.

Consider the following list of the things I think Trump can do, or attempt to do, it he's thwarted in achieving his goals by getting people to roll over for him:

1. Invoke the Insurrection Act
2. Declare marital law
3. Suspend habeous corpus under Article I, Section 9, Clause 2: (The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.) Reference
4. Take control of the media so the only media is Trump run media
5. Make it a  crime to question Trump policy
6. Declare all registered Democrats to be enemies of the people including members of Congress and members of the judiciary.
7. Use Schedule F or some other means (see article) to fire federal employees that don't meet a loyalty test and prove they believe in the values of MAGA.
8. Declare the Constitution null and void 
9. Declare MAGA as the new and only political party and require sworn membership for people to have the rights of citizenship.
10. Either suspend Congress or make it a rubber stamp for appearances sake.
11. Once the infrastructure and the personnel are in place to carry out deportations of those he deems to be illegally in the country it will begin in earnest. It will only be a trial run because once it is accomplished those personnel and the housing built to accommodate them in transit if deemed necessary, it will be used to round up and house those found guilty of crimes against MAGA tribunals for those acused of crimes againt the state.

In 1935 Sinlcair Lewis wrote "It Can't Happen Here." The first editon is shown on the top of the page.

This is from Wikipedia:

It Can't Happen Here is a 1935 dystopian political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis. Set in a fictionalized version of the 1930s United States, it follows an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who quickly rises to power to become the country's first outright dictator (in allusion to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany).

The novel was published during the heyday of fascism in Europe, which was reported on by Dorothy Thompson, Lewis's wife. The novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government via self-coup and imposes totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of European fascists such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Having previously foreshadowed some authoritarian measures to reorganize the government, Windrip outlaws dissent, incarcerates political enemies in concentration camps, and trains and arms a paramilitary force called the "Minute Men" (named after the Revolutionary War militias of the same name), who terrorize citizens and enforce the policies of a corporatistregime. One of Windrip's first acts as president is to eliminate the influence of Congress, which draws the ire of many citizens as well as the legislators themselves. The Minute Men respond to protests harshly, attacking demonstrators with bayonets. In addition to these actions, Windrip's administration, known as the Corpo government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by Corpo authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers. Those accused of crimes against the government appear before kangaroo courts presided over by military judges. A majority of Americans approve of these dictatorial measures, seeing them as painful but necessary steps to restore American power. 

I hope that across America that enough of the voters who bought into Trump's promises and lie and saw him as their savior and perhaps accepted that the country needed a more authoritarian leader than other presidents, but didn't think he'd ever turn into a despot will see that they were betrayed and deceived. 

Other than a military coup they only thing I can see happening to stop the Trump dictatorship juggernaut and the country becoming authoritariam and fascist is for Congress to be controlled by Democrats in two years. Even then the president holds incredible power. The Supreme Court would have to put the brakes on his attempts to ignore the Constitution. If Trump ignores their rulings against him or disbands them they become irrelevant. 

If if comes to pass, Trump's MAGA America won't go the way of Nazi Germany unless it allies itself with Russia and goes to war with NATO and other Democratic countries we now have treaties with even if Trump breaks them. This would be a true World War III.  If nuclear weapons were employed it could be the end of civilization.

A more likely outcome would be a United States which would be torn apart because the population is so equalty divided, at least now, to be 50/50 pro-Trumpism - pro-MAGA vis pro-democracy. There would be demonstrations and these would likely turn violent. 

Trump would try to use the military against civilians but there would be those who would refuse to follow orders which went against the Constitution they swore an oath to, and this could lead to actual civil war. Rather than this being a war between the northern and southern states it would be a war between the red states and the blue states. 

Not only would the National Guards of states take up arms against each other but I see entire divisions of active military taking one side or another. We could have bombing raids and missile attacks conducted against both sides. 

The Civil War was the deadliest of all American wars. No one disagrees with that. But how many died has long been a matter of debate. For more than a century, the most-accepted estimate was about 620,000 dead. A specific figure of 618,222 is often cited, with 360,222 Union deaths and 258,000 Confederate deaths. (Reference)

With modern weaponry there is no doubt the number of deaths and casualties would be in the millions and much of our infrastructure would be destroyed.

Does Trump, his minions, and the gullible and misguided people who vote for him not realize that changing a country from a democracy to a fascist autocracy will come with death and destruction.

George Santayana in 1905 first said it in several ways but the message is always the same:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Winston Churchill had a slightly different version, as did a number of other well known people.

The basic message boils down this:

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!”

Previous list of blogs here.

Primary Hal Brown's Blog website.

Addendum: How long before I tune in to Morning Joe and see this?