Even though I have recently resurrected my years-old nickname for the 45th/47th President of the United States, I have steadfastly resisted the urge to call him, flat out, as many of my cohorts have, a fascist.
It was too easy. It was, I reasoned, as overly melodramatic as calling Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris socialists or even communists. Which, by the way, many, many, many 45/47 idolators did, do, and will continue to do. It was the over-the-top rhetoric of the witless.
So, yeah, I’ve taken, once again, to calling the Commander-in-Cheat Li’l Duce. Look, he loves with all his heart strongmen like Putin, Orbán, and Duterte (who, I might add, faces International Criminal Court charges for his…, well, fascism). I always figured that even though Li’l Duce digs tyrants, he was American enough not to want to be one here.
And I say this with the full understanding that, in his feverish dreams, he’d be the strongest man in America, and by extension, in the world. I gave him credit for having a conscience.
I shouldn’t have.
Yesterday, Li’l Duce addressed this nation’s chief attorneys at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building. The dept.’s own website describes its reason for being thusly:
The Justice Department’s mission is to uphold the rule of law, keep our country safe, and protect civil rights.
Lofty, eh? More like bullshit, now.
That’s because Li’l Duce, took the extraordinary step of giving the nation’s top lawyers marching orders in his speech. And those orders have nothing at all to do with the rule of law, safety, or civil rights. US attorneys now know exactly what Li’l Duce wants them to do.
His address wasn’t exactly the Reichstag Speech but it was close enough.
His Attorney General, Pam Bondi, introduced him and told the crowd, “We will never stop fighting for him and our country.”
Note, country came second.
Then Li’l Duce went on a rampage.
- He called himself the “chief law enforcement officer of the country,” a term traditionally reserved for the Attorney General. Meaning: he’s now the law.
- He moaned that he and his family, staff and supporters have been “persecuted” by critics.
- He repeated his claim (as always, without evidence) that the 2020 election was “rigged and crooked.”
- He called the mob, many of whom were convicted of serious crimes, that stormed the Capitol in his name on January 6, 2021 “hostages.”
- He claimed that criticism of him by media outlets is “illegal.”
- “Unfortunately,” he said, “in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and good will built up over generations.”
- He promised to “expel rogue actors and corrupt forces,” from the federal bureaucracy.
- He said, “We will expose, and very much expose, their egregious crimes and severe misconduct….”
All of these bullet points are straight from the fascism playbook. Especially the one about criticism of him being illegal.
As for his detractors, he said, “…[T]he people who did this to us should go to jail. They should go to jail.”
Whoever those people are. Which, I guess, is the point. By being nonspecific he puts everyone on notice.
Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Orbán, Duterte, Mao, Gaddafi, Fidel, Saddam, Pol Pot, and Putin all would stand and applaud.
From the Everybody’s against me but I’m still here card, to usurping his nation’s legal powers, supporting violent mobs acting in his name, and declaring anything short of fawning adoration for him a crime, Li’l Duce has, at last, revealed himself to be the brother, spiritually and in practice, of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Orbán, Duterte, Mao, Gaddafi, Fidel, Saddam, Pol Pot, and Putin.
They all would roar their approval.
No, it’s not overly dramatic. It’s not over the top. It’s not witless anymore.
Donald J. Trump is a fascist. He just doesn’t wear a uniform
