Donald Trump's despotic ambitions

Leon Wolf:

I’ve long resisted the urge to compare Trump to Hitler because of the Internet axiom that if you bring the Nazis into an argument, you’ve lost. But the comparisons are mounting up way too high for reasonable people to ignore. It’s not just the cult of personality. It’s not just the fact that he courts white supremacists with a wink and a nod. It’s not that he intentionally fosters an atmosphere at his rallies where his supporters gleefully cheer the physical abuse of protesters and anyone who is different.

It’s also not just the shocking level of power that he thinks he should have as President, complete with the right to unilaterally dictate United States trade policy. Even his signature campaign promise – to make Mexico pay for the wall that will never be built – is premised around the authority he believes he should have to unilaterally dictate that American companies cannot conduct business with Mexican ones.

But, fine, let’s not compare Trump to Hitler. Let’s compare him instead to Putin. Because that’s exactly how Trump perceives the appropriate scope of Presidential authority. Observe what he said in Fort Worth earlier this week:

“One of the things I’m going to do, and I’ve never said this before,” Trump said at a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, “but one of the things I’m going to do is — if I win — is I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposefully negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

Part of this, to be sure, is rank ignorance of United States law. There’s no such thing as Federal libel law – libel law exists as a creature of all 50 states, but each state’s libel law is constrained by the First Amendment of the United States constitution. As President of the United States, Trump does not have the authority to either rewrite the Federal constitution or change the libel law of any of the 50 states. But the fact that he believes he should be able to beyond troubling, it’s downright terrifying.
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Trump would probably be even more lawless than Obama.  He would keep lawyers on all sides in business trying to sort out what he is trying to do.  He appears to be ignorant of the Constitution and the separation of powers.



The there is this from The Hill:

Trump retweets Mussolini quote

The man is not detailed oriented or is just not very smart.