The Fascist President

All fascist governments act the same. They do whatever they want to do irrespective of laws. Rights or Constitutional authorities. They operate on the principle that it is far easier to “not seek forgiveness than it is to get permission.” The leaders who direct such enterprises never are sorry or apologetic for anything they do. All rhetoric and action is fully justified I their own minds. There is nothing that is off-limits to such people.

Whereas the constitutional concept of “innocent until proven guilty” was supposed to protect prisoners and the accused from punishment without due process, that concept has been perverted by the present Administration to dodge the consequences of their highly questionable acts and policies. In the same way the Tobacco Industry claimed that tobacco usage did not cause cancers, lung and heart disease, this Administration claims it is not affiliated with obvious foreign influences. Not being tried in court for crimes and official irregularities is not the same as not having committed the crimes. Opposite the Tobacco Industry claim that correlation doesn’t prove causation, this Administration colors the nature of immigrants and asylum seekers in the hues of criminality. The Administration purposefully declines to differentiate among the types of people who arrive at our doorstep seeking entrance.

There are those who arrive at a port of entry seeking a visa to stay. They cite economic and persecution reasons for their long arduous journey, typically on foot with children in tow, hoping for the ability to stay and build a better life. They are summarily turned away by border control agents at the behest of a President who doesn’t like their language, national heritage and customs. Such people are profiled by their skin color and physical stature.

There are those people who made the same onerous trek of 1,000 mile or more and crossed the US/MEX border and sat down to wait for border agents to pick them up and take them to a place where they may apply for permission to stay based on political asylum. They too are held indefinitely while “their case is pending” maybe for years as though they were criminals. The Administration labels them as criminals and undesirable without evidence or proof of either claim. There is no due process. There is no right to reasonable bail being honored. No writs of Habeas Corpus are being filed seeking the whereabouts of misplaced children or adults in detention. All of these Constitutional Rights are being summarily denied by the authoritarian Administration on the principle of “we will do what we want until a court orders otherwise, then we will challenge the court decisions.”

There is no end to the atrocities a rogue government will commit when the President orders it and the Legislature is cowed into silence and inaction. Half of the deafening silence is due to them liking what the President is doing while the other half is scared at what the President and his organization will do to them. Many of them surely have been the recipient of “the offer you can’t refuse.”

This “offer” takes several forms in the political arena. Hardcore Republicans speak of a resistant incumbent being “primaried” in the next election. That is the GOP will put up and support a candidate to replace incumbent. Such action would effectively end their political careers. The Fascist style relies heavily on threats and coercion rather than cooperation and compromise. The GOP Senate is universally silent on everything the current President does. They may have been subjected to the most extreme meaning of “the offer.”

If so, it would explain how a Senator such as Lindsey Graham could speak truths about how wrong and ignorant Donald Trump is then like flipping a switch turn and praise his prowess and benefits to America.

Trumps highly visible relationship with the Russian President and his praise for the man, shows that he too has been compromised and forced to toe the line. In a country where journalists and political adversaries drop like flies it is not a long stretch to imagine how far their influence extends.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

When America was being formed and the wise men of that time got together they designed a system of governance where the people appointed men (yeah only men) to get together to make and alter the rules of society and the common good. Part of the idea was that every (qualified) citizen would and should at one time or another do his civic duty and become one of those appointed representatives.

The process was one where each adult male of European descent would cast his one vote to decide which candidate or other would best represent their region of the Republic. After those early successful years everything went haywire. (Note: when one mis-handles a coil of baling wire it can energetically become an un-mitigatable tangle of surprising complexity. Mostly you just toss it out and go get another coil of haywire. Hence the name.)

In more recent decades, the elected representatives have become lifers in the comfort of their positions. Not only have they voted themselves great annual salaries, incredible fringe benefits and time off to ostensibly go home to their constituents and local office and continue the job for which they were appointed. Along the way they discovered that they knew what was coming in the way of regulations (or the removal thereof) and could profit from that knowledge. They developed the mindset they could write legislation which impacted the Everyman while exempting themselves and granting special privileges.

All of them are the equivalent of being the hired help of We The People except that they have taken over. The constituents used to tell their representative what they wanted them to do, what they wanted and needed, how to protect them from the reversal of fortunes in the weather, the economy, the relationship with neighbors and neighboring nations. Where that used to be the way, now the representatives tell the people what they are allowed to have. Representatives used to represent all of their constituents. Now they have developed the idea they at best represent only the citizens who voted FOR them. They have reached a place where non-citizens residents and voters who voted for another candidate do not matter and actually should be denied representation.

In light of the more recent shift in parliamentary procedure and Citizen United (a highly misleading nomenclature) they have come to represent only moneyed interests who pay them to vote for legislation as written by other paid interests. If those interests were promoting laws and permissions that benefitted human constituents, it would not be such a bad thing, but the moneyed interests are always buying permissions and prohibitions which benefit their business model and bottom-line.

With the reversal of employer-employee relationships, it is as though the Inmates Have Taken Over the Asylum. The totally delusional patients have assumed the roles of Institutional Director, Head Nurse, Strong-arm Orderlies, Groundskeepers, etc. while the former staff are kept locked up in the basement along with the weak and feeble-minded patients who did not have a place in the New Administration.

There are genuinely earnest inmates who believe the new Administration is legitimate and will say and do everything they are asked to do. There are many inmates who are too scared to resist. They kowtow to the Authority of a Nurse Ratched knowing she will prevail by hook and crook.

Somewhere along the line, a tipping point was reached in the administration of governance where the hired help (Representatives and Senators) took over and now run the operation as THEY see fit. In many cases they have created their personal fiefdoms and command the loyalties of a sufficient number of constituents to negate the influence of the majority. That majority must resist and fight back or allow the consolidation of power by the Inmates who took over.