John,
What I wrote is a combination of facts and my interpretation of them, i.e,, an opinion. For the opinion, I am trying to read between the lines, connect the dots, put the pieces of puzzle together, raise above the trees to see the forest, and see the bigger picture. I might be completely wrong, or you may completely disagree with my interpretation, and that is ok. That's why the exchange of opinions exist, that's why we have this forum.
However, I included a bunch of facts as well, e.g., what police or governors are doing or threaten to do. Are you saying that is completely untrue?
Slobodan, what I (and I think some others) can't grasp is that you're a smart guy, and you don't see what's right in front of you -- or maybe you just haven't been to the States the last couple of years, and haven't been completely exposed to Trump.
If you were complaining about the statist impulses of liberals, or more likely "progressives," I really wouldn't argue too much. Bernie Sanders definitely had some totalitarian impulses, even to the extent of refusing to disavow violence by some of his supporters aimed at Clinton supporters in in the 2016 primaries and the convention. And I know as well as you do what happens when you push that kind of impulse further and further to the left -- you get Commies, and that isn't good. You get the kind of people who find it necessary to get rid of wrong-thinkers so the survivors can live a just life, and you get Cambodia and Pol Pot.
But that's not what we're facing here in the States. We got rid of Bernie. Bernie is deader than Elvis, and even some of his supporters are crawling back toward the middle, now that they think their positions might be at risk. Joe Biden is a mild-mannered, ineffectual, place-holder (we liberals hope) who'll lead to a more centrist politician like Amy Klobuchar in four more years.
What we're facing here in the States right now is a proto-facsist (not a proto-communist) in Donald Trump, a man who stirs up all the worst impulses in the mass of stupid people. I don't have a real tight grip on exactly where you live now -- I think it's somewhere in the Balkans -- but you must have some knowledge of what happens when you begin demonizing minorities (Hispanics -- Trump said an American-born Hispanic judge was not qualified because of his race, Asians -- he peed all over an Asian who died an American war hero because of his race. And blacks -- He's the guy who took our full-page newspaper ads demanding that a group of black teens be given the death penalty for attacks in NYC's Central Park; they weren't given the death penalty, though they were sent to prison, only to be cleared later because the prosecution was so bigoted; and Trump's the guy that said "There were good people on both sides" in referring to a neo-Nazi and KKK crowd of white supremecists at Charlottesville, Va. He holds exactly the same kind of rabble-rousing rallies that Mussolini did, he encourages, just yesterday, violent demonstrations against governors he doesn't like, he has suggested a number of times that he has essentially dictatorial powers. Here's a news report from this week, from an admittedly liberal source, (CNN) but it's based on Trump's own words:
Trump continually flouts the fundamentals of the American framework: the balance between the states and US government, and separation of three federal branches, executive, legislative and judicial. This week, he said he had "total" authority over states to determine when businesses, schools and other entities reopen across the country and, separately, threatened to invoke never-before-used or tested authority to shut down Congress so he could push through his appointees without a Senate vote.
In the past, Trump has claimed -- against constitutional principles -- that he could lift the right of citizenship for children born in the US of undocumented immigrants and suggested people crossing the border could be summarily deported without the hearings to determine if they deserved asylum or were wrongly apprehended.
He has scoffed at due process guarantees and equal protection of the law. Based on his personal predilections, he has declared people innocent or guilty and scorned US judges for rulings against his interests. He also has suggested he ultimately will prevail when his own appointees to the bench hear his cases.
Earlier this year, after he was acquitted by the Senate of impeachment charges related to his Ukrainian activities, Trump swiftly removed from office people who had testified at the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry. He also declared control of the Department of Justice: "I am actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer." That assertion of absolute, even autocratic, power reverberated in his claim this week: "When somebody's the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be."
So that's what we're dealing with, a guy who not only believes he has total authority in the US, but also has managed to compliment, at one time or another, virtually every totalitarian leader in the world, including Putin, Xi, Kim, Duterte, Bolsonaro, Salman and others.
He's not a conservative; he's a proto-fascist, and given a chance, he'd be a real one. That's why, given your obvious intelligence and history, we can't understand your reflexive, unquestioning support of the guy.
