Ready or Not, The Tyrant Commeth

Since February or March of 2017, I've been arguing that the president wants to convert America from a rule of law democracy into some kind of kleptocratic tyranny-oligarchy-theocracy. Before then, I believed that is what the president wanted to do, but thought it made sense to see how he would speak and otherwise behave once in office. Early on, most Americans, but not all, would have dismissed the Trump tyrant-kleptocrat argument as nonsense, hyperbole, a lie or whatever was needed to make the argument go away. That was dismissed here as recently as a couple of weeks ago, with the argument that any tyrant-kleptocrat argument was gross hyperbole and such a thing as a kleptocratic tyranny didn't even exist. As usual, citation of contrary evidence changed absolutely nothing.

Some saw this coming right from the get go

One of the early warnings about impending authoritarianism came from Russian-American reporter Masha Gessen, who wrote this about in an article, Autocracy: Rules for Survival, for the New York Review of Books, in November of 2016:

“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.” 

That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday [in her concession speech to Trump].

Gessen had seen how quickly Putin dismantled Russia's democracy and built his kleptocratic tyranny. She could see the threat of the same thing happening to America. Gessen's argument that it is immoral to fail to see reality is very rare. I recall no one ever saying this in the context of politics.

Despite minds that usually do not change despite contrary evidence, increasing numbers of people came to a similar conclusion. Concern is increasing that the president really does want to convert America from a rule of law democracy into some kind of kleptocratic tyranny-oligarchy-theocracy. The alarms on this are finally becoming truly strident, as they should have been for quite some time. Evidence of what the president wants to try to do are now blatantly obvious to open minds. Of course, the president and his enablers and supporters either see none of this, or they support it. For the blind, their minds simply won't let them see the threat to democracy and the rule of law that the president constitutes.

Corrupt the Department of Justice and kill the rule of law

The events of the last few weeks make it quite clear that the president just might succeed in his goal. The president is now intent on corrupting the rule of law by converting the Department of Justice to a political tool to attack and silence all opposition, political and otherwise. The president's active interference in reducing the sentencing of his political ally Roger Stone is undeniable evidence of direct attack on the rule of law. The president applauds the defense of his convicted felon allies.

America is now undeniably on the way to some kind of kleptocratic authoritarian-oligarchy-theocracy. Whether it gets there is still an open question. Despite the uncertainty, corrupt tyranny is coming closer. Attacks on democracy and the rule of are now completely in the open and enabled by anti-democracy, anti-rule of law Trump administration appointees and the pro-authoritarian GOP.

This 8 minute video summarizes the situation nicely.




One question this raises is whether we still stand at the edge of an abyss as Gessen argued in November 2016, or have we gone over the edge and it is now too late to save democracy or the rule of law?