President Donald Trump: America’s Small Taste of Totalitarianism
According to PlanetRulers, “there are 50 dictatorships in the world” at the date of this article. Three of them are in the Americas: Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of Cuba; Daniel Ortega Saavedra, President of Nicaragua; and Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela.
As COVID-19 ravishes the Unites States, it becomes clearer to Americans that there might be a fourth dictator in the Americas.
President Donald Trump has displayed dictatorial tendencies even since before he won the 2016 election. It wasn’t a secret either. In 2016, Hilary Clinton hammered on Trump’s apparent “creepy admiration for dictators” throughout the presidential race.
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post wrote, “Trump worships money and power, making a mockery of the values on which the country was founded and undermining America’s moral standing in the world.”
As if predicting the debacle of debacles to come, Rubin closed by stating: “Whatever the reason, Trump’s penchant for creating divisiveness at home and projecting a twisted, decidedly un-American view of evil men make him uniquely unsuited for the presidency. It’s a theme Clinton would do well to raise consistently and forcefully.”
Trump’s Bromance With Vladimir Putin
Finding news articles, opinion pieces, and blog posts about the cute bromance between the masculine Putin and boyish Trump is easy. A quick keyword search revealed that the phrase “Trump loves Putin” is queried at least 210 times.
A few other searches involving a potential romance between Trump and Putin include “Trump kissing Putin” and “Trump riding Putin.” Both keyword phrases are searched well over 300 times per month.
“I just wonder how anyone could be so wrong about who America’s real friends are. Because it matters. If you don’t know exactly who you’re dealing with, men like Putin will eat your lunch.” -Hilary Clinton (July 2016)
Did Clinton throw Trump’s words back in his face?
Mother Jones, an online magazine based in San Fransisco, published an article entitled A History of Donald Trump’s Bromance With Vladimir Putin. It features the earliest recorded instance of Trump displaying admiration for Putin in an interview with Larry King in October 2007.
“Look at Putin — what he’s doing with Russia — I mean, you know, what’s going on over there. I mean this guy has done — whether you like him or don’t like him — he’s doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period.”
He said this just five months after the small Baltic country of Estonia accused Russia of initiating a cyberwar.
In June 2013, President Putin signed an anti-gay “propaganda” bill into law. As a part of the Kremlin’s attempt to “promote traditional Russian values over Western liberalism,” the bill bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations.”
Only eight days later, Trump Tweets: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?” If that doesn’t sound like an insecure man with suppressed daddy issues, then I don’t know what does.
Trump’s Love Letter From North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un
Vladimir Putin is a choirboy as compared to Kim Jong-Un. In terms of present-day dictatorships, North Korea’s self-proclaimed Supreme Leader trumps them all, pun sort of intended.
Murdering his brother, Kim Jong-Nam, in February 2017 with a VX nerve agent was bad enough. However, Kim Jong-Un didn’t merely commit fratricide but he also assassinated a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) source — an extremely valuable one at that.
What does Trump do? Schedule a one-on-one sit down with one of the most irrationally rogue leaders of today. Of course, Trump knows how to do floor play; he couldn’t schedule the sit-down until after he called Kim Jong-Un “Little Rocket Man” and threatened to nuke him.
For a lack of better words, I guess Trump knows exactly what a Jong likes the most. If Putin is the alpha male in their bromance, then Jong must be a “bottom.”
Whatever Trump said or did, Kim Jong-Un was smitten enough that he had to send Trump a “very beautiful letter.” At least that’s how Trump put it; it’s hard to know when a psychotic sociopathic liar is telling you the truth (Trump, not Kim, just in case you got confused about which psycho I was referring to).
Trump Feeds Americans Little Morsels of Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism “ [….] seeks to mobilize entire populations in support of official party ideology and is intolerant of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the party [….].” Furthermore, those who rule over totalitarian governments behave arrogantly and autocratically.
People with Trumpian ideologies use propaganda to minimize the significance of proponents and of alternative governing systems. On a daily basis, we witness Trumpist go to extreme lengths to suspend reality in order to usurp the truth.
However, unlike the dictators he admires, Trump lacks the wherewithal to quit sticking his foot in his mouth. As a result, Trumpist resort to ever farcical shenanigans hoping to not only draw attention away from Trump’s imprudent behavior but to further solidify their Trumpian ideologies with their supporters.
Though Wikipedia isn’t always a preferred source of knowledge for some, the following explanation about totalitarianism is quite poignant.
“A new form of government commonly linked to the concept of dictatorship is known as totalitarianism. The advent of totalitarianism marked the beginning of a new political era in the 20th century.
“This form of government is characterized by the presence of a single political party and more specifically, by a powerful leader (a real role model) who imposes his personal and political prominence.
“The two fundamental aspects that contribute to the maintenance of the power are a steadfast collaboration between the government and the police force and a highly developed ideology. Here, the government has ‘total control of mass communications and social and economic organizations’
“According to Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is a new and extreme form of dictatorship composed of ‘atomized, isolated individuals.’ In addition, she affirmed that ideology plays a leading role in defining how the entire society should be organized.
“According to the political scientist Juan Linz, the distinction between an authoritarian regime and a totalitarian one is that while an authoritarian regime seeks to suffocate politics and political mobilization, totalitarianism seeks to control politics and political mobilization.”
In order for a totalitarian such as Trump to galvanize his personal and political prominence, he tapped into extreme Christian fundamentalists. And while it’s unlikely he did so by design, Trump seized the advantage that lunatics like Kenneth Copeland provide.
Trump also has Paula White-Cain, a Christian evangelical minister and “longtime spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump.” Not only that but in 2019 she joined the White House staff. Trump placed Paula in charge of his administration’s “Faith and Opportunity Initiative.” The goal: focusing on outreach to religious communities (of course).
White’s son and his wife are senior pastors of City Destiny Christian Church in Apopka, Florida. They both were granted those positions after White stepped down in May 2019. It’s alleged that City Destiny Christian Church has over 20,000 parishioners that attend. In addition to that, White said she is planning to use her assumed official capacity to build 3,000 additional churches and a Christian university.
With that said, White made headlines in January 2020 when one of her sermons went viral after asking God for “all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now.” She further declared “that anything that’s been conceived in Satanic wombs, that it’ll miscarry, it will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm” towards her church or Trump.
The frightening thing about this is that there are thousands of smaller churches across the United States preaching similar ideologies or worse. Trump’s army of completely raving mad maniacs — most of which had no sense long before the Trump White House — who wish death on everything from unborn demon babies to demonic marine life.
Trump’s Totalitarian Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic
To save time, there is no need to cover every single totalitarian thing Trump has done. Most of you are already aware of his Putinesque ways. However, watching the fiasco unfold with the Trump administration unwilling to send ventilators to “blue” states out of vengeance is what inspired this article.
Although this vindictive move will in no way help him with his totalitarian agenda, it’s still highly indicative of at least three components that comprise most totalitarian countries: withholding vital government resources from states he considers enemies; imposing his political power to do so; using mass communications (Fox News) and social (religious organizations) and economic organizations (currency manipulation).
We are now living in a semi-totalitarian society. The only thing keeping the balance tipped in our favor is the fact that there are enough of us. Trump most likely will never have the muscle to take control of law enforcement and military — two very vital components of successfully establishing a totalitarian government.
On the other hand, getting a fourth term in the White House would increase his chances. And even though this hypothesis sounds a bit farfetched, just remember most of Germany thought Hitler was a fool until they no longer did.
The Totalitarian Government Check List
In order for you to comprehend how close Trump actually is to achieving a totalitarian government, let’s see how many required components he already has.
