Can It Happen Here?

So it has finally come to this. From the normal of a century to the abnormal of the last 30 months, we are at each other’s throats. We represent either the “looney left” or the “righteous right.” Instead of negotiating with each other for the common good, a lie-a-minute psychopathic Great Leader has us talking about waves of red and blue, building 2,000-mile great walls, rants about Mexican gang rapists and Muslims terrorizing cities, and accuses Crooked Hillary and a low IQ black representative of various crimes. We should have recognized we were going down the slippery cliff to Uncivility Gulch when “Little Marco” Rubio and our “Big Hands” carnival barker argued on national TV about the size of their hands compared to the size of their penises during the Republican campaign for the nomination.

After observing King Donald operate in Washington Swamp, over two dozen psychiatrists have determined that he is a lying psychopath and sociopath according to all the criteria listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disabilities. The evidence is overwhelming. He is nuts about himself. “Me” is his only ideology. He calls other people “animals.” Women are to use, not to love. He averages six lies a day. He has no political beliefs. His political party is named Trump not Republican. He has no moral core.  His only religion is himself. His signature on laws and orders must be larger, like his privates, than any other president in history. He loves to show his signature on documents during numerous photo ops. His name must be in 20-ft gold letters on tall buildings.. 

After reading the descriptions of psychopaths and sociopaths in the manual—and after watching Trump on the campaign trail and in the Oval Office—this old bartender supports the diagnosis. I have served some of that ilk in my day. How else would you describe a man who constantly attacks Senator John McCain, an American political icon dying of brain cancer? Only a psychopath. On top of all of this, Trump is just a jerk. Who would want him as a neighbor? Maybe Franklin Graham? Jerry Falwell,Jr.?

King Donald calls Western leaders “weak” and “timid” while cozying up to three vicious fellow psychopathic leaders. North Korea’s Kim Jong un poisons a half-brother, kills an uncle with an anti-aircraft gun, murders his father’s pallbearers, employs firing squads, and keeps 200,000 enemies and critics in concentration camps. Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte murders drug pushers and political enemies on sight. King Donald’s best foreign buddy is Russia’s Vladimir Putin whose political enemies are either poisoned, shot, or have mysterious “accidents.”

An Idea From A Sinclair Lewis Book: When Fascism Comes To America It Will Be Wrapped In The Flag And Carrying A Cross

In 1935 Minnesota’s own Sinclair Lewis published a novel titled “It Can’t Happen Here” about the rise of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany as fascist dictators. It’s about dictator creep by creeps. In the novel a U.S. senator is running for president on a populist campaign emphasizing “family and traditional values.” He threatens everybody with authoritarian language. He creates a private security called the Minute Men. He imprisons political enemies in concentration camps. While states in the Midwest discuss secession, President Buzz Winthrop creates incidents on the Mexican border and then declares war on Mexico. Some of this sounds familiar. Historians paraphrased what Lewis was getting at with this line: “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

King Donald wraps himself in the American flag by calling kneeling black football players at anthem time sons-of-bitches who should be fired by owners. In a country which has been torn apart by race for 400 years, 81% of white “Christian” evangelicals, based mainly in the old slave states, voted for a man who has violated eleven of the Ten Commandments. Remember: Ronald Reagan said the Eleventh Commandment was “never criticize a fellow Republican.” “Christians” and 58% of white women and 62% of white men voted for a lying sexual predator who aggressively grabs pussies and cavorts with porn stars and prostitutes for three political reasons: they want to create a theocratic government, eliminate Roe v. Wade and all abortion, and keep the white race in power. He chose Dominionist Mike Pence as vice-president because Pence wants a theocracy instead of a democracy. In the end, evangelicals have sacrificed Jesus Christ’s biblical teachings for maintaining the power of whites in a soon to be minority land. Some voters had economic reasons, some men did not want to vote for a woman because various major religions, such as Roman Catholic and Islam, hold them to be second-class citizens and subordinate to men.  And some didn’t want to vote for “that woman.” James Dobson, Focus on the Family founder, calls Trump “a baby Christian!”

I used the term Are Americans “Good?” in the title. After the fascists of Italy and Germany were defeated in World War II, the most perplexing and troubling question asked German citizens still is: “Why did “good” Germans allow a psychopath like Hitler to turn democratic Germany into a fascist dictatorship? The answer is “good” Germans didn’t challenge fascism until it was too late and the ovens started to heat up for Jews, homosexuals, and non-Aryans. Read William L. Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” for background information.

Hitler Never Had 50% Approval Either

Remember that King Donald has never received 50% approval by the American public in anything. Even Crooked Hillary beat him by more than 2.8 million votes. But this is what happened when “good” Germans did not attack Hitler’s fascism soon enough. The parallels to our current political situation are a foreboding message. The German “democratic” legislature in 1933-35 acted like our Republicans in 2015-18 by passing the following legislation:

(1)  Passed “Civil Service” laws which excluded non-Aryans from the legal profession and all civil service jobs.

(2)  Passed a law requiring the sterilization of people with a range of hereditary, physical, and mental illness. They were later welcomed to gas chambers and the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

(3)  Stripped Jewish citizens of their citizenship and said it was legal to deport Jewish immigrants.

(4)  The Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935 forbid marriages and sexual intercourse between Jews and Aryan Germans. It prohibited the employment of German females under 45 years of age in Jewish households. Gypsies known as Romani and blacks were added to the list of enemies of the state. Jews were first on the list.

(5)  A law against “Habitual Criminals” allowed the Nazis to imprison “social misfits” such as the unemployed, prostitutes, beggars, alcoholics, homeless vagrants, and the Romani.  Sounds like Trumpian views on blacks, Mexicans, and other U.S. ne’er do-wells. 

There’s more on the Nazi legislative calendar but I think you get the idea. A “good” German was a person that turned a blind eye to the atrocities of fascists such as needless war, lying to the public, and stripping citizens of ciivil rights. A “good” German is now defined as a person who denies personal moral responsibilities because governmental actions were permitted by law. Germany and Italy ended up with Mussolini and Hitler because “good” citizens accepted inhumane actions. The Holocaust was just one result. The Nuremburg trials were another. I was 13 when General Dwight Eisenhower forced the citizens of a German town to walk through a nearby Nazi death camp so they would remember the victims of Nazi policies stacked in piles near still-warm ovens.

I Hope We Never Have Good Americans Like Germany And Italy

We need many ordinary Americans like Stephanie Wilkerson of the Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. She was not at the restaurant when Sarah Huckabee Sanders party of eight took seats, ordered meals, and were served part of the order. A worker called Stephanie and told her of Sarah’s presence. The administration had just banned transgenders from  military service. Some of her servers and cooks are gay. She asked them what they wanted her to do. Her crew told her they didn’t want to serve Sarah’s party. Stephanie agreed with them and asked to speak with Sarah outside. She told Sarah she did not want to serve the party and that they didn’t have to pay for the meal. This news story went viral, bringing death, fire, and bomb threats to the little 26-chair restaurant. Stephanie has received flowers commending her action from as far away as London, England.

With the separation of children from parents seeking asylum arousing the outrage of most Americans, the word “civility” has dominated our lexicon. Some say we should treat members of the administration with civility. Many Americans are horrified by what Trump and the Republicans are doing to this country. We don’t need “good” Americans who accept what King Donald is proposing for America. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson was forced to leave a D.C. Mexican restaurant (after endorsing policies all day that harassed Mexicans at our border!) because other diners expressed “Shame, Shame” and told her: “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace!”  

Stephen Miller, the resident fascist in the White House, was also confronted by protesters as he tried to eat in a Mexican restaurant.  You have to make these people understand that when you do horrible things to people nobody wants to be around you. Jessica Valenti in the Guardian put it bluntly: “If you’re responsible for the jailing of Latino toddlers, you do not have the right to enjoy Mexican food free from protest.” California Representative Maxine Waters of Watts, that section of LA that exploded into race riots years ago, knows “good” Americans won’t accomplish much against a tyrannical government. Waters directed her ire at Trump’s cabinet at a rally: “You tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” Naturally Trump, in his typical psychopathic style, responded by calling her a low-IQ black. Germans should have been yelling at and telling on Adolf from the beginning of his “Reich.” He might not have been able to create the Axis and Final Solution.

Are We Going To Have Another Supreme Court Justice Who Believes Firearms Legislation Should Be Based On The Musket?

Justice Antonin Scalia was an “Originalist” who believed the Constitution should be interpreted as it was written in 1789. To me that means all firearms legislation should be based on the musket and all air traffic and space laws should be based on the use of oxcarts. Shouldn’t all blacks be counted as three-fifths of a human? What is going to happen to civil rights, voting laws, the LBGTQ community, health care, and other major issues with another white right-wing conservative placed on the bench? 

Ninety percent of Americans want some gun control legislation. Two-thirds of Americans support Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage. Republicans have lost six of the last seven popular votes in presidential elections. Scalia actually elected George W. Bush in 2000 by casting the fifth and deciding vote in a 5/4 decision to close off further counting of votes in Florida. Because of gerrymandering neither Republican House nor Senate members were elected by majority totals in 2016. If this goes on there’s going to be real hell to pay. I heard this the other day: “There’s no need in a democracy to have two wolves and one sheep vote on what’s for dinner.”