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IS IT TIME TO BE AFRAID?

Trump revives “third term” talk and pledges to be “vicious” against opponents

Roger Stone urges Trump to seize total power if he loses the election

Are we facing a Nazi takeover of America?

What did the media report?

“In Trump’s America, no institution, including democracy, is sacrosanct.” — CNN (click here)

“Roger Stone … said Trump should seize total power and jail prominent figures including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg if he loses to Joe Biden in November.” — The Guardian (click here)

“Stone also said federal authorities should seize all Nevada ballots, federal agents and GOP state officials should ‘physically’ block voting, that Trump should nationalize police forces, and that Trump should order widespread arrests.” — Media Matters (click here)

What else did Roger Stone say?

Other twisted ideas Stone is planting in Trump’s warped mind:

• 1. Invoke the Insurrection Act and arrest the Clintons, Harry Reid, Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook
  2. Have federal marshals seize Nevada’s ballots and remove them from the state to prevent them from being counted.
  3. Shut down the Daily Beast and take their “entire staff” into custody.
  4. Form “an election day operation using the FBI, federal marshals and Republican state officials across the country” to file legal objections to results and if necessary to “physically stand in the way” of the election results.
  5. “Put down” any leftwing protests. “We have the right to do that. We have the power to do that if we want,” he said.

Stone, a longtime Republican dirty trickster and convicted felon whose prison sentence was commuted by Trump, made the remarks on an Alex Jones InfoWars show while repeating debunked claims of widespread voting fraud. Alex Jones is a notorious spreader of false conspiracy theories.

Does it matter what Alex Jones and Roger Stone say?

You can laugh off Jones, and Stone is Stone, a slimy slug that slithered out of a sewer. But it’s no laughing matter that this kind of stuff is disseminated to InfoWars listeners, an audience recently estimated at 11.7 million listeners, of whom about 8.5 million are in the United States (source of data: here). Some of them belong to armed private militias. Jones and Stone are inciting these people. It would be one thing Trump tamped that down, or even just ignored it. But he seems to be joining. At a Nevada rally on September 13, 2020, he told the crowd, “Now, I can be really vicious.” (Story here)

Is the Nazi comparison realistic or over the top?

I don’t want to be an alarmist. But Jones’ and Stone’s rhetoric speaks for itself. Trump’s rhetoric is more ambiguous, but almost as concerning, even allowing for partisan passions and being in the midst of a campaign “silly season.”

We’re constantly counseled to avoid Hitler comparisons. Nazi Germany was a singular phenomenon, and such references will be interpreted as intemperate name-calling. But excess caution could lead us to overlook actual danger. The world failed to stop Hitler when it might have because the democracies didn’t believe he would do the things he said would do. When they stood aside, he did them.

Stone and Jones aren’t especially worrying, because they’re not in power. But Trump is, and already has defied numerous constitutional and legal restraints on his use of presidential power, so we ought to be wary when he speaks in the language of a dictator.

How far-fetched is a rightwing coup?

Hitler, you will recall, didn’t overthrow Germany’s government. He was elected, and once in office, seized absolute power by outlawing opposition parties, arresting opponents, shutting down free press and speech, and seizing control of state institutions and organs. Trump, during nearly four years in office, has abused the power of the presidency, and bullied and threatened his critics, but hasn’t replaced our democratic system with a totalitarian regime as Hitler did. Moreover, for all his bluster, Trump is a far more timid man than Hitler was.

So you can argue that Trump is no Hitler, and will never become one. I want to believe that Stone and Jones are just trolling Trump’s opponents and critics. But regardless of their intentions, their rhetoric is dangerous, because many Americans will readily believe nonsense, and they could stir up a hornet’s nest.

What about Trump? Instead of denouncing Stone and Jones as blowhards, he embraces, repeats, and apparently believes their conspiracy theories. And who knows what an emboldened Trump might do, if he concludes no one will stop him? He’s openly talking about a “third term” again, which the Constitutional plainly forbids; what are we to read into that? At the very least, a lack of restraint; at a darker level, that he won’t be bound by the Constitution or anything else. And his former personal lawyer, who knows Trump well, is warning us that he wants to be a dictator.

Who will stop him? The Republican Party is complacent, and in his thrall. They backed his corrupt actions in Ukraine completely, except for Sen. Romney. Might he have the means? This is key to the question whether Trump’s current grip on the presidency could pave the way for rightwing dictatorship in America, because he obviously can’t do that alone, and certainly not if key institutions like the military oppose it.

But will they? The Joint Chiefs chairman has said the Pentagon won’t intervene in a disputed election, which is as it should be. But would the military do if Trump rejected election results, suspended the Constitution, declared martial law, and ordered the military to enforce it? Would they follow his orders?

What about other institutions of government, especially the police? As I’ve posted previously, the FBI has found evidence of white supremacists, militias, and the KKK infiltrating police ranks. I’ve also noted that armed rightwing militias and vigilantes have a political agenda. These people possess military-type assault weapons, and some openly talk of “civil war.” When will we take their own words seriously, and how seriously should we take them? How should we respond to this? I just don’t know where all this might go.

Stopping Hitler cost tens of millions of lives. That’s too high a price to pay to gamble that these people are just joking and don’t really mean what they’re actually saying.

Photos: Above left, What a human reptile looks like. Below right, alleged photographic evidence of reincarnation. Bottom: These “peaceful” protesters at Trump’s September 12, 2020, Nevada rally cheered a speech implying violent repression of opposition.

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