KILL THE MESSENGER!

Image-conscious Narcissus

*Democratic regimes may be defined as those in which, every now and then, the people are given the illusion of being sovereign, while the true sovereignty in actual fact resides in other forces which are sometimes irresponsible and secret. We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty.

Benito Mussolini

The Orange Menace, a blowhard whenever his lips are moving, cannot accept responsibility— let alone blame — for anything. As we all know, he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because his gut told him the softening numbers she reported were a lie favoring Democrats. One more example of the megalomania disorder that defines Trump.

Trump’s tinkering with the economy could well end in a significant recession during his term. The tariff mess will end up hurting consumers the most, as we will have to pay for it. Tariffs are hurting, not helping, many US businesses, large and small. He is obsessed with Fed Chair Jerome Powell who won’t bend the knee. His wacky attempts to blow off the Epstein files  through misdirection and subterfuge is because he’s in them as Pam Bondi has told him.

Free the files already!.

What’s he hiding? By going after this one and that one, by trying to  shift the narrative, to blame whatever and whoever he can on the Democrats. With unconstitutional and unjust firings, and summary dissolution of executive agencies, he is set on ending our federal government and our constitutional democracy. The forceful defeat of Trumpocracy in the 2026 midterms is the best shot we have to take back the country. That the people he’s screwing are his base is an opportunity for the Democrats if they can seize it.

However, don’t bet on it. Trump is enabled in part by feckless Democratic leadership that’s too old, too late, too tired, too out of touch with what should be its natural constituency, now lost to Trump. Nonetheless, anything else he does or tries can only be judged in the light of his medically certifiable megalomania. His lack of impulse control    and mercurial nature — one day Russia, one day Ukraine; one day a 35% tariff, another day 15%; one day Bibi’s buddy, another day trying and utterly failing to rein him in, another megalomaniac who should no longer be propped up with US military hardware, absent accountability.

Our country’s fundamental relationship with Israel is forever changed; foreign policy regarding Israel will ultimately have to reckon with the tragic reality of an allegedly civilized nation committing genocide, with the side benefit of keeping a morally, and possibly corrupt leader in place. Jews for sure know about genocide.

Trump’s assault on campus antisemitism when arising from pro-Palestinian demonstrations is smoke; he is scapegoating American Jews as we have always been scapegoated; using us for agitprop, hoping to enlist at least some of us in support of his  megalomaniacal attack on democracy.

Benito Mussolini

*The Journal of Values-Based Leadership,Volume 11, Issue 2 Summer/Fall 2018