Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "Night of deadly Portland violence yields pointed responses" video.

  1. History: "You people don't listen, and you sure as he// don't learn. How many more times must I repeat myself?  How many more times must I show the world what happens when people allow despotic and authoritarian dictators like Adolf, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Putin, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Un, and now Trump to come to power. It NEVER ends well. It never has, and it never will. For the umpteenth time, If you want to destroy a democracy, and create a despoti dictatorship, this is how you do it." No two situations are ever identical, but history matters. Trump is inflaming and urging a large minority of the country to believe that the government constitutes a “deep state” conspiracy against him—and therefore them. He is feeding media outlets like Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and Rick Wiles racist and conspiracist fuel. He is convincing a large minority that the election is rigged against them. He is purging officials that might offer government oversight and replacing the justice department and judiciary with radical loyalists. He is encouraging armed vigilantes to consider themselves members of a special “Trump Army” to defeat the threat of the enemy at home. Most critically, he is suppressing our ability to vote through the mail at a time of national pandemic. A president pushing fascist rhetoric with authoritarian tendencies is running America, and putting our democratic safeguards at risk. We've seen this before, and we know how it ends.
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  2. Recent books by Timothy Snyder, Masha Gessen, and Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig have traced Trump’s growing pattern of lies and lawlessness. Yes, nearly all presidents have occasionally engaged in hyperbole, lying, corner-cutting, or press-bashing, though none have done so daily, if not hourly. One falsehood does not undermine democracy, but 20,000+ can; one governmental reversal in court is not tyranny, but scores of such defeats reveal an administration at odds with the constitutional injunction to “faithfully executive the laws.” If we added up the anti-democracy maneuvers of the prior 10 presidents over the past 60 years, they wouldn’t equal Trump alone in under four years—indeed, if you compare the eight close associates of Trump convicted or indicted in his almost-one term of office, that would again exceed those of all presidents combined (excepting Watergate felons) from Kennedy to Obama. • Replacing the rule of law with the law of rule—courtesy of Bill Barr—as accused allies receive pardons and praise while enemies are threatened with arbitrary prosecution. • Engaging in multiple obstructions of justice, such as firing FBI director James Comey and urging White House counsel Don McGahn to lie to Mueller. • Basing an entire convention on himself—no platform, Trumps proliferating like Borgias—and on the daily violation of the anti-monarchical Hatch Act because “no one cares,” according to apologist Mark Meadows. • Worsening economic inequality by shifting trillions through tax breaks to “American Oligarchs,” in Andrea Bernstein’s useful phrase, who then gratefully support his assaults on environmental and consumer laws to make even more money. • Inciting violence by hyperbolic attacks on opponents, embracing neo-Nazis while ignoring warnings from the FBI about the number-one domestic threat, right-wing violence. • Enthusiastically embracing many of the world’s leading dictators—Putin, Xi, Bolsonaro, Kim Jung Un, Sisi, Duterte, Erdogan. • Repeating Covid-19 falsehoods in order to pressure Republican governors to prematurely reopen the economy and schools, causing the avoidable deaths of over 100,000 Americans so far. • Attempting to stymie postal delivery to, in effect, steal millions of mail-in ballots… and the election. • Erupting with a lava of lies—now up to an average of 22 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler—to bury rivals and reality (Goebbels in 1941 said, “There are so many lies that truth and swindle can scarcely be distinguished." • Attempting to delegitimize the Fourth Estate as “enemies of the people,” using Stalin’s odious phrase. • Bullying neutral sources of information—the CDC, DNI, FDA, regulatory agencies—to bend their expected integrity to his political needs. • Milking public office for private gain by treating “his” federal government like he treated the Trump Organization. • Attempting to criminally extort the president of Ukraine in order to smear Joe Biden. • Fiiring career professionals and “independent” inspectors general for doing their job, increasingly having a government of cronies, cranks, multimillionaires, relatives, and unconfirmable third-raters. • Ignoring all congressional subpoenas (when Nixon ignored eight of them, it became the third article in his impeachment, “Contempt of Congress”). • Saying things such as “I alone can fix it” and “with Article II, I can do whatever I want,” as well as praising Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist party, when it changed the country’s constitution, making Xi Jinping ruler for life. If you add it all up, What do you see?  It all has one purpose,” said Sally Yates, former acting attorney general, “to remove any check on his abuse of power.”  It is deviant fascism.
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