Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "Jake Tapper rethinks today's politics through the lens of Mr. Rogers" video.

  1. How do you know when America's democracy is under siege? It's when our president believes he is above the law, and brags about falling in love with the most despotic dictator in modern history. Semper Fi... June 15 2018 Trump praises Kim Jung Un ' control over his people. "He's the head of the country," Trump said of Kim during a Fox interview. "And I mean he's the strong head. Don't let anyone think anything different." "He speaks and his people sit up at attention,"  Trump added. "I want my people to do the same." Sept 30 2018 Trump confesses the love he has for his muse, Kim Jung Un, during a rally. "I like him, he likes me. I guess that’s okay. Am I allowed to say that?” Trump said.  “And then we fell in love, okay” he said. “No really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.” “If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic.. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.”  ― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man “There’s no English equivalent for silovik. It doesn’t translate succinctly because to create something as Machiavellian as a silovik requires both the KGB and the GRU, and then a shift from communism to capitalism, followed by a gear-grinding reverse into despotism.”  ― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia “The actions of government, we are told, bear down only on imprudent souls who provoke them. The man who resigns himself and keeps silent is always safe. Reassured by this worthless and specious argument, we do not protest against the oppressors. Instead we find fault with the victims. Nobody knows how to be brave even prudentially. Everyone stays silent, keeping his head low in the self-deceiving hope of disarming the powers that be by his silence. People give despotism free access, flattering themselves they will be treated with consideration. Eyes to the ground, each person walks in silence the narrow path leading him safely to the tomb.”  ― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”  ― Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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  2. Cautionary lessons from the past. The threat that Trump poses to our democracy is real and eminent. Semper Fi.. “The German and Russian state apparatuses grew out of despotism. For this reason the subservient nature of the human character of masses of people in Germany and in Russia was exceptionally pronounced. Thus, in both cases, the revolution led to a new despotism with the certainty of irrational logic.. In contrast to the German and Russia state apparatuses, the American state apparatus was formed by groups of people who had evaded European and Asian despotism by fleeing to a virgin territory free of immediate and effective traditions. Only in this way can it be understood that, until the time of this writing, a totalitarian state apparatus was not able to develop in America, whereas in Europe every overthrow of the government carried out under the slogan of freedom inevitably led to despotism. This holds true for Robespierre, as well as for Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. If we want to appraise the facts impartially, then we have to point out, whether we want to or not, and whether we like it or not, that Europe's dictators, who based their power on vast millions of people, always stemmed from the suppressed classes. I do not hesitate to assert that this fact, as tragic as it is, harbors more material for social research than the facts related to the despotism of a czar or of a Kaiser Wilhelm. By comparison, the latter facts are easily understood. The founders of the American Revolution had to build their democracy from scratch on foreign soil. The men who accomplished this task had all been rebels against English despotism. The Russian Revolutionaries, on the other had, were forced to take over an already existing and very rigid government apparatus. Whereas the Americans were able to start from scratch, the Russians, as much as they fought against it, had to drag along the old. This may also account for the fact that the Americans, the memory of their own flight from despotism still fresh in their minds, assumed an entirely different—more open and more accessible—attitude toward the new refugees of 1940, than Soviet Russia, which closed its doors to them. This may explain why the attempt to preserve the old democratic ideal and the effort to develop genuine self-administration was much more forceful in the United States than anywhere else. We do not overlook the many failures and retardations caused by tradition, but in any event a revival of genuine democratic efforts took place in America and not in Russia. It can only be hoped that American democracy will thoroughly realize this before it is too late, that fascism is not confined to any one nation or any one party; and it is to be hoped that it will succeed in overcoming the tendency toward dictatorial forms in the people themselves. Only time will tell whether the Americans will be able to resist the compulsion of irrationality or whether they will succumb to it.” ― Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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  3. Mike Scarborough Agreed. The Spanish civil war is a very good example.
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