A reference to modern history would be useful in its resultant, instruction as to the necessity to be competent enough in our judgment to distinguish actual empirical threats to our democracy, from those that are conceived merely, for various political or cultural purposes.
The 1920s America, as exemplified by the infamous, Sacco-Vanzetti case, was a period of time in which the purported, National threat, du jour, was identified as “Criminal Anarchy.” Historians accorded the name, “First Red Scare,” to the era since immigrants were feared to be, either, anarchists, communists or socialists. We can easily conceive of the possible basis for such purported threat to the Nation, as having its impetus, rather, in a general populist prejudice against the immigration of foreigners.
In the late 1940’s a “Second Red Scare,” saw political dissension and repression of liberties in a manic campaign led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, to combat a purported “ Communist conspiracy” to exert influence and damage America and its institutions. Many hearings were held, charges lodged, and careers ruined, but after much energy and effort were expended by the “McCarthy Commission,” the alleged, pervasive infiltration of undercover, communist agents and spies to the United States was never demonstrated. However, the paranoid Senator, can, deservedly, take appropriate credit for the many innocent careers and lives that were adversely affected and, (similar to the decreed fates of Sacco and Vanzetti), Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed, on the charge of treason.
Despite the controversial divisiveness, the major disruption of the Nation and the injury to the reputations of many innocent American citizens, no organized anarchist or communist threat, as alleged, materialized. However, with the surprise elevation of Donald J. Trump to the Oval Office, a legitimate and frightening, legitimate threat to American democracy, was set in motion, namely, “Autocracy.”
In fulfillment of the classic stereotype of all fascistic autocrats, Trump, immediately, initiated a vicious attack upon the media, claiming that the media published news was “fake,” initiated the concept of “alternate facts,” denigrated learning and academic enlightenment, ignored the provisions contained in the United States Constitution, illegally enriched himself and immediate family in willful violation of its “ Emolument Clause,” asserted an alleged immunity from prosecution for his copious criminal behavior, promoted race and ethnic bigotry, courted, Russia’s Putin and other autocrats, took illegal liberties, such as purloining government classified, documents and refusing to return them when subpoenaed, undemocratically, rejected the results of a bona fide election and then caused, encouraged and aided an insurrection, seeking to overthrow the democratic government, encouraged the insurrectionist mob to hang his Vice President for refusing, illegally, to certify him as (the faux) winner of the election, otherwise committed copious election fraud, committed bribery, illegally failed to pay taxes, and assertively, lived and behaved, licentiously,
In sum, Trump plotted to be a permanent chief executive, responsible to no one nor, to any legal strictures, and irrefutably, demonstrated his autocratic intention to perambulate in the stereotypic footsteps of other tyrants in the classic style of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler or the contemporary, menagerie of autocrats, viz., Putin, (23 yrs. In office), Victor Oban (Hungary, 13 yrs.) and Xi -Jimping of China. Despite two Congressional impeachments in his single term, indictments for numerous federal and state crimes and is at the brink of the first trial for sedition and espionage, yet imperially, intends to run again for President. His stereotypic, intentional, blindness to the law and non-recognition of moral compass, encompassing his amoral absence of allegiance to anything but himself, added to his singular lust for power, certifies him for inclusion in the identical, atavistic, museum exhibit, as Putin and Oban, et al., labeled “Autocrat.”
On June 23, 2023, the world experienced a veritable, laboratory demonstration of the operation of the classic autocratic signature. On that date, Putin’s private, paramilitary army, tasked with doing the dirty work for Putin in Africa and elsewhere, (including his illegal land war against Ukraine, the latter, opposed by many Russians), known as the “Wagner Group,” led by one, Yvgeny Prigozhin, as such leader (no doubt, a “wannabe,” Autocrat) embarked on a rebellion, against Putin and Russia, in keeping with the autocratic signature, encompassing a desire for power, unrestrained by principle, or loyalty.
The resultant outcome of the above, head-on, bloody, collision, for the specific, contextual purposes of this essay, may be of less significance, than the vital elucidation of the existential danger of autocratic rule, an inevitable outcome, should Trump be re-elected President, and predictably, employ the classic, tyrannical signature.
-p.
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