by Frank Vogl*
I am exhausted. I am not alone. With gathering momentum, Donald Trump shouts ever-more crazy accusations against anyone and everyone who does not support his bid to return to the White House.
He mixes wild, sometimes incoherent, campaign speeches with direct sales pitches for $100,000 Trump watches, for Trump bibles, gold-colored Trump shoes and all kinds of other merchandise. Meanwhile, his wife, Melania has a book coming out on October 8. When CNN sought an interview, her publisher said yes, as long as CNN paid $250,000 – CNN refused.
The Trumps have always been about the money. If he gets back to the White House, he and his family will cash in on a formidable scale. He has, for example, made all sorts of promises to crypto-currency exchanges who in turn have poured tens of millions of dollars into his campaign. Details of the quid pro quo have not been disclosed – but that’s Trump style.
Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen
What exhausts me and so many others is not his financial shenanigans, but his calls for vengeance and his daily threats. It is sickening. I cannot explain why approximately one-half of all potential voters in the United States still support Trump.
His vitriol has led Taylor Swift, former Republican Party leader Liz Cheney and her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney, to announce their support for Kamala Harris. They all say the decisive issue in this election should be the character of the next president.
In a video that has just gone viral, Bruce Springsteen, says: “Donald Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime. His disdain for the sanctity of our Constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from the office of president, ever again.”
The fascist state
Yet, there is a deeply sinister issue that Trump raises constantly that ought to turn voters against him, even if they can swallow the fact that he is devoid of integrity, human empathy and the merest sliver of humility. Trump is unashamed in declaring that when he is elected he will launch what can only be termed as a fascist state.
Earlier this year, as I reported, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that a U.S. president is immune from prosecution for all acts that he pursues as his official duties. Mindful of this ruling, Trump announces a growing list of individuals, starting with Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, that he will prosecute and jail, and others, such as the former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to Trump, he will be indicted for treason and executed by firing squad.
At the same time, also using the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, he will revoke the legal status for many immigrants and deport them. He will use the military to assist in the deportation of millions of people whom he declares to be illegally living in the United States.
Moreover, Trump has announced that he will take action to permit police forces across the country to use all forms of violence, without any restraint, against shop-lifters, gangs and protesters. He will also close down media organizations that he will claim are engaging in treason.
The threat is real
An extensive investigation by the New York Times showed that a large majority of 50 top legal experts in the United States, both Democrats and Republicans, are now deeply concerned.
As the newspaper reported: “An overwhelming majority of our respondents told us that they are alarmed about Trump’s potential impact on the Justice Department, many to a degree that they don’t think the public conversation reflects. Forty-two of the 50 former officials said it was very likely or likely that a second Trump term would pose a significant threat to the norm of keeping criminal enforcement free of White House influence.”
As a first act in office, Trump would demand that the Department of Justice end all outstanding prosecutions against him. Then, he would replace all the top officials running the Department of Justice and the FBI to ensure that he can order investigations of anyone, and promote the prosecution of many.
Further, he would lose no time in pardoning many of the gang members and neo-Nazis, who have been sentenced to jail for their violence on January 6, 2021 in the U.S. Capitol building. Trump calls them heroes.
Trump’s record
We had a foretaste of this when Trump was last at the helm. He launched investigations into top FBI officials who refused to investigate Hillary Clinton to the degree that he wanted. He called on the Internal Revenue Service to pursue tax audits of people, and he was only restrained by White House officials who argued that some of his planned actions were illegal.
Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has swept away that objection with its immunity ruling. And Trump has learned that next time he should only employ people in the White House and the Justice Department who will be eager to implement his wishes, however outrageous they may be.
Trump is a man of his word
The assault on justice that Trump says he will pursue has — at least so far — not influenced voters to go for Kamala Harris. Apparently, everyone has become so used to Trump’s bluster that, perhaps, too few people take it seriously. But Trump is a man of his word.
The lengths to which criminal Trump will go to secure his ends, after all, are documented in the new 165-page brief filed with the court in Washington, D.C. by U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision forced Smith to file a new brief to demonstrate that Trump’s actions to overturn the 2020 election, including his support for the violent raid by a huge mob on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021, could not be construed as “official “ acts.
According to the brief, Smith stressed that time and again Trump used private lawyers and associates with no governmental positions, such as the right-wing extremist Steve Bannon, to spread lies about the election results, strive to organize illegal efforts in several U.S. states to decertify the election results and plan the January 6 riot.
As Smith notes, on January 5, 2021, Trump spoke to Bannon, who less than two hours later told his listeners on his daily radio show, “All Hell is going to break loose tomorrow.” And it did.
*co-founder of Transparency International and author of “The Enablers – How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption-Endangering Our Democracy”
**first published in: Theglobalist.com
By: N. Peter Kramer
