Heil Donald!

As the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ were experiencing the greatest dollar drop in American history on February 5th, Donald Trump was at one of his ego-boosting pro-Trump-rallies in a Cincinnati, Ohio suburban factory, excoriating Democrats, questioning their very patriotism, at not applauding all of his “accomplishments” he listed in his State of the Union speech, touting a strong economy and a massive tax cut. His own words:

"They would rather see Trump do badly than our country do well. It’s very selfish. It got to a point where I really didn’t even want to look too much over to that side because honestly, it was bad energy. You've got half the room going crazy, wild, they want to do something great for our country. And you have the other side, even on positive news, they were like death and unAmerican. Somebody said treasonous. I mean, yeah, I guess, why not. Can we call them treason? Why not? They certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much. It's very, very sad." Emphasis added. Not quite as sad as Trump’s choice of words. If you wish to read his entire speech, laced with exaggeration and rampant falsehoods, here is the link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-tax-reform-3/

Interesting that those who do not support Trump’s vision of America are “treasonous”? Donald sees himself as either above the law… or even the decider of what the law itself is. His feeble attempt to use a self-promoted and wildly inaccurate memo from Devin Nunes House Intelligence Committee Chair, as a reason why the entire Russia investigation and all of its corollary inquiries are bogus was exceptionally well-received by both his base and those most conservative Republican congress-people who now believe that to get elected they must follow the dictates of that base to the letter.

While more than a few Republicans and all congressional Democrats believe (a) the Democratic response to the Nunes memo should be released (but it is subject to Trump’s right to censor that response for “national security” reasons), and (b) that the Nunes memo has no bearing on the various investigations of Trump and his campaign staff, Trump believes that the FBI and the DOJ – and any information they may have gathered about him and his campaign – are hopelessly tainted and without credibility.  In his mind and the collective mind of the base, Trump is now fully vindicated and thoroughly proven innocent.

Here is an example of the typical Democratic response; a rather restrained and polite statement from U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) on CNN on Tuesday morning (2/6): “The President once again is making a simple but scary mistake here… He is not the state. Cheering for our president is not the same as being a patriotic and loyal American. In fact, there’s this thing called the First Amendment in the Constitution that protects the rights of all of us as citizens to either cheer or applaud the president when we agree with him or to not applaud when we have differing priorities. He simply doesn’t get that… He’s not above the law… And failure to cheer him when he thinks we should is not only not treasonous, some of us would argue it’s patriotic.” Donald Trump hates that amendment, if I recall his many statements to such effect.

The notion of disagreeing with the “leader” – der Führer in German – as treasonous is hardly a new concept in recent history, but the use of that word really tells you how Trump feels about himself and his power. His words were widely reported in the international press, and the global reaction – now used to Trump’s proclivity to braggadocio and hyperbole – was mostly incredible shock. We all should be shocked that this entire concept is happening here in the United States.  This cannot end well. The degree of violent polarization, igniting furious passion in a nation with well over 300 million guns, is truly terrifying. Oh, and the international stock market followed suit the next day… with a slight uptick in US market by the end of February 6th. Foreshadowing? Or just a break from a greater fall? Time will tell.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if there ever were a time for Americans to fear for the end of their democracy, it is clearly now.