Déjà Vu All Over Again

Déjà Vu All Over Again

First and foremost, we are being relegated to a cult of autocratic personalities, each with eggshell egos, who are determining the future of the United States and most of the rest of the world based on their distorted perceptions and personal needs that have little or nothing to do with the betterment of their people. On our side of the equation is a clear autocrat, absolutely enabled by a captive Congress and a Supreme Court more anxious to placate the President than protect free and fail elections or the Constitution itself. Foreign countries have learned that the way to get favors from Donald Trump is to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has been taking credit for ceasefires where he doesn’t even know the names of the individual leaders, who actually implemented the end of those local hostilities. Trump is as likely to receive that accolade as would Attila the Hun, where he alive today. Arming military forces to invade and subjugate cities run by his political opponents, blue cities like Los Angeles, Washington, DC and, next he promises, Chicago, Trump’s signature move these days… hardly the stuff a Nobel prize represents.

Vladimir Putin clearly has no serious intention to alter his longstanding belief that Ukraine must both submit to his leadership (ceding territory along the way, even lands he has not yet occupied) and devoid of any meaningful security guarantees. Even as Trump posted on a social media post on August 18th that he had spoken to Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided, “Russia’s top diplomat said Friday [8/22] there are no plans for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss their three-year war, days after President Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together… ‘There is no meeting planned’ between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBC’s” Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. AP, August 23rd. As European leaders met earlier to discuss how security for Ukraine might work, Moscow’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, called this effort “a path to nowhere.”

Given how Trump quickly abandoned his most fervent anti-Putin demand for an immediate ceasefire or else there would be “serious consequences,” Putin knew instantly that without the kinds of sanctions and ramped up military aid only the US could provide, ending the war against Ukraine was no longer a priority. That solicitor of the Nobel Peace Prize sabotaged that peace effort. Further, as Trump made any criticism of Israel or any statements of support for Palestinian statehood clear evidence of an individual’s disloyalty to America, support of terrorism, his denial of visas and cancellation of student visas of anyone making such statements is predicated on his statement that constitutional protections do not apply to non-citizens. This expressly contradicts the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bridges v. Wixon (1945, regarding speech that opposed the then current administration) and Boumediene v. Bush (2008 holding that the writ of habeas corpus even applied to prisoners in US custody at the Guantanamo base in Cuba).

As Trump’s unpopularity soared, he pressed red states to resort to gerrymandered districts to give Republicans a 100-seat margin of victory in the House, knowing that the Supreme Court ruled that it could not stop partisan gerrymandering (2019, Rucho v. Common Cause). Democrats have responded with a parallel effort to gerrymander in reverse. The net impact is the potential of a fully and legally rigged 2026 midterm and a 2028 presidential election, one that cannot represent the will of the American people. But if distortions work in Trump’s favor, they have become routine. For example, “Economists expressed alarm at President Donald Trump's moves to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The U.S. economy has long enjoyed a reputation as the safest place in the world to invest or build a business, which has given the country a nearly incalculable advantage, but economists compared Trump's efforts to stack the central bank with loyalists to cancer – but arguably worse, reported the New York Times… ‘It’s like throwing sand in the gears,’ said Glenn Hubbard, who led the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush. ‘It just makes the economy less efficient.’” Travis Gettys in Raw Story, August 22nd, citing mostly conservative economists. Gettys also interviewed a Trump 1.0 administrator: “A former White House official sounded the alarm on a ‘secret blacklist’ compiled by President Donald Trump's team that tracks the loyalty of more than 550 companies and trade associations.

“Miles Taylor, who wrote the anonymous ‘resistance’ New York Times op-ed while serving in Trump's first administration, called out the loyalty scorecard first reported by Axios as ‘another totally unprecedented (and quasi-authoritarian) development out of the White House’ on his ‘Treason’ Substack page… ‘The goal is apparently to reward public displays of allegiance to the administration and freeze out companies deemed unsupportive of the president’s agenda,’ Taylor wrote. ‘Among other things, the ratings are said to take into account: social media posts, press releases and public endorsements, video testimonials and paid ads, attendance at White House events, and presumably any other gestures of loyalty the administration can log.’”

And even after the UN has officially declared a major famine in central Gaza, impacting half a million people, Israeli autocrat, Benjamin Netanyahu, denies the obvious as he begins his all-out assault on Gaza, with many additional Palestinian casualties expected. I will end today’s blog with an observation from The Economist’s Digital Editor, Adam Robert (August 23rd), noting how collusion between and among autocrats today, reinforces the disappearance of freedom and the rule of law: “Did Churchill ever break into applause at the sight of Stalin, or JFK give a little ovation for Khrushchev? I suspect not. So it was striking to see Donald Trump’s thrilled reaction as Vladimir Putin approached him in Alaska last week. Some online cynics joked that it was natural that the American leader clapped: it’s not every day you get to meet your hero. Too strong? Perhaps. But Mr Trump has shown an abiding affection for the Russian autocrat. As our Lexington columnist notes, the American first praised Russia’s leader on television back in 2007 and has been a steady admirer since. Lexington unpacks the real collusion between the two men.

“My hunch about their relationship: Mr Trump is drawn to anyone who exudes an aura of strength. Talk of morality, rules, duty or strategy bores him. He yearns, instead, to strike bold and quick deals with tough guys and to win prizes and adoration as a result. That makes for an unstable world.” As a rule of thumb, as Trump tends to support the purported strongman in any conflict, regardless of any immoral stance, he heaps criticism and opprobrium on the vulnerable weaker party.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as Trump is now using armed troops against regions of the United States that openly oppose him, ask yourself it this represents your view of democracy and freedom in this country.