I was a teenager in the 1960s and lived through some of the most turbulent years of political violence since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. So tumultuous that singer Dion linked them in the song, Abraham, Martin, and John. The outrageousness of the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, John, and Robert Kennedy, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., brought about so much upheaval that rioting, commissions, and national uproar marked each violent demonstration of political cowardice. Most citizens—of all stripes were unified in a sense of national outrage, even if they hated Abraham, Martin, or John. The feeling that violence was abhorrent is what kept America from falling over the precipice and into anarchy.
This is not normal…
Columnists, bloggers, and hacks like me, along with doodlers and self-important scribes, have called Trump a cult leader and his followers loyal cultists. At first, blush, judging by the group of people willing to compromise their values and even their religions to follow a guy hawking Bibles, sleeping with a porn star while his wife was at home nursing their new baby, and peddling gold sneakers, cult sounds right. Unfortunately, the cult leader is the least of Donald Trump’s public affronts to decency. What he practices is gang leadership. Donald Trump is in charge of an ever-increasing immoral gang. No better than kidnappers and terrorists who use and threaten violence to achieve a goal. Mr. Trump is going to desperate extremes that should frighten us all.
It reads as unbelievable to type the words, setting aside his fomenting of an insurrection, but Mr. Trump has set about destroying the last institution of integrity that exists, the courts. With the help of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, Mr. Trump has turned the federal judiciary—most notably the Supreme Court, into a hackneyed bastion of conservative Christian autocracy. On their way to the White Christian utopia; they crave, the courts have trampled the rights of women, voting rights, and black educational equity in schools. The blatant attacks on judges like 1930s gangster Al Capone (whom Trump on more than one occasion likens himself) because they are not in his pockets, like so many nickels and dimes, to steal a line from the Godfather. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” testified before Congress that Trump gives coded orders like a Mafia boss, “He doesn’t give you questions, he doesn’t give you orders,” Cohen said. “He speaks in a code, and I understand the code because I’ve been around him for a decade.” The parallels between the Trump Empire and the World of Don Corleone are stark but much more frightening when applied to reality:
When The Don’s hitman, Willie Cicci, talks about soldiers and pushing a button, it is reminiscent of Mr. Trump calling criminals hostages, describing prosecutors as “deranged,” and using buffers on social media to threaten wives, daughters, and court clerks. Donald Trump is an offer we can refuse.
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