Enough bullshit, okay? CNN, MS-NBC, The New York Times, and every other media venue in the liberal Fake News has been reporting anything and everything Trump says as if what comes out of his mouth, no matter how stupid, insulting, or untrue, is a news event.
What these media operations get are more views or clicks or eyes on their advertisements; what Trump gets is a free promotion of his name.
And not only has he been getting this freebie for the last eight years, but it’s getting worse because what he says is getting more stupid and there’s a positive correlation between his stupidity and the rate of media coverage he receives.
The latest was his comment about how he would be a ‘dictator’ for the first day of his Presidency if he’s elected again next year. And this comment was blasted all over the media as ‘proof’ that Trump’s an autocrat, or a Fascist, or some kind of combination of both.
Not only does the media now endlessly promote the idea that if he gets back into the Oval Office, that Trump will immediately turn the country into an autocratic state, but major organs of journalistic practices, like the Columbia Journalism Review, are calling for a new approach in order to strengthen the resistance to such a move.
So, what will Trump do on Day 1 to become a dictator? Will he sign an Executive Order telling Congress to shut down and go home? Will he call up the Treasury Department and tell them not to send a salary check to anyone who works in a federal court from the judges on down?
I live in Massachusetts and the town in which my house is located has been holding monthly town meetings for 280 years. The meetings require the attendance of the people who run the town who are called freeholders, and they are elected every two years.
In order for any rule or regulation covering the town to be changed, the freeholders have to vote for the change to occur. Notice the word ‘vote’ which means that everyone raises their hands either for ‘yay’ or for ‘nay.’
Meetings like the town meeting in Pelham occur thousands of times every month in the more than 19,000 incorporated settlement sites which exist in the United States. There are also 3,143 counties in the United States, and virtually every one of those legislative bodies hold monthly meetings attended by county officials who are also elected every couple of years.
Finally, we also have 50 states. Each state has an elected legislature with two chambers which together hold 7,386 elected representatives who work closely with the elected governors of those 50 states. Note the word ‘elected.’
Just for the hell of it, let’s assume that every town board, on average, counts 9 members, and let’s assume that every county board counts the same. That’s 171,000 town board members, another 28,287 county board members, 7,386 state reps and 1 Governor for every state, although most states also have a Lieutenant Governor who is elected as well.
Taken together, this country on the brink of autocracy or dictatorship, or whatever you want to call it, contains more than 200,000 men and women who are all elected to their positions, are all paid for meeting and conducting legislative business on a regular basis, and have been doing so in most states for 150 years.
Oops! – we forgot two other groups who exist and function continuously because the populations they represent have voted them into their jobs. On the one hand, there are the 100 members of the United States Senate and the 435 members of the House.
We also need to include the 82,423 elected school board members who serve on the governing boards of the 13,194 public school districts in the United States.
Notice once again that pesky word ‘elected.’ I have now used that word to denote the nearly 300,000 people who meet on a regular, legal basis after they are elected to their jobs.
Note the word ‘legal.’ What this means is that there are laws, written down and enforced by the courts to maintain the political system which keeps those 300,000 men and women employed. These laws define what such individuals can and cannot do, they can be challenged in courts which in most cases are run by judges who are also elected (there’s that pesky word again) and to quote Grandpa, ‘vishshtugidach’ (read: that’s that.)
And again, it needs to be pointed out that this entire system has been operating without a single break for more than 230 years. The Weimar Republic which Hitler overthrew in 1933 had been operating since 1918, okay?
Given all that, I have to close by asking the following question: When the pundits and the experts and the influencers get up on their high heels and warn us about how Trump represents such a ‘threat’ to democracy, what the fuck are they all talking about?
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