Within the last week Donald Trump was interviewed on 60 Minutes for the first time since winning the presidency.
He gave several statements on various issues and tried to come across as humbled by the immensity of the responsibility before him. He said he wants to take two to three million immigrants and round them up. He said he could imprison them and wait until the border situation is straightened out and then work out deporting them.
Under current law thanks to the Patriot act and the NDAA 2012 Trump can indefinitely detain people with no charges filed, no legal counsel, no right to a speedy trial or trial at all.
Right now we have had several days straight of protests against Donald Trump. Over fifty US cities have had protests. They are likely to increase.
In my opinion Trump saw this. He doesn't gain power for about a month. He has claimed gay marriage is settled law, but intends to appoint supreme court judges that will overturn that.
He has promised to keep many aspects of the ACA which he previously promised to abolish. He has walked back many policy proposals.
In my opinion he is trying to seem reasonable, to seem moderate and like he won't come after people as a dictator.
He wants the protests to stop. He wants each group to be isolated and pacified if they are not losing everything.
In my opinion Trump is trying to con EVERYONE. I don't mean everyone except his supporters, or everyone except his close advisors, or everyone except his family. I think he is conning every single person he deals with.
I saw a story in which someone warned us to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
I thought okay, what if every reassuring assumption about Trump is false ?
Then he is not the erratic idiot millions assume he is. Then he is playing dumb and making people think he understands less than he actually does.
He then is far more dangerous than previously thought to be. He may know that if he acts like a reasonable moderate and acts like he wants to work within the limits the constitution sets and respect the political process and the various branches of government it establishes that will calm people. That will be an attempt to end any mass movements that are forming in unity against Trump.
He wants to seem either normal or incompetent. That's odd but we have had incompetent but well intended presidents before. People will endure that.
Trump in my opinion wants to divide and conquer his scapegoats. The groups he has attacked that are most vulnerable are two. Immigrants and anyone he calls terrorists.
By picking up people and using a few examples of real criminals to stir emotions Trump will get people to accept the rounding up of immigrants. Many people already consider them criminals.
That will expand. People will not be able to reject it if they accept it incrementally. At first Trump will claim to be after gang members, rapists, murderers and drug dealers. After all, who can say locking them up is bad ?
But Trump won't have any accountability to give people trials or legal representation or prove to anyone that he is actually arresting criminals.
If we allow this then we are done. Trump can pick us off at his leisure if we allow him this first step. It's not hyperbole.
Trump may not even intend to build the border wall. That may be surprising. Newt Gingrich admitted the wall may have been a campaign device. Meaning a lie.
Trump's real intent may have been a misdirection all along. He didn't say I want to round up millions and millions of people then use indefinite detention on them. And if Trump has them provide involuntarily labor then he can effectively enslave people that aren't given any opportunity to have a trial. An unlimited number of people.
He can imprison ANYONE. Because with no charges, no trial and no legal representation how can someone show they were improperly detained ? Indefinite detention has no accountability. It has no standard to meet.
I frankly believe Trump wants to do things he spoke of in his campaign. He said he would bring back waterboarding and a lot worse. No one ever got Trump to describe this in detail.
I think the details are much worse than almost anyone dared imagine. Newt Gingrich has already mentioned bringing back the Unamerican Activities Committee to investigate Americans.
With our current surveillance state and the authoritarian tendencies of Trump that is horrifying.
I cannot stress strongly enough that Trump must not be accepted as president. I cannot stress strongly enough that he must be protested and we cannot accept him restricting the rights of ANYONE. IF we all unite and reject every single action that he uses to gain more power or oppress anyone then we have a slim chance.
I need to stress something about this. Chris Matthews from Hardball on MSNBC right after Donald Trump win the election was shocked, tried to right himself and said Trump had talent to win the election so he MUST be able to use that talent as president.
I think I know what happened to Chris. He KNEW Trump is profoundly unfit and unqualified to be president. Chris knew Hillary Clinton is far more suitable in temperament and far, far, far more qualified than Trump for being president.
But Chris experienced severe cognitive dissonance and confusion and anxiety when Trump actually won. Chris has several assumptions he has expressed. He assumes the political process in America rewards the better candidate and American democracy is fundamentally fair.
He knows the president is a very important person in the system and since the system is fair it's only natural that it selects a good or at least decent person to be president. But he KNEW Trump isn't good, qualified or decent. So what did Chris do when Trump actually won ? Chris had a cognitive distortion and shifted his opinion of Trump to fit his ideology that the American political process gets it right.
I believe millions of people have had similar cognitive distortions. Donald Trump is taking advantage of that.
It's deadly for you to assume Trump is normal, moderate or decent. He has proven he isn't. Believe him.
Here's a link to my blog archive by topic:
- The Cult of Trump part 1 What's a Cult, Really ?
- The Cult of Trump Part 2 Who Owes Whom What ?
- The Cult of Trump Part 3 Thought Reform
- The Cult of Trump 4 Reason and Resistance
- The Cult of Trump 5 Most Likely Scenario
- The Cult of Trump part 6 The Con
- The Cult of Trump part 7 Godwin's Flaw
- The Cult of Trump part 8 Godwin's Flaw 2
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