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Mike Halaiko's avatar

Again, another brilliant and deeply insightful analysis. As I read this, I keep thinking, why do authoritarian followers not see the many tactics being used on them to accept and buy the autocrat’s scam? The Strongmen as victim is such a blatant ploy. Historians recognize the replay immediately. The ignorant cash in everything to purchase the charlatan’s do nothing diploma from Trump U.

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Michael Groothuis's avatar

Trump gets away with all this because Republicans allow it. There is a column written by conservative Peter Wehner that I can't get out of my head. He wrote it just after Trump's inauguration. He wrote "Republicans in Congress need to be ready to call Mr. Trump on his abuses and his excesses, now that he is actually in office...They need to ask themselves a simple, searching question...'If Barack Obama did this very thing, what would I be saying and doing now?' - and then say and do it." We can just imagine what Republicans would have done if it were Obama who said "Lock him up", who encouraged the insurrection, who took classified files to his home, who said to the president of Ukraine "I want you to do me a favor, though". I could go on and on...

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