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Patricia Davis's avatar

This is a masterpiece , Ruth , this is the concise weave of past authoritarians AND a present wanna be playing the field of followers .

A very dangerously dark professional card shark, con man extrodinaire, and the success of a Fascist playbook his guideline.

💙VOTE THE BLUE TSUNAMI FOLKS💙🙏☮️❤️

💙VOTE THE BLUE TSUNAMI💙

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Gene Krzyzynski's avatar

Maybe the most transparent aspect of Trump, or Orange Mussolini as this reader calls him, is the extent to which his malignant narcissism and megalomania drive him so obsessively – well beyond merely the demagogue stage – to become the first American dictator. Think back to January 6, 2021.

Given the fact that the popular vote is not in itself determinative in our presidential elections and the cultish Trumpublican Party is busily working to game the system at the state and local levels to create overrides to the majority will of We the People, this remains a realistic – and frightening – possibility.

Maureen Dowd's latest column in The New York Times contains a quote from Mitt Romney regarding Trump's brazenly felonious hoarding of Top Secret national security documents in which the Utah senator, speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, asks rhetorically, "He held onto them. Why?"

For the answer, consider an article by Fintan O'Toole titled "The Ultimate Deal" in The New York Review. It begins this way and is consistent with everything we've ever learned about Donald Trump:

"Secrets are a kind of currency. They can be hoarded, but if kept for too long they lose their value. Like all currencies, they must, sooner or later, be used in a transaction — sold to the highest bidder or bartered as a favor for which another favor will be returned. To see the full scale of Donald Trump’s betrayal of his country, it is necessary to start with this reality. He kept intelligence documents because, at some point, those secrets could be used in a transaction. What he was stockpiling were the materials of treason. He may not have known how and when he would cash in this currency, but there can be little doubt that he was determined to retain the ability to do just that."

Make of it what you wish, but its dark, "Art of the Deal" ugliness is nothing if not perfectly Trumpian.

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