Letter to Editor 9/24

Editor:

I don’t understand why so few Americans seem to understand that Trump is mounting a full-scale campaign to turn America into a Fascist state. For those who haven’t put the pieces together:

1.) Like Autocrats in other dictatorships, Trump wants to stay in power indefinitely so he and the Republicans are doing everything they can to suppress the vote in November and sabotage the election. At present, the most publicized voter suppression method Trump is using is his attempts to cripple the Post Office because he is afraid that a high volume of mail-in voting will work against him. However, his and his supporters’ other voter suppression tactics include continuously preaching to his base that if he loses, it will mean that the election was “rigged. Of course, not expecting to win in 2016, he repeatedly made the same accusation. Other measures being enacted in Red states include cutting the number of polling locations, shortening or eliminating early voting, eliminating polls in minority areas, denying the right to vote by absentee ballot, requiring specific forms of “identification”, and throwing out ballots that come in by mail. 

2.) He is following the playbook where Hitler’s “Brownshirts” held rallies in Left-Wing areas of Germany and disrupted the events of their opponents, inciting violence, looting, and burning to demonstrate to the nation that these areas were “out of control” so that the Nazi party could portray themselves as the “Law and Order” party, saving the nation from chaos. On Saturday, August 19, did you see that miles-long caravan of Trumpers in pickup trucks, carrying and pointing guns at citizens in Portland, driving into marchers on foot, shooting into the crowd with pepper spray, paintballs, and starting fights and mayhem all over the city etc? . ONE TRUMPER WAS SHOT AND KILLED. He didn’t have to take the time to drive there but he went to Portland to incite violence and ended up losing his life. The loss of life of any person on either “side” is a tragedy. Another mile-long caravan of over 200 Trumpers in pickup trucks and cars flying “Trump” flags then, on Sunday, August 30, a similar caravan of, again, over 200 Trumper vehicles rolled into the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles for the same purpose. When people look for trouble, they usually find it.

3.) Hoping we will forget all the laws and norms HE has broken and blown through, Trump is portraying himself as the Law & Order” president and the Democrats as “soft on crime” and “incompetent” to manage government and handle the violence.

4.) Knowing that any violence among even peaceful protestors plays to his advantage, he is sending Federal troops, National Guard, and even caravans of gun-toting Trumpers in pickup trucks into cities to engage with protestors, knowing that the fighting and violence will escalate. Most demonstrators from BLM and other groups leave at curfew time. Then outside agitators and Trump supporters come in, infiltrate the marchers, and initiate confrontations and start fires. Just the other day, Kellyanne Conway said right out loud on TV, “the more conflict and violence in these cities, the better for Trump.”

5.) Of course, the whole purpose of emphasizing his “Law & Order” campaign message is to distract us from his failures and gross, criminal incompetence addressing the Coronavirus pandemic along with its fallout and his allowing Russia to push us around which includes:

A.) Now over 6 million Americans have been infected with the virus and over 180,000 of our fellow citizens are dead. We have 3% of the world’s population but 25% of the world COVID cases.

B.) Over 25 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits over the course of this pandemic with over 1 million new applications filed every month. Why is the United States in this situation while most of the other nations of the world have addressed the virus early on and are safely opening up? When mostly Red states tried to open too early, they immediately saw their cases and infection rates skyrocket. I must admit that California also fell into that category. New York and New Jersey have been the most successful states in that regard.

C.) The country is in the worst economic condition since the Great Depression. The GNP has dropped 32%, far more than the largest drop in history during that Great Depression which only reached 15%. It is reported that as of this writing, August 31, 2020, over 40 % of Pennsylvanian and all American renters are at risk of eviction as the eviction moratorium expires today. 

D.) Leading many people to think that Trump is badly compromised by Russia and Vladimir Putin, he has repeatedly let Russia push us around for the last three years without a peep from this president. This includes the proven Russian interference in our 2016 election which is continuing in the upcoming election in November. Also, Russia paid the Taliban to target American troops in Afghanistan, even offering a bounty on their heads and not a WORD out of Trump. What does Putin have on Trump and how much money does he own Russian Oligarchs?

5.) Again, right out of the Fascist playbook, Trump, himself, is inciting this escalation of violence so that he can swoop in to stop it by force and demonstrate that he has “saved” us from “lawlessness and crime.” In other words, He hopes to get credit for addressing and ending violence that HE created in the first place which he hopes will increase his chances of being re-elected in November.

6.) Make NO mistake. This is a slow-moving REICHSTAG FIRE. Using every level of government at his disposal, this will continue and escalate between now and November 3 and probably beyond. 

 

William E. Conti, PhD

Honolulu, HI 96815-2329/213-880-8262