Donald Trump Emulates The Oppressive Tyranny Of His Heroes
There is something hauntingly familiar about the scenes of chaos and violence surrounding Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s campaign rallies – they mirror the tyranny of the billionaire candidate’s heroes. Like his heroes, Trump demonstrates the kind of narcissism that autocratic strongmen have exhibited throughout history—and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t have a lot to do with the democratic process.
Trump vows to vilify and crush those who dare speak out against him – “If someone screws you, screw them back.“
He mocks those others admire – “[John McCain]’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, okay? I hate to tell you.“
He admires and extols the worst of human values and nature – mentored by former McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn and praising tyrants like North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un, Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Far be it for him to praise the likes of Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela – “What a sad thing that the memory of Nelson Mandela will be stained by the phony sign language moron who is in every picture at funeral!“
What about contrition…. remorse – “When we go in church and I drink the little wine, which is about the only wine I drink, and I eat the little cracker — I guess that’s a form of asking forgiveness.“
Roy Cohn
Who could forget Roy Cohn, most infamous lawyer in New York and chief aide to notorious witch-hunting Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s, who mentored a younger Donald beginning in the late 1960s and served as his attorney until his death in the mid 1980s. As Salon put it: Trump was “mentored in the art of manipulation” from “the master – Roy Cohn.”
McCarthy was such an effective tormentor of the innocent that his name became synonymous with character assassination. He was eventually driven out of the Senate. Disgraced alongside his boss, Cohn departed Washington for his hometown of New York City where he became the ultimate political fixer and a terror in his own right. If you needed a favor, or wanted to hurt an enemy, Cohn could do the job. He talked like a make-believe mobster and counted real ones among his clients.
As The Daily Mail reported last September, “Cohn was gay but opposed gay rights and helped persecute other gays. He was Jewish but was anti-Semitic. He often used the words s**c, n****r and f*g.”
He dressed impeccably in fine suits, silk ties, matching handkerchiefs – ‘and was so vain that he never appeared in public with a hair out of place’.
He drove a rattletrap Rolls Royce with his initials RMC on the vanity license plate and often entertained friends in the back seat of his car over drinks.
Trump followed the lead of his mentor, always wearing a flashy suit, a fine shirt, and was chauffeured in a limousine with his initials, DJT on the vanity plate. He wore patent-leather shoes
“Donald described Cohn as ‘a total genius’ who ‘would kill for somebody that he liked’ and he liked Trump,” according to The Daily Mail.
Olivia Nuzzi of The Daily Beast reports that a Cohn friend told her that Trump’s “early political training came from Roy.”
“I think he saw in Trump a kindred spirit,” the friend said, adding “He saw a certain toughness that he also saw in himself.”
According to Trump’s friend, Cohn acted to “recruit Donald and Donald’s father for Reagan’s finance committee.” In an 1983 Times report, Trump was characterized as a Reagan supporter and was said to have visited the White House “several times.” There’s a picture of the two together, shaking hands. Trump, his hair darker and fuller, in a pinstripe suit and shiny, light pink tie; and Reagan, looking duller by comparison.
Coming full circle, Nuzzi also reports that:
Today, Trump’s campaign slogan is “Make America Great Again!” Which was Reagan’s slogan in 1980. Trump has claimed he invented the slogan and trademarked it in order to prevent other candidates from using it in speeches. “I mean, I get tremendous raves for that line,” Trump told The Daily Mail. “You would think they would come up with their own. That is my whole theme.”
Kim Jong-un
Take for instance, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un – whom Trump praises for the “amazing” way he murders his political rivals.
“You’ve got to give him credit. How many young guys – he was like 26 or 25 when his father died – take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden… he goes in, he takes over, he’s the boss,” said Trump at a Republican political rally last weekend in Iowa. “It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. This guy doesn’t play games.”
“I mean, it’s amazing that a young guy would go over and take over,” Trump told Fox News last Thursday. “You know, you would have thought that these tough generals would have said no way this is gonna happen when the father died.”
“So he’s gotta have something going for him, because he kept control, which is amazing for a young person to do,” he added.
Vladimir Putin
Then there’s Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin who seem to have a bit of a bromance going on. The Donald thinks Vlad is great and apparently Vlad thinks The Donald is just wonderful. And, since Trump already has the endorsement from the KKK and a few white supremacist groups, what’s another one from a tyrant who kills or imprisons his adversaries?
During a mid-December Morning Joe episode “Morning Joe” Scarborough raised this very issue with Trump – who was bragging at the time about Putin calling him brilliant:
“Well, I mean, it’s also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?”
That would have been the time for a normal presidential candidate to roll it back a little but not The Donald. Trump’s response to Putin killing his political opponents and journalists was, let’s say, cavalier. “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader,” Trump said. “Unlike what we have in this country.”
As Forbes reports: there’s also the fact that “under Putin there have been at least eight political assassinations of national importance, not counting the murders of numerous regional and local politicians.“
The conservative site also points out that “Putin has consistently declared the United States as enemy number one since his February 2007 speech in Munich.”
In Putin’s world, the United States and its NATO allies are intent on surrounding and dismembering Russia. Any aggressive actions of Russia – Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine – are therefore purely defensive in nature designed to protect Mother Russia from the world’s main source of evil. How will Trump “get along very well” with a negotiating partner, whose regime’s very existence requires that the U.S. play the role of Russia’s major enemy?
- Source Links – August 29, 2020
- About Pat Warde: Eulogy Tribute by Eleanor Hughes – April 1, 2019
- Editorial Note – January 15, 2019
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