The electorate, almost half of US voters and a clear majority of the states, has delivered virtually unrestrained power to Trump who is quite obviously the most stupid, moronic, and vengeful person ever to occupy the Oval Office. Republicans control The White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court for at least the next two years with the GOP in thrall to him and his swooning cronies installed in all the major institutions of government like the DoJ and the FBI.
The article in that respect compares Trump to Viktor Orbán in Hungary:
"Mr. Orbán used law as a weapon against Hungarian democracy. When he came to power in 2010, he unleashed a pack of laws designed to bring the courts to heel and to scare the media and political opposition into submission. He consolidated power in an ever-expanding Office of the Prime Minister, bypassing his cabinet and giving orders directly to the bureaucracy, which he had reconstructed by changing the civil service law to fire those who were not already on his team and elevate allies to key positions. Mr. Orbán’s rise to power was accompanied by the aggressive use of libel actions to drain the resources of critics and to chill the aspirations of new challengers. He packed the courts with loyalists."
And it speaks of the way Trump is silencing his critics in the media:
"Even before Mr. Trump’s appointees have entered their designated offices, however, Mr. Trump and his admirers have launched libel cases and threats of criminal investigation to intimidate journalists and political opponents, just as Mr. Orbán did. ABC News just settled one such case for $15 million rather than risk the cost and Trumpian ire of defending its journalist."
ABC coughed up $15 million to settle a libel action for fear of the greater cost to them in the long run. Major newspaper owners refused to carry criticism of Trump in their editorials during the closing days of the campaign. He is already suing the Des Moines Register newspaper in Iowa, along with its parent company and a pollster, for "brazen election interference" simply for printing the results of an opinion poll indicating he could lose the state (he didn't). Think of the message being received loud and clear in newsrooms across America.
The BBC reports on Joe Biden’s farewell address to the nation last night and his warning that America risks slipping into a ‘dangerous’ oligarchy. Unfortunately, Americans aren’t listening
There is no doubt that the next four years will be dangerous for America but this is the path they have chosen to go down. Let's hope they realise their mistake before 2028.
But we can't pretend Trump's second term will only endanger democracy in the USA. Note there is no mention at all in the article of Trump's rhetoric about taking over Canada, Greenland, or the Panama Canal or imposing crippling tariffs on America's neighbours and trading partners, even friendly allies.
One outlet not intimidated by Trump is The Atlantic, which carried what looked suspiciously like an allegorical piece about Hitler a few days ago. This week it has an article about Putin and what it refers to as his "sabotage campaign." A Wider War Has Already Started in Europe, is written by Phillips Payson O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. It is essentially a call to arms for Europe.
He talks about Putin’s actions in Europe, not just the ‘special military operation’ but also the cutting of undersea cables in the Baltic, the explosive devices discovered intended for European aircraft, the brazen killing of his critics on foreign soil, and so on. There is a tendency over here to play all this down.
Mr O'Brien says, "Although European leaders have largely refused to think about war, the EU’s member nations and other democracies on the continent still have all the prerequisites for military power. Although the economies of the United States, China, and many developing countries are growing much faster, the EU, Britain, and other European democracies together have a population of about half a billion people and account for about one-fifth of world GDP. EU member nations maintain military forces with some of the most advanced equipment in the world. The combination of Putin’s aggression and Trump’s indifference should be an opportunity for Europe to take charge of its own defense. The first vital step in this realization is to acknowledge what’s already happening: Call a war a war."
Europe needs to step up to its responsibilities and get real about the Russian threat before it's too late. Our reliance on the US taxpayer for defence was predicated on America being a steadfast and reliable partner. That is no longer true. Trump has opened our eyes.
Nobody knows what the new president will do about Ukraine. Someone with a bit of wisdom would see that Russia is almost spent. They have lost up to 700,000 men killed or wounded with no end in sight and the Russian economy on its knees. Now would be a good time to face Putin down with pledges of far more military assistance and even the possibility of NATO forces on the ground in Ukraine. What is Putin going to do about it? Unfortunately, Trump almost certainly will offer Putin an easy way out.
He is either going to abandon Europe to its fate or, if he does anythin at all, he will demand something in return, like Greenland for example. He is at heart a something-for-something president and doesn't believe in spending money on wars, even when democracy itself is at stake. He cannot be trusted.
