June 3, 2016, "Dangerous Donald"... part ___
The Grey Lady's Adam Liptak treats us to his exegesis as to why Donald "the Donald" Drumpf Trump (whom his likely opponent Hillary Clinton now calls "Dangerous Donald"... good one, eh Hillary?)... will be constitutionally dangerous. It's not thematically all that different from what fellow Establishment-writer-named Adam Gopnick, says here in the New Yorker. [Shorter Times/New Yorker: "Trump = Hitler".] Seriously?
What actually makes Trump so popular in certain American circles-- his willingness just to say wtf he feels like, which often includes criticism of the rest of government or arguably sacrosanct institutions (such as the judiciary)... is what also makes him potentially "dangerous" in a "constitutional sense." Because he's clearly not interested in "making America great again"... whatever that even means... so much as in maximizing his own power... and while the American system has checks and balances (indeed, an almost infinite number of veto-points) against doing anything remotely good or beneficial for the people, as "the war on terror" has shown us, it is now virtually turbo-charged for power grabs by the ruthless and ambitious (especially when they are feckless). OTOH, Mr. Trump has proposed shrinking NATO, negotiating with Putin over everything, jettisoning middle-class-destroying trade agreements... in quite a few places, positions to the left not merely of Clinton, but of Bernie Sanders... What will we get with a President Trump? That's just it... there's no real telling...
So let me make this easy: Trump's Nuremberg-rally-style thuggeries-- which now seem to be matched tit for tat by agents provocateurs his opponents (such as a recent melee in San Jose, Calif.) hearken back to a certain other demagogue's campaign... in 1933. And honestly, this is as fair a criticism as you can make of the man, as he apparently has no substance... so we can-- and have to-- look at his style, and his style is that of early brown shirts. He is an aggressive bully, he is thin-skinned and obnoxious, and he has encouraged thuggery, particularly against the press and non-whites, his very political success is based on the ongoing bashing of non-Whites, be they Mexican, Muslim, or just plain not White and not male.
The very fact that the Democratic Establishment would rather run Hillary Clinton and risk handing the Presidency to this inexperienced, unstable individual... whose style, at least, if not necessarily his "governing philosophy" (because no one including him knows what that is) hearkens to a certain Austrian man with a funny moustache... tells you everything you need to know about the Establishment. Everything. In short, the Democratic Establishment is more comfortable with Trump than it would be with Sanders. And maybe Trump will "work out" (in a way Clinton will not, unless you think the trajectory we are now on is absolutely perfect). But then again...who knows?
Mr. Trump... Dangerous? Really? It was so nice of the media to legitimize Mr. Trump with billions in free coverage, gratuitous appearances on Saturday Night Live (as the host no less), guest spots on the late night talk shows... while crowding out not just Sanders, but even Hillary... and of course, all of the other Republican candidates, and indeed, providing a coverage that basically helped mock legitimate politicians out of the race.
And now he's here. And if Hillary Clinton, ostensibly with the moral stature of Richard Nixon after Watergate, is, as she and the Establishment demands, the shoo-in Democratic nominee, then Mr. Trump will, almost certainly, be elected President of the United States. And then I guess, we will all learn just exactly what "Make Germany America Great Again" actually means.