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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPierce: Trump Finally Has an Ideology, and It Will Lead Us to Serious Trouble
For too long a time, I thought that the president* was not non-ideological but, rather, an-ideological. I thought he never gave any thought to any subject deeper than personal avarice and personal celebrity. The guy palled around with whatever politician could enrich him the most, or with whom he could bask in the warmest form of reflected glory. (That's how all those pictures of him with the Clintons came about.) It was about the only thing that gave me any comfort when he was elected. He didn't care enough to care enough, I figured. That actually might be what saved the country from him.
...
Somebody, and my money's on Steve Bannon and/or Stephen Miller, has convinced the president* that he should adopt some ideology, if only for appearances sake. What he's adopted is a perilous mixture of the worst of America's police unions and the already existing fringe of the civilian American Right, and he's adopted it with the enthusiasm of any convert.
I came to this conclusion while following the essential Twitter feed of J.J. McNabwho, along with the indefatigable David Neiwert, has made a mission of following these peculiar political faunawho pointed out that the president* has adopted at least through his actions the politics of the "constitutional sheriffs" movement. This is a profoundly disturbed vision of democracy whereby the local sheriff is presumed to be the highest legal authority within a jurisdiction. Therefore, they are empowered to interfere with even the lawful authority of state and federal officials. (The actions of the Bundy bunch, recently acquitted in federal court, were based in this theory.) Both Joe Arpaio and David Clarke are adherents of this movement and, with a hurricane bearing down on Houston, the president* found time to pardon Arpaio and to plug Clarke's new book-like product on the electric Twitter machine.
There is no question that the president* has a sweet tooth for authoritarian solutions; he's already given one speech that could fairly be characterized as a winking acknowledgement that police violence shouldn't be of great concern to the police who are violent. And his American Carnage inaugural address created a country of the mind that makes the lurid civic fantasies of Wayne LaPierre look like visits to Rivendell. Over this past weekend, he reversed an Obama ban on the sale of military equipment to local police departments. From CNN:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57232/what-is-trumps-ideology/
...
Somebody, and my money's on Steve Bannon and/or Stephen Miller, has convinced the president* that he should adopt some ideology, if only for appearances sake. What he's adopted is a perilous mixture of the worst of America's police unions and the already existing fringe of the civilian American Right, and he's adopted it with the enthusiasm of any convert.
I came to this conclusion while following the essential Twitter feed of J.J. McNabwho, along with the indefatigable David Neiwert, has made a mission of following these peculiar political faunawho pointed out that the president* has adopted at least through his actions the politics of the "constitutional sheriffs" movement. This is a profoundly disturbed vision of democracy whereby the local sheriff is presumed to be the highest legal authority within a jurisdiction. Therefore, they are empowered to interfere with even the lawful authority of state and federal officials. (The actions of the Bundy bunch, recently acquitted in federal court, were based in this theory.) Both Joe Arpaio and David Clarke are adherents of this movement and, with a hurricane bearing down on Houston, the president* found time to pardon Arpaio and to plug Clarke's new book-like product on the electric Twitter machine.
There is no question that the president* has a sweet tooth for authoritarian solutions; he's already given one speech that could fairly be characterized as a winking acknowledgement that police violence shouldn't be of great concern to the police who are violent. And his American Carnage inaugural address created a country of the mind that makes the lurid civic fantasies of Wayne LaPierre look like visits to Rivendell. Over this past weekend, he reversed an Obama ban on the sale of military equipment to local police departments. From CNN:
President Barack Obama issued an executive order in 2015 prohibiting the transfer of a host of equipment, including armored vehicles, grenade launchers, high-caliber weapons and camouflage uniforms following controversy over the "militarization" of the police response to unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. "We've seen how militarized gear can
sometimes give people a feeling like there's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them," Obama said at the time. "It can alienate and intimidate local residents and send the wrong message." President Donald Trump will sign a new executive order Monday rescinding Obama's directive and Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed the policy change during a speech at the annual conference of the Fraternal Order of Police in Nashville, Tennessee, where he received multiple standing ovations and appeared touched by the warm welcome.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57232/what-is-trumps-ideology/
This is the start of a police state, if Trump gets his way. Where the police get to do what they want, with effective immunity from laws and checks and balances.
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Pierce: Trump Finally Has an Ideology, and It Will Lead Us to Serious Trouble (Original Post)
muriel_volestrangler
Aug 2017
OP
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)1. K&R
leftstreet
(36,118 posts)2. Good article, but it still seems his only ideology is Reverse Obama
Interesting stuff, but I'm not sure the author can guarantee Crooked Trump isn't just seeing rank and file LE as a potential voting block, and saying/doing what he thinks they want to hear
oberliner
(58,724 posts)4. I think he is also buying into the Bannon anti-globalist stuff
Sure seems to have seeped in.
leftstreet
(36,118 posts)6. Oh, definitely
Whether he embraces it as an 'ideology' or finds it useful in the moment, who knows
no_hypocrisy
(46,281 posts)3. Nihilism and deconstruction.
We're doomed.
world wide wally
(21,759 posts)5. Surprised?
That is what fascists do
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)7. Trump is a modern fascist...
a race baiting, scapegoating, militaristic, fear mongering, ultranationalist fascist with despotic tendencies and aspirations.
spanone
(135,921 posts)8. frighteningly true
pangaia
(24,324 posts)9. It now seems rather obvious. We ain't seen nuthin' yet.