BE AWARE THAT THE MAGA MOVEMENT REQUIRES CRIMINALS
Verse, and Substack post from Ruth Ben-Ghiat
I would like to take the opportunity to post an applicable post from an expert on strong man movements, Ruth Ben-Ghiat:
For Strongmen like Trump, Holding Office is a Means of Committing Crimes with Impunity
Getting away with crime and becoming untouchable is the essence of authoritarianism
“They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you. And I am the only one that can save this nation because you know they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you. And I just happened to be standing in their way. And I will never be moving.”
And so, another chapter opens of former president Donald Trump's version of the authoritarian playbook. The remarks he made to supporters at his Bedminster, N.J. golf club after his post-indictment arraignment in Miami on June 13 may have seemed spontaneous. Yet they are carefully calibrated. They continue the propaganda points and emotional manipulation that have allowed his leader cult and his bonds with his followers to endure more than two years after leaving office.
Yet Trump is in the middle of the strongman's worst nightmare —an indictment that could lead to a conviction and jail sentence— and his rhetoric has accordingly escalated. Everything he is doing and saying right now has one goal: getting him back into the White House so that he can realize the strongman's dream of committing crimes with impunity and neutralize anyone and anything that can harm him.
The purpose of holding office, for strongmen like Trump, is not governance, but having the power to get away with crime.
I did not mention the criminality on display by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. This was a very important part of this story. There is denial among the right that this was criminal behavior. Apparently they justify it in their minds as political protest, and they will swear that the Black Lives Matter protests were criminal in behavior and completely different to the January 6th violent insurrection. One can clearly understand their viewpoint, based upon biases due to race, and this in itself deters their self examination in this matter. Hence they condone criminality in their causes. The projection exhibited by the right whether intensional, or psychologically motivated in trying to establish criminality in the Biden Family only in the end places a spotlight on their own actions. In the end this strategy will end up backfiring in the general election in 2024 most likely.
50th Posting, July 12, 2023.
“...protests were criminal in behavior and completely different to the January 6th” /Needs edit