SOCIAL
CRITICISM REVIEW |
SELECTED
READINGS
|
SPECIAL: FASCISM IN
AMERICA (2017-)
"These are the times that try men's souls"
- Thomas Paine
This is how fascism comes to America
"Fascism may be defined as a form of
political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with
community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory
cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of
committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective
collaboration with traditional elites, abandons
democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and
without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and
external expansion." - Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism
A totalitarian movement
thrives on the denial and destruction of reality, offering alienated and
rootless people a coherent and empowering counter-narrative,
a false reality actualized through thoughtlessness, lies,
disruption, dehumanization, lawlessness, propaganda, violence, terror,
domination, and radical evil. Hence the importance of
safeguarding democracy with a free press,
good education, critical thinking, and participatory
self-government. – "The ideal subject of
totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or
the convinced Communist, but people for whom
the distinction between fact and fiction
(i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction
between true and false (i.e., the standards of
thought) no longer exist." - Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
"The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of
every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in
the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to
dehumanize them." - Hannah Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem:
A Report on the Banality of Evil
Donald Trump - Schoolyard bully, archetypal psychopath,
malignant narcissist, ruthless machiavellian,
pathological liar, amoral charlatan, antisocial ratcatcher,
racist hatemonger, apocalyptic arsonist,
unbridled demagogue, mob boss, would-be tyrant,
attack dog, crass misogynist, sexual predator, convicted
felon, manipulative and exploitative,
entitled and victimized, angry and vengeful,
violent, cruel and sadistic, impulsive and reckless,
vain and insecure, a scared child, driven by
instant gratification, heedless of consequences,
unhinged from reality, obviously demented,
morally bankrupt. An authoritarian megalomaniac -
paranoid and vindictive - with his personality flaws
aggravated by power. Mentally unfit for the presidency.
– But the real illness is a society that is
in denial
- James
Hamblin (The Atlantic) - Donald Trump: sociopath? Taking his
biographer's claim seriously
- Henry
Alford (Vanity Fair) - Is Donald Trump actually a narcissist?
Therapists weigh in!
- Alex
Morris (Rolling Stone) - Trump and the pathology of narcissism.
Diagnosing the president was off-limits to experts – until
a textbook case entered the White House
- Psychology
Today - Shrinks battle over diagnosing Donald Trump
- David
Ignatius (Washington Post) - Donald Trump is the American Machiavelli
- Benjamin
Hufbauer (Politico) - How Trump's favorite movie Citizen Kane
explains him. He never believed in anything except himself
- David
Auerbach (LA Review of Books) - How Robert Musil's The Man
Without Qualities predicted the rise of Donald Trump
- Neil
Macdonald (CBC News) - The U.S. descends into brutality as the
real-life Archie Bunker is sworn in as president
- Cole
Moreton (Independent) - Donald Trump: How the tycoon's message of
racism and hatred has struck a chord with evangelical Americans
- Sarah
Posner (Washington Post) - Trump as televangelist: The scam of the
prosperity gospel explains why the faith healer's opulence
attracts evangelical voters
- Jim Wallis (Sojourners)
- House of lies: The pathological lying of the president of the United
States is a moral crisis for the nation.
It is time to speak truth to power
- Neal
Gabler (billmoyers.com) - The 100 days that turned America upside
down: Trump promised to disrupt the country. He has also
disrupted truth and morality
- Los
Angeles Times - Our dishonest president: Trump's erratic, impulsive,
narcissistic personality poses a threat to our democracy
- Richard
North Patterson (Boston Globe) - The presidency as psychodrama
- Henry
Giroux (The Conversation) - Donald Trump's passion for cruelty
- Michael
Moore - Use this moment to create a world without abusers
- Michelle
Goldberg (New York Times) - The Caligula administration lives on. The
Epstein case is a reminder of the depraved milieu from which our
president sprang. Sexual abuse scandals, corruption and misogyny
continue to swirl around him. He boasts about sexually assaulting
women, and leaves behind a trail of accusers. He can only show empathy
for the abusers and disdain for the abused. And we continue to
tolerate behavior that is right out in the open
- Dan
McAdams (The Guardian) - It's an alpha male thing: what dominant
chimpanzees and Donald Trump have in common.
His incendiary tweets are the human equivalent of
a charging display. Designed to intimidate his foes and
rally his submissive base, these verbal outbursts
reinforce the president's dominance by reminding everybody
of his wrath and his force
- David
Brooks (New York Times) - When the world is led by a child
- Heather
Gautney - The reality-show president and fascist propaganda (Excerpt
from The New Power Elite)
- James
Poniewozik (Vanity Fair) - How Trump learned to control TV – and what
happened when TV began to control him as president. A symbiotic
relationship turns into a nightmarish feedback loop (Excerpt from Audience
of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America)
- Timothy
Egan (New York Times) - The beast is us | Burning
down the house
- Peter
Wehner (New York Times) - Declaration of disruption. We have as
president a nihilist and an institutional arsonist
- John
Feffer (TomDispatch) - Trump the arsonist and his
apocalyptic paranoia: evangelical prophecy, anti-globalist
survivalism, and alt-right racist conspiracies
- Ava
Siegler & Karin Kamp (billmoyers.com) - The president's behavior
is at odds with the values we try to instill in our children
(On How Do I Explain This to My Kids?
Parenting in the Age of Trump)
- W.J.T.
Mitchell (LA Review of Books) - American psychosis: Trumpism and
the nightmare of history
- Tony
Schwartz (The Guardian) - Trump is still a scared child. We need to
speak out against his culture of fear
- Stephen
Greenblatt - The tyrant and his enablers. How is it possible for a
whole country to fall into the hands of a tyrant? According to
Shakespeare, it could not happen without widespread complicity
(From Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics)
- Lance
Dodes, Gail Sheehy, Philip Zimbardo, Rosemary Sword & James
Gilligan (Newsweek) - The most dangerous man in
the world (Excerpts from The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump)
- John
Gartner - Donald Trump is bad, mad, and getting worse. He evinces the
most destructive and dangerous collection of psychiatric symptoms
possible for a leader (From The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump)
- Robert
Jay Lifton & Bill Moyers (billmoyers.com) - Psychiatrists and
mental health experts have a duty to warn that
the president is dangerously unfit (On The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump).
Trump is the most dangerous person in the world because of
his solipsism – amplified by malignant normality:
the impunity with which he can violate the norms of
civil society – in combination with his finger on
the nuclear trigger
- Robert
Jay Lifton (Dissent) - Trump's assault on reality: A major segment of
our society now ignores or defies the principles of reason, evidence,
and shared knowledge that are required for the function of a democracy
- Thomas
Singer - America's narcissism and wounded collective self.
On the 2016 presidential election,
American culture, and the soul of America
- Bandy
Lee (editor) - The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27
Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President (pdf)
- Bandy
Lee, Edwin Fisher, Leonard Glass, James Merikangas & James
Gilligan - Mental health analysis of president Trump based on the
Mueller report
- Bandy
Lee, Leonard Glass & Edwin Fisher (Boston Globe) - Looking at the
Mueller report from a mental health perspective
- Bandy
Lee & Chauncey DeVega (Salon) - Leading mental health experts
study the Mueller report: Trump can no longer see reality. He is
mentally unfit for the presidency, delusional and destructive, an
imminent threat to the United States and the world, and should have
his powers severely restricted. Having passed a point of no return,
the delusion is normalized as institutional complicity with a
destructive presidency. The greatest sign of danger is the failure to
treat Trump as a national and global emergency
- Bandy
Lee (MedPage Today) - Normalizing a dangerous and mentally sick
president is a formula for tyranny. How the American Psychiatric
Association sickened America
- Peter
Wehner (The Atlantic) - Trump's personality disorder: Our democratic
duty is to prevent a psychologically and morally unfit person from
becoming president
- House
bill - Mandating a procedure for medically and psychiatrically
evaluating a president who is suspected of being incapacitated to a
degree that would require removal under the 25th Amendment
- House
bill - Restricting the first-use of nuclear weapons
- Steven
Hassan (Daily Beast) - Alarming parallels between Donald Trump and a
murderous cult leader
- Tom
Nichols (USA Today) - As America tops 4 million COVID cases, the cult
of Donald Trump has become a death cult
- Chris
Hedges (Truthdig) - The cult of Trump. If we fail to confront the cult
leader and his origin – the corporate state responsible for our failed
democracy – we will continue the march toward tyranny
- Janja
Lalich & Tom Jacobs (Pacific Standard) - A cult expert finds
cult-like behavior in Trump's Republican party: strict enforcement of
total loyalty to a charismatic but volatile leader
- Bandy
Lee & Tanya Lewis (Scientific American) - The "shared psychosis"
of Donald Trump and his loyalists. How to wean people from his
pathological appeal
- Alexander
Hurst (New Republic) - Escape from the Trump cult
- Margaret
Thaler Singer (Psychology Today) - Coming out of the cults
- Flo Conway
& Jim Siegelman - Challenge cult members with questions
- Steven
Hassan - Combatting Cult Mind Control (pdf)
Every sane person would agree that a child
should not have access to an assault weapon. Nor anyone with
mental health issues. So isn't it utterly irresponsible
to give this mad and bad child-president sole authority over
the launch of America's nuclear arsenal?
"A cult is a mirror of what is inside the cult leader." - Margaret
Thaler Singer, Cults in Our Midst
"Real power is... fear." - Donald Trump (In Bob Woodward, Fear:
Trump in the White House)
Free speech and a free press – president Trump attacks the free press as
"the enemy of the people" to discredit, intimidate and silence his critics
(increasingly threatening them with violence and incarceration)
- Bernie
Sanders (In These Times) - How corporate media threatens our
democracy. This is a crisis we can no longer afford to ignore
- George
Monbiot (The Guardian) - Frightened by Donald Trump? Wait until you
hear about the corporate misinformation network
- David
Bornstein & Tina Rosenberg (New York Times) - A plea for
media reform to also report good news:
The best defense against the fear-mongering of
the demagogue is to report on the decency, competence and
courage of people determined to fix their society
- Francine
Prose (The Guardian) - A top White House official told the media to
"keep its mouth shut". That's a threat
- David
Remnick (New Yorker) - Donald Trump and the enemies of the American
people
- Committee
to Protect Journalists - CPJ chairman says Trump is threat to press
freedom | Report
| Update
| Report
- BBC -
"Enemies of the people": Trump remark echoes history's worst tyrants
- Amanda
Erickson (Washington Post) - Trump called the news media an "enemy of
the American People". Here's a history of the term
- Andrew
Higgins (New York Times) - Trump embraces "Enemy of the People". A
phrase with a venomous past now rattles American politics
- Roy
Peter Clark (Poynter) - "An Enemy of the People." In Trump's
anti-press rhetoric, a dark echo from the past
- David
Andelman (USA Today) - Trump's Big Lie imperils the republic:
Demonizing independent media and canonizing propagandists is the
hallmark of autocracies
- Arthur
Gregg Sulzberger (New York Times) - President Trump's anti-press
rhetoric is divisive and increasingly dangerous. Labeling journalists
"the enemy of the people" undermines democracy, erodes free speech and
a free press, and will lead to violence | David
Remnick (New Yorker) - Trump vs. the Times: inside an off-the-record
meeting
- Arthur
Gregg Sulzberger (New York Times) - Trump's dangerous anti-press
rhetoric is inspiring autocratic leaders abroad
- U.S.
Senate resolution - The Senate unanimously "affirms that the press is
not the enemy of the people"; "reaffirms the vital and indispensable
role that the free press serves to inform the electorate, uncover the
truth, act as a check on the inherent power of the government, further
national discourse and debate, and otherwise advance the most basic
and cherished democratic norms and freedoms of the United States"; and
"condemns the attacks on the institution of the free press and views
efforts to systematically undermine the credibility of the press as an
attack on the democratic institutions of the United States"
- Bob
Salsberg (Boston Globe) - Trump's dirty war against the free press.
The Globe rallies newspapers to protect the free press from Trump's
attacks: We are not the enemy of the people. An attack on the First
Amendment is unacceptable. We are a free and independent press, it is
one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution |
Boston
Globe editorial
- New
York Times - America's newspapers join in an affirmation of the
fundamental institution of the free press. Being increasingly under
attack, the free press and the public are in it together
- The
Guardian - Speaking truth to power: The Guardian stands with the US
press in its efforts to maintain the objectivity and the moral
boundaries that president Trump is doing so much to destroy
- David
Remnick (New Yorker) - Trump and the enemies of the people. The
language of Stalinism has always come at a cost. During the Stalinist
repression everyone lived in fear, and millions were shot or banished
to the Gulag. Trump's assault on the press as enemies of the people –
and our refusal to bend to it – is essential to the future of American
democracy and people everywhere
- Emma
Goldman - Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People | Full
text
- Albert
Hunt (Bloomberg) - No Mr. Trump, the press is only the enemy of lies
- Marvin
Kalb (The Hill) - Trump's authoritarian threat to freedom of the press
- Klaus
Brinkbäumer (Der Spiegel) - Trump, Erdogan and the assault on the free
press
- Thomas
Edsall (New York Times) - Donald Trump would like freedom from the
press
- Robert Reich -
Trump's two-step strategy to take over the truth
- Los
Angeles Times - Trump's war on journalism
- James
Fallows (The Atlantic) - Donald Trump's attacks on the free press
undermine the public's capacity to think, act, and defend democracy
- David
Zurawik (Baltimore Sun) - The more Trump attacks, the more popular
culture articulates and celebrates the role of the free press
- Bret
Stephens (Time) - Trump's attacks on the media signal: Truth is what
he can get away with. – Maintaining intellectual integrity in the age
of Trump
- Marc
Fisher (Washington Post) - Trump borrowed his press tactics from Joe
McCarthy
- Norman
Pearlstine (Columbia Journalism Review) - The Apprentice: Donald Trump
and Joe McCarthy. Lying, bullying, and trying to stifle dissent. Like
all things Trump, it will be far bigger than the original
- Berl
Falbaum (Oakland Press) - Donald Trump's Roy Cohn connection
- John
Avlon (Daily Beast) - "The Press is the Enemy": How president Nixon's
hatred of the press led to his downfall
- Heather
Cox Richardson (Salon) - Republicans hate the media because it exposes
them as liars. The evil history of the right's war on a free press and
of Fox News' rise
- Frank
Bruni (New York Times) - The master of psychological projection toys
with "treasonous". Trump divines in others what's so deeply embedded
in himself
- Jeff
Flake - The president has it precisely backward: The free press is the
guardian of democracy. Despotism is
the enemy of the people. The president's
attacks on truth are moral vandalism, which we can no longer
compound with our silent acquiescence
(speech to the Senate)
- Ruth
Ben-Ghiat (NBC News) - Being Trump's mouthpiece is risky for Fox News
– and democracy. As a sycophantic echo chamber it's like state media
in strongman regimes
- Jane
Mayer (New Yorker) - The making of the Fox News White House. Fox News
has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?
- Lee
Bollinger (Columbia Journalism Review) - Can the First Amendment save
us? Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are in peril. And with
that the ethos of tolerance and the power of reasoned debate
- Lee
Bollinger - Free speech is the foundation for a fearless and robust
debate. It protects against suppression of unpopular and dissenting
voices, victimization of vulnerable groups, attacks on the media, and
the rise of demagoguery, with its disdain for facts, reason,
expertise, and tolerance
- David
Cole (The Nation) - Donald Trump vs. the First Amendment. Confronted
with an abusive president, and a failure of the separation of powers,
citizens can find rescue in their extra check – enshrined in the First
Amendment – to criticize those in power
- New
York Times - The uninhibited press, 50 years later (Supreme Court
decision on New York Times v. Sullivan)
- Marty
Baron & Indira Lakshmanan (Poynter) - Trust in media: Fair and
honest reporting will be validated over the long run
- Christiane
Amanpour (CNN) - Being truthful: Journalism faces an existential
crisis in Trump era
- Mark
Thompson (New York Times) - It's a battle between facts and lies: If
you're worried about fake news, pay for quality journalism
- Lucia
Graves (Pacific Standard) - How Trump weaponized "fake news" for his
own political ends. It has become one more way for the president to
distort truth. But his worst use of "fake news" is to discredit the
institution of the press, that exists as a check on power
- Dan
Mangan (CNBC) - President Trump told Lesley Stahl of CBS "60 Minutes"
that he bashes the press "to discredit you all and demean you all so
that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you"
- Connie
Schultz (Creators Syndicate) - Trump hates journalists because we are
constitutionally empowered to expose threats to democracy
- Jonas
Kaiser (Nieman) - From both-sides journalism toward journalism
fortified against a large-scale anti-democratic disinformation
campaign | Geneva
Overholser - Death to bothsidesism
- John
Avlon (Daily Beast) - Trump's war on the media is a war on the truth,
as the president and his surrogates attack the institutions that work
to hold him accountable.
– How we can fight it
"This is a dangerous time to tell the
truth in America. But are we supposed to let the bully beat us up at the
playground every day?" – "The job of the press is to hold power to
account. Don't give in to the lies, don't give in to the fear. Hold on
to the truth, and to hope. Never bow down to a tyrant." - Jim Acosta
George Orwell's 1984
Facts, lies and bullying
- PolitiFact
file on Donald Trump
- FactCheck.org
on Donald Trump
- Washington
Post fact checker on Donald Trump | Update
- New
York Times - Trump's lies
- Daniel
Dale (CNN) - Donald Trump's campaign of relentless lying
- New
York Times list of the insults Donald Trump made on Twitter
- The
Guardian - How does Donald Trump lie? A fact checker's final guide
- David
Graham (The Atlantic) - When the president says it, that means it's
true
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - Trump insists he is the sole arbiter of
truth
- Aaron
Blake (Washington Post) - Twenty-three bizarre conspiracy theories
Trump has elevated
- Charlotte
Alter (Time) - How conspiracy theories are shaping the 2020 election
and shaking the foundation of American democracy
- Chris
Cuomo (CNN) - Exposing the truth behind Trump's claims of "genius": He
brings out the devil in us (video)
- Lauren
Duca (Teen Vogue) - Donald Trump is gaslighting America. He relies on
deceit to undermine the truth so his critics would question their own
judgment | More
- Lee
McIntyre (New Statesman) - Why Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin lie.
Post-truth is not merely about lying and fake news, nor even
about disinformation, spin doctoring, or propaganda. Post-truth
is the first step towards authoritarian rule
- Chris
Hedges (Truthdig) - The permanent lie, our deadliest threat
- Union
of Concerned Scientists - Sidelining Science Since Day One
| The
State of Science in the Trump Era
- Stephen
Collinson (CNN) - Trump's assault on reason, facts and science
continues – as unprecedented wildfires, hurricanes and a
once-in-a-century pandemic rage
- Andrew
Sullivan (New York Magazine) - Die große Lüge works: Trump is making
us all live in his delusional reality show. The press is the only
viable opposition to the Trump cult, helping us live within the truth
to oppose an alienating totalitarian system
- Robert
Jay Lifton (Dissent) - Trump's assault on reality: A major segment of
our society now ignores or defies the principles of reason, evidence,
and shared knowledge that are required for the function of a democracy
| Eight
criteria for thought reform, brainwashing and mind control | Thought
Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (pdf)
- Joost
Meerloo - The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought
Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing (pdf)
- Václav
Havel - The Power of the Powerless | "Living within the truth" | Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn - Live not by lies | Manifesto
of Charter 77
- Peter
Wehner (The Atlantic) - Trump's sinister assault on truth. The
president appears committed to destroying the very idea of facts
- Garry
Kasparov (CNN) - Soviet echoes in Trump's America. The utter denial of
reality must be overcome by everyone facing the facts
- Michael
Hayden (New York Times) - Now we need truth-telling to save America
from ourselves (From The Assault on Intelligence:
American National Security in
an Age of Lies)
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - The intelligence chiefs' report strikes a
blow for truth in the Age of Trump | Steve
Benen (NBC News) - Trump reacts with gaslighting
- Sean
Illing (Vox) - A new form of propaganda pioneered by Putin, ushers in
an age of manufactured nihilism in America. For Trump the real
opposition is the media. By overwhelming the media with
misinformation, Trump destroys the idea of a shared truth, and thus
disrupts our democratic process – in order to create the fake need for
himself as a strong leader
- Margaret
Sullivan (Washington Post) - The need for media literacy.
Authoritarianism loves nothing more than a know-nothing vacuum: people
who accept that they can't tell facts from lies. Americans must again
rise to the great task to defend our democracy. We must go beyond our
echo chambers and be news consumers who stay informed and act
accordingly
The know-nothing flip-flop president
"Make America great again" is used as dog-whistle politics: a big tent
salesman trick to trigger nostalgia among
the general population, with a built-in coded message
for racists of fear, rancor, hate, scapegoating, dehumanization,
demonization, intolerance, divisiveness, inequality, exclusion, dominance,
authoritarianism, ruthlessness, violence, destruction, and undoing
civil rights Trump as the ultimate con artist
essentially suggests "I am the American Dream",
making the megalomanic prophecy
"I am the only one who can
make America truly great again"
- Jim
Wallis (Sojourners) - Studying racism as an act of reconciliation and
resistance in the Trump era
- Ian
Haney Lopez (The Nation) - This is how Trump convinces his supporters
they're not racist
- Ian
Haney Lopez (billmoyers.com) - Strategic racism: the cold calculation
of expressing racially loaded ideas in coded terms
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - Trump's demagoguery is the culmination of the
decades-long politics of exploiting racism, bigotry, hatred, and fear
- Heather
Cox Richardson (Salon) - Republican party is hell-bent on tearing us
apart: Its decades-long Southern strategy to win by divisiveness now
leads to president Donald Trump
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - It didn't start with Trump: Since the 1950s the
GOP went crazy (Adapted from American Psychosis: A Historical
Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy)
- Peter
Wehner (The Atlantic) - Trump's words are poison. The president has
done more than any politician in living memory to fan the flames of
ethnic and racial antipathy and nurture a culture of bigotry
- Sasha
Abramsky (The Nation) - How Trump has normalized the unspeakable. He
has legitimized bigotry and given the imprimatur of a major political
party to criminal violence (From Jumping at Shadows: The Triumph
of Fear and the End of the American Dream)
- Bill Moyers &
Michael Winship (billmoyers.com) - NRA issues call for white supremacy
and armed insurrection
- Eric
Foner & Jon Wiener (The Nation) - White nationalists,
neo-Confederates, and Donald Trump
- Mitch
Landrieu - New Orleans mayor on removing Confederate monuments: They
stood for the lost cause of maintaining slavery and white supremacy.
We are one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all
- Steve
Phillips (New York Times) - Trump wants to make America white again
- Nicholas
Kristof (New York Times) - Is Donald Trump a racist?
- Adam
Shatz (London Review of Books) - Wrecking ball as Trump encourages
racism
- Sarah
Kendzior (Globe and Mail) - There is only one right side to racism,
and Trump is not on it
- David
Leonhardt & Ian Prasad Philbrick (New York Times) - Donald Trump's
racism: the definitive list
- Marjorie
Cohn (Consortium News) - Trump's blindness toward the grotesque evils
of slavery and Jim Crow
- Vann
Newkirk (The Atlantic) - Voter suppression is the new old normal:
massive purges of people of color
- Ian
Samuel (The Guardian) - Rigging the vote: How the American right is on
the way to permanent minority rule
- Thom
Hartmann (Raw Story) - A breathtaking scam: inside Georgia's newest
voter suppression tactic
- Greg Palast - Vigilantes
Inc.: America's New Vote Suppression Hitmen (video)
- Carol
Anderson (Time) - Republicans want a white republic. They'll destroy
America to get it
- Victor
Ray (Newsweek) - Trump coalition threatens a return to the Jim Crow
era
- Tara
Setmayer & Nate Nesbitt (CNN) - Republican party's pandering to
racism has to stop
- Ishaan
Tharoor (Washington Post) - Trump's racism cements his party's place
among the West's far right
- Paul
Mason (New Statesman) - Donald Trump's attacks on congresswoman Ilhan
Omar show fascism is coming to the US. With his deportation rhetoric
against citizens of color, the president is making his most overt
attempt yet to mobilize votes using deep white supremacism
- Ruth
Ben-Ghiat (GQ) - "Send her back" and the advancement of Trump's
authoritarian playbook. Leader-follower relationships and the fascist
purpose in targeting congresswoman Ilhan Omar at Trump's rally
- Baltimore
Sun - A bigoted president. Reacting to congressman Elijah Cummings'
criticism of his border policy, Trump dehumanizes the representative's
Baltimore district using racist tropes: "a disgusting, rat and rodent
infested mess" where "no human being would want to live"
- Ben
Zimmer (Politico) - What Trump talks about when he talks about
infestations. The frightening political history of the word "infest"
- Charles
Blow (New York Times) - The rot you smell is a racist president. Trump
and his views are the real infestations in America
- Brian
Naylor (NPR) - Obama urges Americans to reject language that "feeds a
climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments"
- Andreas
Musolff - Excerpts from Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust: The
Concept of the Body Politic (pdf)
- James
Whitman (Aeon) - Why the Nazis studied American race laws for
inspiration: a belief that what made America great was American racism
(From Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making
of Nazi Race Law)
- Seema
Mehta (Los Angeles Times) - Trump's touting of "racehorse theory" tied
to eugenics and the Nazis' final solution
- Jonathan
Kahn, Marcy Darnovsky & Jonathan Marks (Center for Genetics and
Society) - Trump's "racehorse theory" is a racist call to cull the
weak and vulnerable so that the strong can thrive
- Steven
Rosenfeld (Common Dreams) - Trump is copying Hitler's early rhetoric
and policies (On Burt Neuborne's When at Times the Mob Is Swayed:
A Citizen's Guide to Defending Our Republic)
- Jeffrey
Goldberg (The Atlantic) - He's getting worse. Trump is turning the
American presidency into a platform for the wholesale demonization of
minorities, with tacit approval to the use of violence against
immigrants
- Jeremy
Peters et al. (New York Times) - A white supremacist echo chamber: How
the El Paso killer echoed the incendiary words of conservative media
stars
- Masha
Gessen (New Yorker) - Donald Trump's war on reality. Elected on the
demonization of immigrants, Trump is mobilizing Americans for a war
against immigrants as the existential enemy. He has reframed America –
stripping it of its ideals – from a nation of immigrants into a nation
of a supreme ruler with concentration camps
- Martin
Niemöller - First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak
out...
- Sarah
Kendzior (De Correspondent) - A free press should document how the
Trump campaign has mainstreamed bigotry and white supremacist violence
- Paul
Waldman (Washington Post) - Welcome to the Fox News presidency. It's
one entity pursuing a common set of goals. The message is anger,
resentment and fear. Politics isn't a search for solutions to
problems. We are in a battle between darkness and light – Fox tells
its audience, and Trump tells his base – what makes America great is
either endangered or has been lost
- Edward
Luce (Financial Times) - Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump and the politics
of resentment
- Claire
Boost - Social media constitute the greatest propaganda machine in
history. Spreading conspiracy theories incites hatred, violence and
genocide. "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you
commit atrocities"
- Allan
Thompson (editor) - The Media and the Rwanda Genocide
- Michael
Higginbotham (Baltimore Sun) - Voting Trump is a big risk. "Making
America great again" could set civil rights back 50 years – to a time
when blacks were separated, discriminated against, and lynched with
impunity
- Henry Louis
Gates (Time) - How the Reconstruction after the Civil War still shapes
American racism and the resistance to it (Adapted from Stony the
Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow)
- Adam
Gopnik (New Yorker) - How the South won the Civil War. During
Reconstruction true citizenship finally seemed in reach for black
Americans. Then their dreams were dismantled (On Henry Louis Gates' Stony
the Road)
- Martin
Luther King - Letter from Birmingham jail | I
have a dream
- Michael
Eric Dyson & Norman Stockwell (The Progressive) - Interview on Tears
We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America
- Ibram
Kendi (The Conversation) - Uncovering the roots of racist ideas in
America | Transcending
racism following Martin Luther King
- Sarah
Kendzior (Globe and Mail) - A fascist's win, America's moral loss.
Electing a cruel, vengeful bigot puts white supremacy center stage.
Let's continue to fight for freedom for all
- Michael
Kimmel (Chatham House) - Trump's angry white men: feeling entitlement
and victimization (From Angry White Men: American Masculinity at
the End of an Era)
- Jessica
Valenti (The Guardian) - How do I tell my daughter that America
elected a racist, sexist bully?
- Jill
Filipovic (Cosmopolitan) - How America failed women. Donald Trump's
victory is a huge insult to women by white male America
- Richard
Wolffe (The Guardian) - Trump's war on women may well be successful in
a Supreme Court he is now shaping for
the next generation. Overturning
the abortion rights of Roe v. Wade
- Bill
Moyers & Michael Winship (billmoyers.com) - Trump, his virus and
the dark age of unreason – the most dangerous demagogue in American
history
- James
Risen & Tom Risen (New York Times) - Donald Trump's politics of
fear follows the playbook of McCarthyism. His demagoguery
and constant lies trigger a wave of paranoia and
fearmongering
- Fareed
Zakaria (Washington Post) - The Republican party has become the party
of Joseph McCarthy – the party of conspiracy theories, fake news,
false accusations and paranoid fantasies, tinged with racism, bigotry
and anti-Semitism. Until that cancer is excised, Republicans should
not be entrusted with power
- Sasha
Abramsky & Mark Karlin (Truthout) - How a culture of fear helped
propel Trump into the White House (On Jumping at Shadows)
- Molly
Ball (The Atlantic) - Donald Trump and the politics of fear
- Alex Altman
(Time) - No president has spread fear like Donald Trump
- Bernard
Weisberger (American Heritage) - A nation of immigrants
- John
F. Kennedy - A Nation of Immigrants (pdf)
- Julie
Hirschfeld Davis & Peter Baker (New York Times) - Build a wall:
How the border wall is boxing Trump in
- Derek
Flood (Sojourners) - The dangerous rise of American authoritarianism
- Robert
Reich (American Prospect) - It's the divide-and-conquer strategy of a
tyrant: Trump makes it all about himself, continually stoking racism
and xenophobia
- Henry
Giroux (The Conversation) - Trump's fascist efforts to demolish
democracy: the need for an informed citizenry
- Federico
Finchelstein (Washington Post) - Idolizing the leader is key to
fascism. Trump uses racism, a pseudo-religious cult of personality, a
myth about a golden past where one ethnic group ruled uncontested over
the others, and mass media-based propaganda – to insulate himself from
criticism and accountability, and to motivate his followers to
persecute and even exterminate others in service of the leader
- Daniel
José Camacho (The Guardian) - The justice department cites scripture
historically used to justify slavery and to block the civil rights
movement, to invoke submission to authority. – But when the government
snatches children, it's biblical to resist the law
- Sarah
Posner (New Republic) - Amazing disgrace: How Donald Trump hijacked
the religious right
- James
Carroll (New Yorker) - What the Bible really says about Trump's
zero-tolerance immigration policy. Immigrants are America's scapegoat
- Jim
Wallis & Neil Steinberg (Chicago Sun Times) - Trump appeals to our
worst demons. He's deliberately dividing our country. How can
followers of Jesus support Trump when he is contrary to everything
Jesus said and did? (On Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim
Jesus)
- David
Cay Johnston (DCReport) - Trump is a religious fraud and a master
deceiver: How can any Christian support a man who detests Christianity
and embraces revenge as his only life philosophy?
- Katherine
Stewart (New York Times) - Why Trump reigns as biblical king Cyrus:
Christian right sees anti-Christian despot as ideal leader for
paranoid times
- John
Feffer (TomDispatch) - Trump the arsonist and his apocalyptic
paranoia: evangelical prophecy, anti-globalist survivalism, and
alt-right racist conspiracies
- Chris
Hedges (Truthdig) - Trump and the Christian fascists (On American
Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America)
- Chris
Hedges (Truthdig) - Onward, Christian fascists. Trump's legacy will be
their empowerment
- Marlene
Winnell (Alternet) - Trump's worldview mirrors the most archaic and
apocalyptic of Christian beliefs
- Betsy
Hartmann - Excerpt from The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War,
and Our Call to Greatness
- Kevin
Kruse (New York Times) - How corporate America invented a "Christian
nation": a propaganda campaign following
the Great Depression to cast capitalism as
the handmaiden of Christianity (On One Nation Under God:
How Corporate America Invented Christian America)
| Interview
- Katherine
Stewart (New Republic) - Leonard
Leo, plutocratic-theocratic power broker:
How the Federalist Society forges an alliance between corporate
America and Christian nationalism to stack the Supreme Court against
American democracy (On The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous
Rise of Religious Nationalism)
- Jeff
Sharlet - The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of
American Power (pdf)
- Sarah
Churchwell (The Guardian) - Excerpt from Behold, America: A
History of America First and the American Dream
- Casey
Michel (People For the American Way) - The rise of the "Traditionalist
International": How the American right learned to love Moscow in the
era of Trump
- E.J.
Dionne (Washington Post) - Russia and the far right's cozy affair.
Russia is creating a new Reactionary International around nationalism,
a critique of modernity, and a disdain for liberal democracy. It tries
to wreck the Western alliance and the European Union by undermining a
shared commitment to democracy, pluralism and tolerance
A pawn in Russia's hybrid warfare – to disinform, to divide society, to
undermine democracy, and thus to destabilize the US, the EU,
NATO, and the UN Putin's mafia state
and Trump are fighting a joint war against freedom and democracy
- Center
for American Progress - Moscow on the Potomac. Trump's worrisome ties
to Russia
- Max
Bergmann & Carolyn Kenney (Center for American Progress) - War by
other means: Russia's weaponization of information
- Massimo
Calabresi (Time) - Inside Russia's social media war on America. Its
information war against global democracy achieved its prime objective:
undermining the credibility of American democracy. The best way to
compete requires truth telling and critical thinking
- Peter
Pomerantsev (The Atlantic) - Russia and the menace of unreality. How
Vladimir Putin is revolutionizing information warfare | Surkov
- Kathleen
Hall Jamieson (Daily Beast) - Russia's cyberattacks aren't meddling –
they're acts of war (Excerpt from Cyberwar: How
Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President)
- David
Remnick (New Yorker) - Trump, Putin, and the Big Hack
- Anne
Applebaum (Washington Post) - Stop obsessing over "secrets" about
Trump and Russia. What we already know is bad enough | More
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - A veteran spy has given the FBI information
alleging a Russian operation to cultivate Donald Trump, to encourage
divisions in western alliance | More
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - The Trump-Russia conspiracy: looking to collude
with a foreign power to gain an advantage in the election
- VARA Zembla -
The dubious friends of Donald Trump: a racketeering conspiracy with
the Russian mafia (video)
- Bob
Dreyfuss & Diana Pilipenko (The Nation) - Moscow's potential
kompromat: Does Russia have leverage over Trump?
- Diana
Pilipenko (Center for American Progress) - Cracking the shell: Trump
and the corrupting potential of furtive Russian money
- Diana
Pilipenko & Talia Dessel (Center for American Progress) -
Following the money: Trump and Russia-linked transactions from the
campaign to the presidential inauguration
- Craig
Unger (New Republic) - Trump went to Russia in 1987, is that when the
real estate tycoon became compromised by the KGB? (From House of
Trump, House of Putin) | Trump's
business empire as a money laundering machine for the Russian mafia
state
- Luke
Harding - The hidden history of Trump's first trip to Moscow (Excerpt
from Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia
Helped Donald Trump Win)
- Craig
Unger & Sean Illing (Vox) - One of the greatest intelligence
operations in history: Trump's ties to the Russian mafia go back three
decades
- Craig
Unger - House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald
Trump and the Russian Mafia (pdf)
- Michael
Hirsh (Foreign Policy) - How Russian money helped save Trump's
business
- Franklin
Foer (Slate) - Putin's puppet. If the Russian president could design a
candidate to undermine American interests – and advance his own – he'd
look a lot like Donald Trump
- Paul
Waldman (American Prospect) - Trump's always been a con artist. But
now he's the sucker
- Richard
North Patterson (Boston Globe) - Was Trump Putin's fool or his partner
in crime?
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - Will Trump be meeting with his counterpart
– or his handler? A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion |
More
- Thomas
Friedman (New York Times) - Our democracy is in serious danger.
President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians, a
towering fool, or both. He fails to defend America against the Russian
attack on our democracy. Instead this chaos president actively
undermines our democratic institutions
- The
Economist - Russia's election interference, president Trump's failure
to defend American democracy, exacerbated by his systematic breaking
of democratic norms – Undermining American democracy is the new normal
- George
Soros (Project Syndicate) - These times are not business as usual.
Wishing you the best in a troubled world
- Anne
Applebaum (Washington Post) - For the U.S.-European alliance,
everything has changed. Trump prefers dictators over America's
longtime democratic allies
- Stephen
Walt (Foreign Policy) - Trump isn't sure if democracy is better than
autocracy
- Julian
Barnes & Helene Cooper (New York Times) - As Russia works to
weaken NATO, Trump threatens U.S. withdrawal from alliance
- Tom
Nichols (The Atlantic) - Trump depicts NATO as a protection racket in
which America's allies pay up or else he'd encourage Russia to invade
them
- Lawrence
Martin (Globe and Mail) - Whose team are you playing for, Mr. Trump?
- Marshall
Cohen (CNN) - 37 times Trump was soft on Russia and gave its
authoritarian leader Putin a boost, rejecting US foreign policy views
and aligning himself with the Kremlin
- Craig
Unger (New Republic) - Putin lost perhaps the most valuable asset the
Soviet Union or Russia had ever had – a president of the United States
who spent four decades trying to implement one and only one overriding
foreign policy goal: Destroy NATO
- Jennifer
Rubin (Washington Post) - Lesson from the Ukraine crisis, after
Trump's four year propaganda campaign on behalf of Putin: Defend
democracies and don't appease dictators
- Thomas
Higgins (Mercury News) - As Russia threatens a large scale invasion of
Ukraine, Trump and his enablers need to choose which side they are on.
Americans must stand for freedom and against its enemies. Yet Trump
consistently takes the Russian side
- Ryan
Bort (Rolling Stone) - Trump praises "genius" Putin as Russia invades
Ukraine. As the world watches in terror, the former president is
cheering on the autocrat's "peace force" of "army tanks"
- Fiona
Hill & Maura Reynolds (Politico) - Ukraine has become the
frontline in a struggle between democracies and autocracies. Putin has
blown up the entire rules-based world order and asserts "might makes
right". His information war succeeded to recruit Trump for Russia. We
are in the middle of a third World War, wherein Putin is likely to use
nuclear weapons
- Robin
Wright (New Yorker) - Putin is playing a game of nuclear brinkmanship
| Backgrounder
- Dmitry
Glukhovsky (Novaya Gazeta) - Now we know: Russia's horrific past could
become our future under Putin
- Peter
Pomerantsev (Time) - Putin's Ukraine obsession as family dynamics.
Glorifying the state while abusing its people. Russia's propaganda
machine cultivates a love/fear relationship with an
authoritarian/abusive father figure. While humiliations are sublimated
onto minorities and evil foreigners. – It is high time to discuss the
Russian unconscious among Russians themselves
- Timothy
Snyder (Boston Globe) - Replace a neighboring democracy with his own
foreign tyranny in the name of "denazification". Putin's Big Lie and
other Hitler-like tricks and tactics in Ukraine. The glorification of
violence and the disregard for law is central to the history of
fascism. Taking law seriously and preventing senseless war was
supposed to be the lesson learned from World War II. Denazification
should really begin at home Mr. Putin
- Katie
Stallard (New Statesman) - Putin's "denazification" fantasy is a
grotesque attempt to justify an unjustifiable war on Ukraine. It is an
unprovoked war of aggression. The greatest threat to Russia is Putin
himself
- Rafael
Behr (The Guardian) - Putin's "holy war" is terrorizing Ukraine – and
Russian dissenters. A genocidal war against Ukraine, and totalitarian
propaganda against the Russian people, as an all-out assault on facts,
evidence and reality. Instead of fighting corruption, Putin chooses to
be the capo dei capi of the Russian mafia state
- Timothy
Snyder (NY Review of Books) - Ivan Ilyin, Putin's philosopher of
Russian fascism. Creepy propaganda of Russia's mafia state to overcome
Evil with lawlessness and mass murder. This is no longer just Russian
philosophy. It has become real life, also in America
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Putinism is breeding in the heart of the
Republican party. Putin's authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself
in America. The cold war has come home
- David
Rothkopf (Daily Beast) - A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin – and a
world in danger
- Robert Reich -
Europe's view of Trump
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Without the Russians, Trump wouldn't have won
the election
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - The evidence doesn't prove collusion. But it
sure suggests it
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian
asset
- Jim
VandeHei & Mike Allen (Axios) - The biggest political scandal in
American history
- Garrett
Graff (Wired) - A complete guide to all 17 (known) Trump and Russia
investigations
- Adam
Goldman, Michael Schmidt & Nicholas Fandos (New York Times) - FBI
investigated if Trump secretly worked for Russia | More
- Timothy
Snyder - Untangling an unprecedented spy scandal: FBI
counterintelligence chief McGonigal and Trump 2016 campaign manager
Manafort deeply involved in Russian influence operation to elect Trump
as president
- Craig
Unger (New Republic) - FBI New York office as Trumpland: Why the FBI
knew that the Russians owned Trump, but failed to act
- Luke
Harding, Julian Borger & Dan Sabbagh (The Guardian) - Kremlin
papers appear to show Putin's plot to put Trump in White House
- Malcolm
Nance - The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies
Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West (pdf)
- Max
Bergmann, Jeremy Venook & the Moscow Project Team (Center for
American Progress) - Conspiracy against the United States: the story
of Trump and Russia
- Intelligence
community report on Russian interference in US election | Senate
reports on Russian IRA social media campaign – aligned with
Trump election campaign – of disinformation, manipulation,
polarization and voter suppression:
(1) Computational Propaganda | (2) New Knowledge
| Senate
intelligence committee bipartisan report on Russian active measures
campaigns and interference in 2016 U.S. election: (1) Russian efforts
against election infrastructure | (2)
Russia's use of social media | (5)
Counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities | Indictments:
(1) IRA | (2) GRU DNC hack
| Democratic
party lawsuit on Trump-Russia conspiracy | Intelligence
community assessment on foreign threats to the 2020 US federal
elections | UK
Commons report on disinformation and "fake news" by Facebook, Russia
and Cambridge Analytica | Intelligence
and Security Committee of Parliament (UK Commons) - Russia report
| Tim
Kendall - Facebook "took a page from Big Tobacco's playbook" to make
website "addictive", laying "the groundwork for a teenage mental
health crisis", "raising the voices of division, anger, hate and
misinformation" and "pushing ourselves to the brink of a civil war"
(House testimony)
- Mueller
report (misleading and partisan summary by AG Barr) - Russia
criminally interfered in the presidential election to elect Donald
Trump. Extensive contacts of the Trump campaign with Russia did not
rise to the level of criminal conspiracy. Criminal obstruction of
justice by the president could not be established, but neither was he
exonerated. The attorney general decides to not charge the president
with a crime
- Senate
judiciary committee hearing (C-Span) - Senator Kamala Harris questions
attorney general William Barr on DOJ independence (video)
- Mueller report
(published version as redacted/censored by AG Barr) - Russia
criminally interfered in the 2016 presidential election to benefit
Donald Trump. The Trump campaign welcomed and encouraged the help of
the foreign adversary. Once elected, Trump arranged a massive cover-up
and repeatedly tried to obstruct the investigation into Russian
interference. The report portrays a culture of lying, corruption and
criminality. Extensive contacts of the Trump campaign with Russia did
not however rise to the level of criminal conspiracy. Criminal
obstruction of justice by the president could not be established, but
neither was he exonerated. The president falsely claims that he is
exonerated by the report. The fact is that Trump would have been
indicted, were it not that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
Moreover, there are 14 spinoff investigations still ongoing. Mueller
essentially suggests that his criminal investigation should be
referred to Congress as a political investigation, inviting Congress
to start impeachment proceedings for conspiracy, obstruction of
justice, and abuse of power. The president is not above the law. An
impeachment referral requires a lower burden of proof than a criminal
indictment. Unanswered questions: Does Russia have kompromat? Was the
Trump campaign knowingly manipulated by Russia? Was there a quid pro
quo? Why does Trump try to cover up his Russia connection? Why does he
side with Putin? Why does he lie incessantly? Did Trump abuse his
power? Main takeaway from the Mueller report: The president is
not above the law
- Sharon
LaFraniere & Julian Barnes (New York Times) - Russia's assault on
American democracy – Paul Manafort, president Trump's campaign
chairman in 2016 created "a grave counterintelligence threat" by
working with Russian intelligence services to get Trump elected.
Manafort had earlier been deeply involved in "influence work for the
Russian government" to install a pro-Kremlin government in Ukraine.
Manafort's Ukraine dealings left him heavily indebted to Russian
intelligence services, and thus deeply compromised. Manafort also
coordinated with Russian intelligence services to promote the false,
Kremlin-backed story that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016
election. (Editor: This shifting of the blame to Ukraine allowed Trump
to blackmail Ukraine to help him get reelected in 2020, which was at
the center of Trump's first impeachment. Having thus cemented Trump's
support, Russia prepared the ground for its full-scale invasion of
Ukraine in 2022.) Altogether, Trump and his campaign aided and abetted
Russia's assault on American democracy, sought to exploit it, and
later denied or dismissed it (main takeaway from Senate intelligence
committee bipartisan report on Russian active measures campaigns and
interference in 2016 U.S. election: counterintelligence threats and
vulnerabilities) | Report
(pdf)
"Might makes right" versus international law, human rights, and
constitutional government
How corporate America bought our democracy After
campaigning against the evil bankers, Donald Trump puts Goldman Sachs in
control
- George
Monbiot (The Guardian) - Donald Trump is no outsider: He embodies our
corrupt political culture dominated by corporate money
- Pete
Tucker (Huffington Post) - Did the Kochs bring us president Trump? (On
Jane Mayer's Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires
Behind the Rise of the Radical Right)
- Jane
Mayer & Lauren Kelley (Rolling Stone) - How the Koch brothers have
changed America (On Jane Mayer's Dark Money)
- Jane
Mayer (New Yorker) - In the withdrawal from the Paris climate
agreement, the Koch brothers' campaign becomes overt
- Charles
Alexander (The Nation) - Time magazine, once a soldier for truth, may
fall casualty to the forces of greed and deception – as the Koch
brothers, long-time funders of climate denial, bid to buy this
stalwart advocate of climate action
- Carole
Cadwalladr (The Observer) - Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire
waging war on mainstream media. The rightwing US computer scientist
with links to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon is at the heart of a
multimillion-dollar propaganda network, notably Breitbart News and
Cambridge Analytica
- Carole
Cadwalladr (The Observer) - Cambridge Analytica whistleblower
Christopher Wylie on psychological warfare against the US electorate,
by the Trump campaign and its Russian co-conspirators, based on an
unprecedented hijack of Facebook data
- Carole
Cadwalladr (New York Review of Books) - Why Britain needs its own
Mueller investigation: Brexit and Trump are inextricably entwined by
Russian interference in our democracy – through Nigel Farage, Arron
Banks, Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook | Nick
Cohen (The Observer) - Why isn't there greater outrage about Russia's
involvement in Brexit?
- Jane
Mayer (New Yorker) - Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica's role in
Brexit
- Rebekah
Wilce (PR Watch) - Trump ally Sinclair moves to consolidate TV empire
- Gabriel
Sherman & Terry Gross (NPR) - Fox News and the Trump White House
are now basically one organization
- Jane
Mayer (New Yorker) - The making of the Fox News White House. Fox News
has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?
- Garrett
Graff (Wired) - Fox News threatens to transform the country into an
authoritarian cult, by its furthering of lies from foreign adversaries
and flagrant disregard for the truth
- Matt
Taibbi (Rolling Stone) - The Vampire Squid occupies Trump's White
House. After running against Goldman as a candidate, Donald Trump
licks the boots of the world's largest investment bank
- Bernie
Sanders (CNN) - Trump's budget is immoral: a massive transfer of
wealth to the very rich, while the top 0.1% already owns almost as
much wealth as the bottom 90%
- Bernie
Sanders (The Guardian) - The Republican budget is a gift to
billionaires: it's Robin Hood in reverse
- Paul
Krugman (New York Times) - Zombies of voodoo economics. It's the same
old snake oil. Why massive tax cuts for the very rich won't magically
trickle down by generating growth and jobs, but will instead explode
the federal deficit and hurt working families | More
- Seth
Hanlon (American Prospect) - How the Tax Act embodies the Republican
culture of corruption: a rushed and secretive process of showering
massive new tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy – at the expense
of working Americans – to placate campaign donors
- David
Rothkopf (Daily Beast) - Donald Trump just pulled off the greatest
long con in history
- Robert
Reich (Newsweek) - Trump is a con man: massively throwing money to the
super rich and red meat to the white working class
- Jonathan
Metzl (Vice) - Trump is a health hazard to his supporters: Why white
working-class voters continue to support Trump despite the negative
effects of his policies on their lives – at the benefit of wealthy
corporations (On Dying of Whiteness:
How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing
America's Heartland)
- Paul
Krugman (New York Times) - Trump is terrible for rural America. His
biggest supporters are his biggest victims
- Amy
Chua (Politico) - How billionaires learned to love populism. What's
behind the Trump alliance between self-dealing plutocrats and
blue-collar voters (From Political Tribes:
Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations)
- Elizabeth
Warren - Government for sale: Concentrated money and concentrated
power are corrupting our democracy
- Barry
Lynn & Phillip Longman (Washington Monthly) - Populism with a
brain: fighting against monopolies and for self-government
- Nancy
Pelosi & John Sarbanes (Washington Post) - Restore democracy: Get
dark money out of politics, clean up corruption and ensure fair
elections
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - State of disunion: Trump's hateful speech is
meant to divide and conquer, to distract from the deepening divide of
wealth and power between the many and the few
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Donald Trump tells a fake American story. We
must tell the real one of a reinvigorated democracy, free from the
crony capitalists who have corrupted America
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - There is no "right" vs. "left": It is Trump and
the oligarchs against the rest of us. We must join forces against
their divide-and-conquer strategy. We must fight for democracy and
oppose oligarchy. We must focus on ending big money in politics,
stopping corporate welfare and crony capitalism, busting up
monopolies, and stopping voter suppression
- Bernie
Sanders - Economic rights are human rights. Democratic socialism is
the way to fight against oligarchy, unfettered capitalism, xenophobia,
and authoritarianism. We must fight against corporate tyranny by
taking up the unfinished business of Roosevelt's New Deal – by
guaranteeing a decent job, healthcare, education, housing, and a clean
environment to all as a right (speech at George Washington University)
- William
Barber (The Atlantic) - A new poor people's campaign: a moral call to
face the evils of racism, poverty, militarism, and environmental
devastation
- John
Nichols (The Progressive) - Henry Wallace and the fight against
American fascism (From The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic
Party)
- Mike
Tanglis (Public Citizen) - President Trump Inc.
Impeachment Led astray by the moral void
of its president, America faces a moral crisis as a country and as a
people
- Robert
Kuttner (Huffington Post) - Impeaching Trump
- Robert Reich - Four
grounds to impeach Donald Trump
- Allan
Lichtman & Allie Conti (Vice) - How Trump's inaction on climate
change could lead to impeachment
- Laurence
Tribe (Washington Post) - Trump must be impeached for obstruction of
justice
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Obstruction of justice: The president is
flouting the law in plain sight
- Jennifer
Rubin (Washington Post) - Trump exemplifies abuse of power
- John
Shattuck (Boston Globe) - Donald Trump raises specter of treason
- Richard
North Patterson (Huffington Post) - Did Trump collude with Russia or
obstruct justice? Probably both. Just follow the facts
- Richard
North Patterson (Huffington Post) - Trump's legal defenders are
arguing for autocracy – rendering us defenseless against a president
who may have conspired with a foreign adversary to undermine our
democracy
- Norman
Eisen, Richard Painter & Laurence Tribe (Brookings) - The
emoluments clause: Its text, meaning, and application to Donald J.
Trump | Update
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - A tale of unchecked greed: Corruption, not
Russia, is Trump's greatest political liability
- Adam
Serwer (The Atlantic) - There is only one Trump scandal: It's a
massive tale of corruption of the American government by a president,
who came to office essentially promising to eliminate official
corruption
- Ezra
Klein (Vox) - Government corruption is spreading like a cancer. Donald
Trump's winning argument in 2016 is his key weakness in 2020. He's
gone from promising to drain the swamp to drowning in it
- Jill
Abramson (The Guardian) - Nepotism and corruption: the handmaidens of
Trump's presidency
- Anjali
Kamat (New Republic) - Political corruption and the Art of the Deal:
How Trump's business partnerships in India are creating conflicts of
interest in the White House and corrupting the presidency
- McKay
Coppins (The Atlantic) - "He is going to test our democracy as it has
never been tested." Why Nixon's former lawyer John Dean worries Trump
could be one of the most corrupt presidents ever – and get away with
it
- New
York Times - The Republican's guide to presidential etiquette
- Michael
Kimmel (The Cut) - Raise your son to be a good man, not a "real" man
- Charles
Blow (New York Times) - What Trump is teaching our children. Part of
the president's job is to inspire young Americans to be better
citizens. Trump is doing the opposite
- Joe
Biden (The Atlantic) - We are living through a battle for the soul of
this nation
- Annette
Gordon-Reed (New York Review of Books) - Charlottesville reminded us
why Jefferson matters: Being an American is about
holding fast to high ideals in the face of
harsh realities
- Barbara
Perry, Audie Cornish & Samantha Raphelson (NPR) - Fathers of our
country: How U.S. presidents exercised moral leadership in crisis
- Jon Meacham
(Time) - A leader should appeal to the people's best instincts. Donald
Trump appeals to the worst. – So is he the harbinger of a new dark age
of Jim Crow? Not if We the People fight for justice and
take responsibility for the government we get (On The Soul of America:
The Battle for Our Better Angels)
- Barack
Obama - What could be more American than the people coming together –
self-critical and trying to live up to our highest ideals – to shape
our country's course toward freedom? (speech on patriotism at the 50th
anniversary of the Selma march)
- Liz
Goodwin (Boston Globe) - Patriotism and dissent: a painful history of
Trump's "America, love it or leave it" argument. The project of
America is all about criticism, debate and change for the better |
Ralph
Young - Introduction to Dissent: The History of an American Idea
- Jeffrey
Goldberg (The Atlantic) - Trump: Americans who died in war are
"losers" and "suckers"
- Jeffrey
Engel (Washington Post) - Impeach the president. America's Founders
would have judged Trump unfit for office because he has no virtue. He
is a malicious and selfish man who places himself above the well-being
of the nation
- Henry
Giroux (Tikkun) - Trump and the ghosts of the past in fascist America.
He is at the forefront of fascism's war against democracy
- Mehdi
Hasan (New Statesman) - Donald Trump ushers in a new era of
kakistocracy: government by the worst people
- Sarah
Kendzior (De Correspondent) - Follow your conscience in the Age of
Trump
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - A fundamental crisis. Donald Trump is a threat
to democracy
- Hillary
Clinton (The Atlantic) - American democracy is in crisis (Adapted from
What Happened)
- Barack
Obama - Our democracy is at stake | Summoning
our better angels
- Ed
Pilkington (The Guardian) - The president is a pathological liar:
Bernie Sanders accuses Trump to lie all of the time, with the purpose
to undermine the foundations of American democracy, and to push the
nation towards authoritarianism
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Trump is the ultimate authoritarian
personality. Faced with his assault on democracy and the rule of law,
our checks and balances are so far working
- Jill
Abramson (The Guardian) - Trump's assault on the rule of law. His
lawyers essentially claim the president is above the law and has
limitless power
- John
McCain - President Trump's pardon of Joe Arpaio is contempt for the
rule of law | Cecillia
Wang (ACLU) - With his pardon of Arpaio the president has chosen
lawlessness over justice. It is a presidential endorsement of racism
- Tom
Shachtman (Daily Beast) - Our Founding Fathers feared a Trump. They
knew that if the checks and balances proved to be not strong enough to
restrain the executive, that way lay tyranny
- John
Nichols (The Nation) - Impeach Trump. As the radical resolve of Thomas
Paine to oppose tyranny led to American independence, let us now
resist this monarchical president and robber-baron Congress. Let us
celebrate independence by impeaching this mad and lawless president
- Thomas
Jefferson - Declaration of Independence
- John
Nichols (The Progressive) - The case for impeachment
- Richard
Cohen (Washington Post) - Trump is a modern-day McCarthy
- Ron
Fein (The Hill) - Trump's "treason" talk is unprecedented, un-American
- Michael
Gerson (Washington Post) - Trump is a fraud
- David
Graham (The Atlantic) - Why Trump keeps creating crises: He needs them
to bind his supporters, posing as a president for times of crisis
- Alex
Shephard (New Republic) - Trump manufactures crises to cast political
blame and to promote himself as a last resort against extreme chaos.
But he distances himself from crises he cannot control, because he is
incapable of moral leadership or accepting responsibility
- Fareed
Zakaria (Washington Post) - Manufactured emergency over border wall
leads to new period of paranoia and foolishness: Trump conjures a
crisis out of thin air and paralyzes the government – using deception
and scaremongering – to invoke warlike authority and to muzzle
opposition
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - Trump demands homeland security secretary
who will break the law
- Paul
Waldman (American Prospect) - The government shutdown – and all the
other Trump chaos – is just what we expected
- Ross
Barkan (The Guardian) - "Starving the beast": Trump's eagerness to
shut down the government reveals the Republican anti-government agenda
– make government ineffective to make Americans lose loyalty to it
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Trump is using the government as a bargaining
chip, like a dictator sacrificing democracy to his own power
- Steven
Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt (New York Times) - Autocrats love
emergencies – real or fabricated – as a means to subvert democracy
| How
Democracies Die
(pdf)
- Chris
Cillizza (CNN) - Warning against impeachment Trump uses the rhetoric
of fear: The market would crash and the American people would revolt
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - If Trump loses, we know what to expect: anger,
fear and disruption. If he is beaten in 2020 he will not leave
peacefully
- Robert Reich
(American Prospect) - A megalomaniacal president gets cornered. Will
Trump unleash the military and vigilantes against democracy?
- Ian
Buruma (Project Syndicate) - Trump's flirtation with violence. How
aspiring dictators always undermine democratic institutions to incite
mob rule
- Jeet
Heer (New Republic) - Trump's dysfunctional presidency unleashes an
anti-democratic cocktail of militarism and armed fascists in the
streets
- Dahlia
Lithwick (Slate) - Trump threatens with violence. Constitutional
rights are for him, but denied to others. Lawful opposition will be
met with unlawful violence
- Alex
Hinton (Project Syndicate) - Given Donald Trump's flirtation with
right-wing extremist rhetoric and violence, and his refusal to commit
to a peaceful transfer of power, the 2020 election could trigger
atrocities. If Trump loses, Americans should be prepared for
full-scale race war and genocide
- Paul
Mason (New Statesman) - Donald Trump has shown how he plans to use
far-right violence to try to retain power
- Mark
Follman (Mother Jones) - Trump is promoting terrorism. The president
is an arsonist of radicalization and violence
- John
Nichols (The Nation) - Fascist tactics: President Trump assaults
American cities and the right to dissent
- Jonathan
Greenberg (Washington Post) - Twelve signs Trump would try to run a
fascist dictatorship in a second term. He lies about voter fraud,
admires authoritarians, tries to suppress free speech, and uses the
law against those who would hold him accountable
- Jeff
Sharlet (Vanity Fair) - Trump aims at a presidency-for-life: How he
uses joking-not joking rhetoric to normalize his authoritarian and
extremist provocations
- Masha
Gessen (New Yorker) - Donald Trump's fascist performance. The power
grab begins with a claim to power, and if the claim is accepted – if
the performance is believed – it takes hold
- Jonathan
Martin & Mark Landler (New York Times) - Republican chairman of
the Senate foreign relations committee Bob Corker says Trump's
recklessness threatens "World War III". His closest aides function as
an "adult day care center" to "separate our country from chaos"
- Philip
Rucker (Washington Post) - A rogue presidency: The era of containing
Trump is over
- Brian
Klaas (Washington Post) - The adults in the room gone, we are left
with a reckless man who will happily create a crisis – burn down the
international order or launch missiles – to distract the country as he
tries to save his own skin
- Sasha
Abramsky (The Nation) - Trump is a cornered megalomaniac – and that's
a grave danger to the country. He will likely resort to all the tricks
of the demagogue as he fights for his survival
- Ruth
Ben-Ghiat (Washington Post) - When investigators threatened his power,
he declared himself dictator. Trump follows Mussolini's authoritarian
playbook
- Jefferson
Morley (Alternet) - The terrifying danger of Trump's deteriorating
mental health. Is the Mueller investigation pushing him toward the
nuclear button?
- Howard
Fineman (Huffington Post) - Trump wants to divide the country, to
discredit any institution in his way, to win amid the chaos he sows,
ultimately to destroy the country to maintain his own power
- Jeffrey
Sachs, Bandy Lee & Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Project Syndicate) - Trump's
sadistic leader-follower relationship makes him a danger to the world.
He must be stopped before he launches a war, or before his armed
backers step up violence against his political opponents
- Joe
Scarborough (Washington Post) - A storm is gathering
- Michael
Wolff - Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (pdf)
|
Siege:
Trump Under Fire
(pdf)
- Bob
Woodward - Fear: Trump in the White House (pdf) | Rage
(pdf)
- John
Bolton - The Room Where It Happened (pdf)
- Carol
Leonnig & Philip Rucker - A Very Stable Genius: Donald J.
Trump's Testing of America (pdf) | I
Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year
(pdf)
- Philip
Rucker & Robert Costa (Washington Post) - The nervous breakdown of
Trump's presidency (On Bob Woodward's Fear: Trump in the White
House)
- Anonymous
(New York Times) - I am part of the resistance inside the Trump
administration, meant to protect the country from the president's
amorality
- Bandy
Lee (The Conversation) - Thousands of mental health professionals
agree with Woodward and the New York Times op-ed author: Trump is
dangerous
- James
Fallows (The Atlantic) - A call for conscience and responsibility.
It's been an open secret all along: Everyone in Washington knew but
failed to act
- Jeffrey
Goldberg (The Atlantic) - James Mattis denounces president Trump as a
threat to the Constitution – for dividing the nation and for ordering
the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American
citizens
- Ben
Jacobs (New York Magazine) - Top U.S. general said Trump preached
"Gospel of the Führer" | Reis
Thebault (Washington Post) - Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley feared
potential "Reichstag moment" aimed at keeping Trump in power (On Carol
Leonnig & Philip Rucker's I Alone Can Fix It) | US
military remains committed to the national values and principles
embedded in the Constitution
- Hans
Christian Andersen - The Emperor's new clothes
- Jim
VandeHei & Mike Allen (Axios) - The biggest political scandal in
American history
- David
Frum (The Atlantic) - America is under attack and the president
doesn't care. Trump's gravest responsibility is to defend the United
States from foreign attack – and he's done nothing to fulfill it
- Paul
Krugman (New York Times) - A Quisling and his enablers. Trump serves
his Russian masters, attacks our closest allies, and betrays America –
enabled by a corrupt Republican party
- Paul
Krugman (New York Times) - The great Republican abdication. A party
that no longer believes in American values. Sacrificing freedom and
the rule of law, and exploiting racial resentment, to benefit
corporations and the wealthy
- Michael
Cohen (Boston Globe) - Trump the traitor
- John
Shattuck (Boston Globe) - Is Donald Trump committing treason?
- David
Rothkopf (Daily Beast) - The way Trump and the GOP deal with Russian
attacks is textbook treason
- Lili
Loofbourow (Slate) - Worse than appeasement: Trump's approach to Putin
is aggression by a president against his own country
- Michael
Gerson (Washington Post) - Personal vanity as foreign policy: Trump
surrenders to Russia and refuses to defend American interests
- Chris
Cillizza (CNN) - The most shameful, stunning moment of the Trump
presidency: He considers former KGB officer Putin as more trustworthy
than the unanimous American intelligence community on Russia's
election interference
- Richard
Wolffe (The Guardian) - Trump outdoes Orwell with his abject
abandonment of truth in service of Russia
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - The Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki and the
second Mueller indictment: Trump's treachery is that he helped to
cover up Russia's assault on American democracy | The
Mueller indictment confirms that Trump and his enablers assisted and
encouraged the Russian attack | At
the summit Trump himself proves the collusion and the cover-up
- Walter
Dellinger & Samantha Goldstein (Washington Post) - During the 2016
election, American democracy was under Russian attack. Candidate Trump
encouraged it. To this day, president Trump has failed to respond to
the Russians' military intervention or to take steps to ward off
future attacks
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian
asset
- David
Frum (The Atlantic) - Collusion is worse than a crime. Trump is a
national-security threat: the installation of a president beholden to
Russia
- Greg
Miller (Washington Post) - Trump has concealed details of his
face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in
administration | Lawsuit
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Trump is an illegitimate president whose
election is tainted by fraud. As a crook he directed and conspired in
the crime of campaign finance violations – meant to silence his
critics – in order to mislead the American people and win the
presidential election. Without this and the Russian intervention on
his behalf Trump wouldn't have won. And ever since his enablers in
Congress fail to hold the president accountable for his abuse of
office
- Wayne
Barrett - The conman and the mob (Adapted from Trump: The Greatest
Show on Earth – The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention)
- John
Cassidy (New Yorker) - A reckless conman: As a businessman, Trump was
the biggest loser of all
- Garrett
Graff (New York Times) - Like the mafia and with its omerta broken,
the Trump Organization may be prosecuted as a criminal enterprise
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - The mafia ethos of loyalty: Trump wants to
ban flipping because he is almost literally a mob boss. The president
puts silence and loyalty to him above truth and the law
- Eric
Levitz (New York Magazine) - Mueller report confirms Trump runs the
White House like it's the mafia. His philosophy that loyalty to one's
boss should take precedence over adherence to the law, is that of a
mafia boss running a criminal enterprise
- Michael
Cohen - Foreword to Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the
Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump
- Heather
Digby Parton (Salon) - Trump issues his enemies list. Abusing the
power of the presidency to punish citizens for criticizing the
president
- David
Nakamura & Felicia Sonmez (Washington Post) - Trump starts to
silence his leading critics | New
York Times version
- Peter
Bergen (CNN) - Demonization of the media: America's domestic terrorism
echoes Trump's "enemy of the people" rhetoric
- Mark
Follman (Mother Jones) - Trump's "enemy of the people" rhetoric is
endangering journalists' lives
- Mark
Weinberg (CNN) - Condemn Trump's "enemy of the people" rhetoric.
Seeking to turn the people against our free press, he poses as great a
threat to our democracy as does Putin
- Adele
Stan (American Prospect) - Trump continues his war on journalists. He
condones violence, primes his base for more assaults on the First
Amendment, and signals the coming clampdown on dissent
- Arthur
Gregg Sulzberger (Wall Street Journal) - Accusing the New York Times
of treason, Trump crosses a line in his campaign against a free press.
The Founders considered it the gravest of crimes. Tossing the charge
around is irresponsible and wrong
- Ben
Clements & Ron Fein (Common Dreams) - Trump is undermining
the freedom of the press.
That's an impeachable offense. The Senate has laid
the groundwork with a unanimous resolution
in defense of the free press against
Trump's attacks | Senate resolution
- PEN
America - Lawsuit against president Donald J. Trump for abuse of power
– in violation of the First Amendment – to retaliate against the press
for criticism of him | Complaint
- Arne
Duncan (The Guardian) - Trump's neglect of education is by design.
Authoritarian regimes benefit when citizens lack education. The
president loves "the poorly educated", because he wants Americans to
be unable to think critically. Our fight for education is not just a
fight for our children, but also for truth, for an educated citizenry,
and for our democracy
- Richard
Cohen (Washington Post) - Trump is the president the Founding Fathers
feared. America once again has a mad king
- Robert Reich
(American Prospect) - Trump's art of the no deal. One of the biggest
cons from the biggest conman to occupy the Oval Office is that he's a
dealmaker. He's not. All he really knows is how to bully friends,
stage photo ops with enemies, and claim victory
- Robert
Reich (American Prospect) - Constitutional crisis worsens: a malignant
megalomaniac facing no countervailing power
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Trump's most dictatorial move: In fighting all
oversight, he treats Congress with contempt and thus attacks the
separation of powers
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Trump's wrecking ball assaults the American
system of government. Luckily, it is strongly built and overwhelmingly
supported by the American people
- Ruth
Marcus (Washington Post) - Federal judge criticizes Trump's attacks on
the judiciary – as a coequal branch of government – as dangerous |
More
- James
Reston (New York Times) - Trump's other impeachable offense. As Nixon,
he failed to comply with congressional subpoenas – lacking respect for
the rule of law, Congress, and the separation of powers
- Ken
Hughes (The Conversation) - Like Donald Trump, Richard Nixon tried to
stonewall congressional investigations into crimes allegedly committed
in the White House. Nixon's use of executive privilege didn't help him
to avoid congressional oversight. Using obstruction to conceal his
earlier obstruction and his other crimes, rather led to his
resignation from the presidency
- Neal
Katyal (New York Times) - Trump's effort to stonewall the House
impeachment investigation is a serious threat to the rule of law.
Striking at the heart of American democracy, his obstruction of
Congress is itself an impeachable offense
- Walter
Shaub (Slate) - Saturday Night Massacre in slow motion: Trump abuses
his authority to undermine the special counsel investigation of his
election campaign
- Simon
Tisdall (The Guardian) - American democracy is in crisis, and not just
because of Trump. Dark money, unchecked presidential power and a
politicized Supreme Court are wrecking the world's flagship democracy
- 44
Former U.S. Senators (Washington Post) - We are in a constitutional
crisis: The Senate must stand in defense of democracy
- Protect
Democracy & Stand Up Ideas - The Republic at Risk: American
Democracy One Year into the Trump Administration
- Barry
Berke, Noah Bookbinder & Norman Eisen (Brookings) - Presidential
obstruction of justice: the case of Donald J. Trump
- Jonathan
Alter & Nick Akerman (Daily Beast) - Quid pro quo in the
presidential election: contours of the criminal conspiracy case
against Donald J. Trump
- Elizabeth
Holtzman (The Intercept) - No one is above the law: Hold the president
accountable as we did with Nixon in Watergate, to avoid the road to
tyranny (Adapted from The Case for Impeaching Trump)
- Elizabeth
Holtzman (Just Security) - Protecting our democracy: The Nixon
impeachment is a blueprint for today
- Brenda
Wineapple (New York Times) - The impeachment of president Andrew
Johnson in 1868 was an attempt to restore faith in America's original
ideals. Johnson's crimes included abuse of power and racism. The Civil
War had been fought to liberate the nation from slavery – and to
enshrine freedom and equal citizenship. The president's white
supremacy was not condoned, he was not a king, and he could neither
ignore Congress nor the ideals on which the nation had been founded
(On The Impeachers: the Trial of
Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation)
| Excerpt
- Peter
Irons (NBC Think) - Trump's racism is an impeachable offense. The
precedent of Andrew Johnson proves it
- Yoni
Appelbaum (The Atlantic) - Impeach Donald Trump. Starting the process
will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals – and
bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it
belongs
- John
Nichols (The Nation) - Impeachment is the cure for our constitutional
crisis: When a president thinks he's above the law and displays
despotic tendencies. Each failure to demand necessary
accountability invites greater abuse and diminishes the prospect
that accountability will ever be achieved (Excerpt from
foreword to Ron Fein, John Bonifaz &
Ben Clements' The Constitution Demands It:
The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump)
- Rashida
Tlaib & John Bonifaz (Detroit Free Press) - Now is the time to
begin impeachment proceedings against president Trump
- Ben
Clements & Ron Fein (Boston Globe) - The case for starting
impeachment hearings against Trump immediately
- Ben
Clements & Ron Fein (Boston Globe) - The Mueller report is a
referral and roadmap for an impeachment investigation. The rule of
law, our democracy, and the legitimacy of the presidency and Congress
itself hang in the balance | Mueller report (published/redacted version)
- David
Cole (New York Review of Books) - Mueller report an indictment in all
but name
- Jeffrey
Sachs (CNN) - Congress should initiate impeachment proceedings against
Trump
- Laurence
Tribe (USA Today) - The Mueller report invites Congress to initiate
impeachment proceedings. It's time for Congress to heed that
invitation
- Susan
Hennessey & Quinta Jurecic (Lawfare) - The Mueller report demands
an impeachment inquiry. Congress has to carry out its constitutional
responsibilities. To not act is to accept the president's conduct as
tolerable
- Elizabeth
Drew (New York Times) - The danger in not impeaching Trump: We have to
answer to history that we kept a dangerous and authoritarian man as
president who was abusing his power. It may be risky politically, but
Congress has a responsibility to act
- Tom
Steyer (San Francisco Chronicle) - The case for impeaching president
Trump – now
- Jamie
Raskin & John Nichols (The Nation) - Has Donald Trump committed
high crimes and misdemeanors?
- Ralph
Nader (Common Dreams) - Donald Trump is the most impeachable president
in American history
- Quinta
Jurecic (The Atlantic) - All of the impeachable offenses. Focusing on
the Mueller report alone risks leaving out the obvious
- George
Conway & Neal Katyal (Washington Post) - Trump just invited
Congress to begin impeachment proceedings – the president is not above
the law
- David
Ignatius (Washington Post) - We're entering a new phase of the
Trump-Russia investigation by crossing Trump's red line not to
investigate his finances
- Max
Bergmann & Jeremy Venook (NY Daily News) - If Mueller didn't
follow the money, Congress must: There are huge red flags regarding
potential Russian financial improprieties in the election
- Al
Green & Ron Fein (The Hill) - Trump's racist abuses demand
impeachment
- John
Bonifaz (Free Speech For People) - We are here today on behalf of
millions of Americans across the country who are demanding that
members of Congress uphold their oaths of office and confront the
constitutional crisis facing the nation today (speech in front of the
Capitol building for petition delivery demanding an impeachment
investigation of the president)
- John
Nichols (The Nation) - Congress receives petitions signed by 10
million Americans. Rashida Tlaib recognizes Trump must be held to
account by beginning the impeachment process
-
Free Speech For People Impeachment Project - Legal grounds for an
impeachment investigation of president Donald Trump
- Free
Speech For People - Grounds for impeachment proceedings against
president Donald J. Trump; resolution to authorize impeachment
hearings; and model articles of impeachment
- Free
Speech For People - Impeachment for the People. House Democrats should
lead with moral courage and go for a broad impeachment, covering the
full range of Trump's abuses of power (with proposed articles of
impeachment)
- Ron
Fein, John Bonifaz & Ben Clements (Free Speech For People) - The
legal case for a congressional investigation on whether to impeach
president Donald J. Trump | Full report
- Ron
Fein (Free Speech For People) - When Is Racist Abuse of Office an
Impeachable Offense?
- Need
to Impeach - Donald Trump's 10 impeachable offenses
- Social
Criticism Review - Open letter to Congress on the immediate start of
an impeachment inquiry against president Donald J. Trump
- Free
Speech For People - Impeachment coalition urges the House judiciary
committee, to make a clear and unambiguous statement that it has in
fact started an impeachment inquiry, to speed up the inquiry in the
face of obstruction by the president, and to broaden the scope of the
inquiry to include the prevention of tyranny
- Bill
Blum (Truthdig) - Impeachment is designed for presidents like Trump.
Call Senate Republicans out on being enablers of Trump's racism and
fascism
- Steven
Rosenfeld (Common Dreams) - Trump is copying Hitler's early rhetoric
and policies (On Burt Neuborne's When at Times the Mob Is Swayed:
A Citizen's Guide to Defending Our Republic)
- Common
Cause - The case for an impeachment inquiry of president Trump
- Evan
Davis (The Hill) - An impeachment inquiry has begun
- George
Conway & Neal Katyal (Washington Post) - Trump has done plenty to
warrant impeachment. But the Ukraine allegations are over the top
- Dan
Balz (Washington Post) - Trump is yet again weakening nation's checks
and balances. He abuses the presidency to pressure a foreign
government to investigate – and damage – his main opponent in the
upcoming election
- Nicholas
Fandos (New York Times) - Nancy Pelosi announces formal impeachment
inquiry of Trump for betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our
national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Impeachment is imperative to put Trump on
notice that he can't necessarily get away with abusing his
presidential power to win re-election
- Kamala
Harris - Facing his impeachment inquiry president Trump abuses Twitter
to make blatant threats – death for spying and treason, and even civil
war – that put people at risk and our democracy in danger | Mary
McCord (Lawfare) - Armed militias are taking Trump's civil war tweets
seriously | Nicole
Hemmer (CNN) - Why it's so scary when Trump tweets about civil war: It
amplifies his regular calls for political violence
- Michael
Fuchs (The Guardian) - The Ukraine scandal is not only undermining
American democracy – it's damaging national security. US foreign
policy increasingly looks like that of a mafia state, wielded at the
behest of, and for the benefit of, one man's personal interests, and
for sale to the highest bidders
- Jeffrey
Toobin (New Yorker) - From Russia to Ukraine, Trump is eager to do
Putin's bidding and to accept political favors. His abuse of power is
accelerating, with each unpunished act serving as a license for more.
Impeachment should halt this out-of-control presidency
- Laurence
Tribe (USA Today) - Trump is abusing the power of the presidency for
personal gain. The House must move on impeachment articles now. Every
day he's allowed to stall, obstruct justice and remain in power, the
country is in still graver danger
- David
Smith (The Guardian) - Trump's assault on impeachment inquiry is
obstruction of Congress, pushing the U.S. towards a constitutional
crisis | House
speaker Pelosi warns president Trump – who brazenly pressures foreign
powers to intervene in the 2020 election – that the cover-up of his
abuse of power will be regarded as obstruction, that he is not above
the law, and that he will be held accountable for the betrayal of our
national security, our Constitution, and our democracy
- Greg
Sargent (Washington Post) - Trump is openly telling us he's above the
law and in total defiance of oversight by Congress. He declares
absolute authority to conscript a foreign power to facilitate the
corruption of the next election on his behalf and to cover up the
corruption of the last election on his behalf
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Trump is the spoiled kid with his hand in the
cookie jar. More and more Republicans agree that his denials, tantrums
and defiance ask for sober parental control – impeachment
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - Donald Trump: xenophobe in public,
international mobster in private. The president has been selling
America to foreign governments for his private gain. The Founding
Fathers said betraying America to foreign powers was an impeachable
offense. The president must go
- Philip
Zelikow (Lawfare) - Self-dealing and bribery in Ukraine: the core of
the impeachment inquiry
- Conor
Friedersdorf (The Atlantic) - The Founders would have called out Trump
for bribery
- Neal
Katyal & Sam Koppelman (Newsweek) - Trump's bribery is blatantly
impeachable. Asking foreign powers to interfere in our elections over
and over again, is an abuse of power for personal benefit (Excerpt
from Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump)
- Neal Katyal
& Sam Koppelman (Time) - No one is above the law: Impeaching Trump
is imperative to preserving our democracy (Adapted from Impeach:
The Case Against Donald Trump)
- Sean
Wilentz (Rolling Stone) - Why we must impeach. The president's abuse
of power has surpassed any we've seen in our history – and Congress
must act
- Whistleblower
complaint | U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine confirms president Trump's subversion of
official American foreign policy and his blackmailing of a foreign
country, essentially offering a quid pro quo for Trump's personal
gain. The president decided to withhold military aid to Ukraine
against Russian aggression – signaling this through a shadow foreign
policy channel – until Ukraine would publicly commit to conduct
investigations that would help Trump's reelection | House
intelligence committee - The Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry report
(pdf)
- Sarah
Kendzior (Globe and Mail) - Trump's strategy of "investigate the
investigators". He conspired in Russia's attack on the U.S. in 2016,
but now projects the crime on Ukraine
- Noah
Feldman (New York Review of Books) - Trump and the meaning of
impeachment
- Brian
Beutler (Crooked) - The Ukraine scandal just scratches the surface.
What other scandals and abuses of power is the White House covering
up?
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - It's time to impeach and remove Trump. Given
his administration's track record of unethical and illegal conduct,
the president has lost all credibility and hence his ability to carry
out the duties of his office
- Mehdi
Hasan (The Intercept) - Impeach Trump for all his crimes, not just for
Ukraine. For House Democrats to wait this long and then impeach a
reckless, lawless, racist, tax-dodging president only over his
interactions with the president of Ukraine would be to effectively
give Trump a clean bill of health on everything else
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - Surrounded by criminals Trump is the most
criminal president in American history. His focus on corruption means
promoting corruption not fighting it
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - The full case for impeachment: a menu of
high crimes and misdemeanors
- Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington - The case for a Trump
impeachment inquiry
- David
Leonhardt (New York Times) - Donald Trump vs. the United States of
America
- Bruce
Ackerman (American Prospect) - Trump's war against Iran is an
impeachable offense. Starting the war is an abuse of presidential
power, to gain public support when a Senate impeachment trial is
threatening his re-election prospects. Despotism is on the rise in the
United States
- Star
Tribune - The Senate must do its duty and hold a fair trial. Give
president Trump a chance to defend himself. And call witnesses that
could clear his name and attest that the actions he took were not for
his personal gain
- Kamala
Harris (New York Times) - Fair impeachment trial or cover-up? With the
Constitution and the rule of law at stake, every senator has a duty to
pursue truth, justice and accountability
- New
York Times - The Republican party is confronting a crisis of
conscience, as Trump assaults our democracy, the rule of law, as well
as our morality. Republicans have to choose between loyalty to an
autocrat and loyalty to country
- John
F. Kennedy - Profiles in Courage (pdf)
- Noah
Feldman (New York Review of Books) - Is Trump above the law?
- Sarah
Kendzior (Globe and Mail) - Impeachment trial as power play and
loyalty test. Americans are witnesses to the formalization of
dictatorship
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (obstruction of justice)
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (obstruction of justice;
violation of emoluments clauses; abuse of power; undermining freedom
of the press)
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (bigotry)
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (abuse of power; obstruction
of Congress) | House
judiciary committee - Constitutional grounds for presidential
impeachment (updated) | Report
| Trial
memorandum | Adam
Schiff's opening statement | House
impeachment managers' presentation of the facts and law | Continued
President Trump impeached
- Just
Security - Federal criminal offenses and the impeachment of Donald J.
Trump
- Ralph
Nader, Bruce Fein & Louis Fisher - Article of impeachment
- House
judiciary committee - Articles of impeachment that led to the
resignation of president Nixon in the Watergate scandal | Constitutional
grounds for presidential impeachment | Report
- Gene
Healy (Cato Institute) - Indispensable Remedy: The Broad Scope of
the Constitution's Impeachment Power
- Charles
Black - The impeachable offense (Excerpt from Impeachment: A
Handbook) | Full
text (pdf)
- Constitution
of the United States of America (annotated)
- Free
Speech For People - Revoke the corporate charter of the Trump
Organization
- David
Cay Johnston (DCReport) - Judge gives Trump organization the corporate
death penalty. In a court of law all Trump could present was
distortions, lies, baseless denials, and childish nonsense
- Tom
Steyer & Ron Fein (NBC News) - Donald Trump shouldn't nominate the
Supreme Court justice who will decide the fate of his presidency,
while he is under criminal investigation and facing the prospect of
impeachment proceedings
- Center
for Ethics and the Rule of Law & Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington - Report on the Department of Justice and the
rule of law. Recommending an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of
Attorney General William Barr
- Washington
Post - Our democracy in peril: the damage president Trump has caused,
and the danger he would pose in a second term
- New
York Times - End our national crisis: the case against Donald Trump.
His re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American
democracy since World War II
- Jason
Stanley, Federico Finchelstein & Pablo Piccato (Project Syndicate)
- Will fascism win the US election? Trump presents himself as a
messiah and father of the nation who must be defended by any and all
means available. Democracy itself is on the ballot
- Democratic
House chairs (Washington Post) - Here's how we can protect democracy
from a lawless president
- Jonathan
Freedland (The Guardian) - Donald Trump's plot against democracy could
break America apart
- Garry
Kasparov (CNN) - Win or lose, with Trump, prepare for the unimaginable
after the election
- Barton
Gellman (The Atlantic) - The election that could break America. How to
restrain a lawless president, when the chaos candidate is the
commander in chief?
- Bernie
Sanders - Trump's threat to our democracy. On the danger that this
country faces from a president who is a pathological liar, who has
strong authoritarian tendencies, who neither understands nor respects
our Constitution, and who is prepared to undermine American democracy
in order to stay in power. We need to make certain that the president
of the United States, if he loses this election, will abide by the
will of the voters and leave office peacefully (speech transcript)
- Melissa
Block (NPR) - The Big Lie and the road to authoritarianism: Can the
forces unleashed by Trump's big election lie be undone?
- Fiona
Hill (Politico Magazine) - A coup attempt by Trump, to keep himself in
power, done in slow motion and in plain sight. To avoid another coup
and a civil war, Republicans must thoroughly refute the Big Lie that
Trump won the election
- Edward
Luce (Financial Times) - The nightmarish end to Donald Trump's
presidency. There are deep concerns about what the US leader may do in
his remaining two weeks
- Zachary
Cohen & Whitney Wild (CNN) - FBI warns "armed protests" being
planned at all 50 state capitols and in Washington DC ahead of Biden
inauguration
- Norman
Eisen & Katherine Reisner (USA Today) - Incitement of
insurrection: President Trump incited a violent attack on American
democracy
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (incitement of insurrection)
| Report
| Democratic
impeachment managers trial memorandum lays out the case for the
conviction of former president Trump for "incitement of insurrection
against the Republic he swore to protect". After months of spreading
his Big Lie that he won a landslide victory in the 2020 election, and
after judges and election officials concluded that his challenges lack
proof and legal merit – president Trump summoned, assembled and
incited a violent mob that attacked the Capitol, to halt the
finalization of the election result. Congress should make it clear –
to future presidents and to the American people – that it stands
vigilant in defense of our democracy | Jamie
Raskin's closing argument: Trump was the "inciter in chief" of the
insurrection President Trump
impeached twice
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (abuse of power; undermining
the democratic system of government; attempting to make himself an
authoritarian ruler)
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (abuse of power; interference
with the election process; inciting violence and orchestrating an
attempted coup against the country)
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (abuse of power; conspiring
to commit sedition by inciting an insurrection; corrupting the
electoral process; violation of emoluments clauses; obstruction of
justice)
- House
resolution - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (weaponization of hate;
incitement of insurrection and an assault on democracy)
- Senate
judiciary committee - Subverting justice: How the former president and
his allies pressured DOJ to overturn the 2020 election (majority staff
report; pdf)
- Ewan
Palmer (Newsweek) - Donald Trump admits he wanted his vice president
to overturn the election. He incited his supporters to insurrection to
get his way
- Barbara
McQuade (Just Security) - United States v. Donald Trump: a "model
prosecution memo" on the conspiracy to pressure vice president Pence
- Mark
Follman (Mother Jones) - Trump as a terrorist leader: The mob assault
on Congress was the culmination of a campaign of terrorism led by the
president
- President
Joe Biden - Democracy was attacked. But it held and we the people
prevail. Address to the nation on the anniversary of the January 6
insurrection
- Joe
Biden - The continued battle for the soul of this nation. Calling we
the people: Let us unite behind the single purpose of defending our
democracy
- Andrew
Seidel, Amanda Tyler, Anthea Butler, Samuel Perry, Katherine Stewart,
Jemar Tisby & Andrew Whitehead (Baptist Joint Committee for
Religious Liberty & Freedom From Religion Foundation) - Christian
nationalism and the January 6th 2021 insurrection (pdf) Onward to theocracy
- Philip
Gorski (NBC News) - White Christian nationalism seeks a violent
theocracy. America as the new Promised Land. White Christian
nationalists as God's new Chosen People. They see themselves living in
the End Times and fighting a battle between Good and Evil. It is an
assault on religious freedom and on the separation of church and
state. We need to defend America's democracy and its founding values
of freedom, equality, justice and inclusion
- Catherine
Brekus (BJC) - How America's founding myth as a "chosen nation" – as a
beacon of freedom and democracy – turns into oppression by white
Christian nationalism. Chosenness is abused to justify imperialism,
xenophobia and violence
- New
York Times - The deadly riot at the seat of American government
continues. Donald Trump incited violence against our democracy in
order to stay in power. He and his party continue to stoke the flames
of conflict with rampant lies and limitless resentments. All Americans
must salvage a democracy that is in grave danger
- Barbara
Walter (The Guardian) - The US is close to civil war: Judges will be
assassinated, Democrats will be jailed on bogus charges, black
churches and synagogues bombed. The remedy is strong democracy, and a
level playing field in social media
- Mark
Follman (Mother Jones) - How Trump spread incitement of violence
throughout the Republican party
- Congress
select committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United
States Capitol (final report; pdf)
-
Special counsel Jack Smith - Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try
to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed
false claims of voter fraud, and "resorted to crimes" in his failed
bid to cling to power (superseding indictment, addressing the Supreme
Court's immunity ruling; pdf) | Case
dismissed because, Trump having again been elected president, a
sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted. This immunity does
not preclude further prosecution once the president leaves office
(pdf) | Final
report, volume 1 (pdf)
- Norman
Eisen et al. (Brookings) - Fulton county, Georgia's Trump
investigation (pdf)
- Madeline
Taylor & Bandy Lee (DCReport) - The delusional president's Georgia
phone call: better than a psychiatric examination
- Georgia
district attorney Fani Willis' indictment against Trump on 2020
election interference, racketeering, and conspiracy in a criminal
organization (pdf)
- Robert
Reich (The Guardian) - After his Big Lie that the 2020 presidential
election was stolen from him, Trump is undermining trust in the entire
US judicial system with a second Big Lie – that judges, prosecutors,
witnesses and juries are corruptly prosecuting him to keep him from
being re-elected in 2024 – meant to intimidate them with violent
retribution
- Supreme
Court's "immunity ruling" makes president Trump "a king above the
law". – President Trump has nominated three handpicked Supreme Court
justices, while he was under criminal investigation and facing the
prospect of impeachment proceedings. These three justices have now
proven decisive, in the Supreme Court's ruling that presidents are
immune from criminal prosecution for "official" acts (pdf)
- Roxanne
Szal (Ms. Magazine) - Read justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent: "The
president is now a king above the law." "Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6
to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to
hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon?
Immune. Immune, immune, immune.""With fear for our democracy, I
dissent."
- Sidney
Blumenthal (The Guardian) - The insurrection is the tip of the iceberg
of a still ongoing coup
- Paul
Waldman (Washington Post) - Republican war on democracy. Donald
Trump's presidency began and ended with two of the most profound
attacks on American democracy in our history. After colluding with
Russia's election interference and inciting the Capitol insurrection,
the GOP continues its war on democracy by voter suppression
- John
Nichols (The Nation) - Trump steals a strategy from Mussolini's
playbook. The former president's promise to pardon January 6
insurrectionists recalls the fascist's strongman tactics. Trump
continues to incite violent insurrection and should be barred from
running for presidential office again | Free
Speech For People 14point3 campaign | CREW
- Disqualified: the case for Donald Trump's disqualification under the
14th amendment
- Ron
Fein, John Bonifaz & Ben Clements (Jurist) - The Supreme Court's
Colorado ballot decision was a grave mistake. As an insurrectionist
Trump is constitutionally ineligible for the presidency. He has once
violated his oath to the Constitution, and he has since called for its
complete termination. The Supreme Court allows Trump to run roughshod
over our constitutional democracy | Trump
remains constitutionally disqualified from serving as president
- William
Baude & Michael Stokes Paulsen (Harvard Law Review) - The Supreme
Court abdicates its constitutional duties, and sweeps the
Constitution's "insurrectionist disqualification clause" under the
rug. As an insurrectionist Trump remains constitutionally disqualified
from the presidency – but he is nonetheless allowed to serve as
president
- Lisa
Gilbert (Public Citizen) - Trump continues to legitimate political
violence. After inciting his supporters to violently attack our
democracy, he kicks off his second term as president with a new
assault. By massively pardoning violence and insurrection, Trump
degrades the US Constitution and the rule of law – signaling that
political violence is acceptable, so long as it is in support of him
and his pursuit of unchecked power
- Free Speech For
People - The case for impeachment (nr. 3)
America is now in fascism's legal phase
- Jason
Stanley (The Guardian) - America is now in fascism's legal phase
- Elayne
Clift (Salon) - Fascism in America: It has happened before. Now the
bell tolls for all of us
- Bill Blum
(Alternet) - The question is no longer whether Trump's MAGA movement
is fascist – but can we defeat it?
- David
Rothkopf & Bernard Schwartz (New Republic) - Do everything you
can: Trump is a combination of every threat we have ever faced in our
history
- Sarah
Churchwell (The Guardian) - Trump was set on a fascist coup, as a
continuation of the Civil War | 1933
fascist plot against FDR
- Ruth
Ben-Ghiat (New Republic) - A fascist America: hostile takeover of
democracy through a permanent counterrevolution
- Maggie
Haberman & Shane Goldmacher (New York Times) - Trump engages in
fascist rhetoric: "This is the final battle" and "I am your
retribution". He leverages the power of the presidency for fear, hate
and revenge
- Michael
Gold (New York Times) - Trump echoes dehumanizing rhetoric wielded by
fascist dictators like Hitler and Mussolini. He vows to "root out" his
political opponents like "vermin", calling the "threat from within"
far more dangerous than that from outside America. Trump also frames
migrants as cannibalistic serial killers and as "poisoning the blood
of our country"
- Peter
Wehner (The Atlantic) - Trump's dehumanizing rhetoric is fascist. By
fomenting hate and violence he causes unimaginable cruelty and
destructiveness. It is high time – especially for his Christian
supporters – to take a stand for conscience
- David
Smith (The Guardian) - The emperor has no clothes. Trump is a fraud.
But voters do not seem to care. Grievance, resentment and victimhood
are the most potent forces in politics right now
- Thom
Hartmann (Alternet) - Trump is a confidence man, charlatan and liar –
so why is America so vulnerable?
- Thom
Hartmann (Alternet) - As a cult leader Trump is spreading a dangerous
mental illness to his supporters
- David
Graham (The Atlantic) - Trump isn't merely unhinged. He proclaims
profoundly un-American ideas
- Jason
Stanley & Sean Illing (Vox) - American fascism isn't going away.
If a demagogue seizes power by us vs. them propaganda, without being
held accountable
-
Sidney Blumenthal (The Guardian) - Trump holds a white supremacy rally
at Madison Square Garden: the ultimate act of ego and the climax of
his Hitlerian rhetoric
- Ruth
Ben-Ghiat (CNN) - Trump's continuous praise of dictators is meant to
condition Americans to accept him as dictator, and to instill fear
that it is useless to resist his repression
- Ruth
Ben-Ghiat & Amna Nawaz (PBS) - How Trump's rhetoric compares to
historic fascist language. In the upside-down world of
authoritarianism, fascists project on their democratic opponents that
they are the ones who are the tyrants and who are repressive –
conditioning the people to see their fellow citizens as enemies and
diseased – in order to justify more and more repression and violence
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - Trump is running a disinformation campaign, not
a political campaign. He's not just lying. He's creating an
alternative reality to make people live in fear. In tandem he is also
running a radicalization campaign – dehumanizing and demonizing others
– to change the way people perceive violence, and to build his leader
cult. We can counteract his propaganda with the truth, and by teaching
critical reading skills
- Anne
Applebaum (The Atlantic) - Dehumanizing: Trump is speaking like
Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini
- Tim
Dickinson (Rolling Stone) - "Infested", "bloodbath", "vermin": a guide
to Trump's fascist rhetoric
- Ian
Kershaw - Hitler: A Biography (abridged; pdf)
- Mark
Follman (Mother Jones) - Dehumanizing rhetoric: Trump amplifies his
dangerous hate speech against migrants, pushing false claims and wild
exaggerations about foreign "invaders" to grim new extremes
- Steve
Benen (MSNBC) - Trump criticizes his opponents – fellow Americans – as
"scum", as "evil", as "vermin", as "the enemy from within", as "more
dangerous" than foreign enemies – and threatens them with military
violence
- Isabel
Fattal & Stephanie Bai (The Atlantic) - Trump has a long record of
inciting, threatening and praising violence against his fellow
citizens, journalists, and anyone he deems his opposition
- Isabella
Volmert & Michelle Smith (Associated Press) - Christian
nationalist leaders say Kamala Harris is a Jezebel, a racist and
misogynistic demonization that is meant to justify violence
- Robert
Tait (The Guardian) - Kamala Harris calls Trump "a huge risk" for
American democracy, as he calls his opponents "the enemy within" and
threatens to use the military against them | Video
- Michael
Schmidt (New York Times) - "A fascist": His former White House chief
of staff general John Kelly says Trump would rule like a dictator,
using the military against his political opponents. Trump rejects
loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law, and demands loyalty
to himself
- Michael
Shear & June Kim (New York Times) - A massive and scathing
verdict: Once top advisers to Trump, they now call him "liar",
"fascist" and "unfit"
- Peter
Baker (New York Times) - Trump is publicly accused of being a fascist
by his own handpicked advisers. His threats and language evoke a grim
past
- Peter
Baker (New York Times) - Thriving on scandal: How the serial violator
manages to cast himself as a serial victim. Trump devotes his second
term as president to retribution
- Jonathan
Chait (New York Magazine) - Trump's "he did it first" rationale for
locking up his critics. The lie hiding behind the other lie: Trump has
always wanted to lock up his political enemies, well before any of the
current prosecutions against this career criminal began
- Andrew
Gumbel (The Guardian) - Trump critics brace for dark time of
retribution
- David
Corn (Mother Jones) - Donald Trump will need a police state to
implement his agenda. It's going to get very ugly. He could turn the
government into a ministry of fear – full of loyal devotees – to use
it for mass deportation, to selectively derail and abuse the
functioning of government, to target anyone who draws his ire, and
thus to terrorize millions
- Norman
Eisen, Ruth Ben-Ghiat et al. (Just Security) - American autocracy
threat tracker (on Project 2025)
- Rachel
Maddow (New Yorker) - Authoritarian rule and demagoguery always entail
corruption. Yet the worst president in American history gets another
go
- Thom
Hartmann (Common Dreams) - Trump's fascist win fulfills oligarchy's
50-year plan for a right-wing takeover. Now we have to fight for a
democracy uncorrupted by big money
- Thom
Hartmann (LA Progressive) - From democracy to tyranny. It took Hitler
53 days to legally turn Germany from a functioning democracy into a
dictatorship. Trump and Project 2025 are rapidly turning our country
into an oligarchy that's no longer accountable to its people. They are
silencing all voices of dissent. It is high time to speak out
- Ezra
Klein (New York Times) - The opposition party is the media. Trump's
strategy at the start of his second term is to overwhelm the media, so
that no coherent opposition can emerge. So that he can govern like a
king. Don't believe him
- Robert
Reich (Common Dreams) - Let's make Trump the last gasp of America's
second Gilded Age: Fight for an economy and a democracy that work for
all rather than the few
- Bernie
Sanders (The Guardian) - Focus on an agenda that works for all, not
just the few. Fight for an America based on economic, social and
environmental justice
- Jason
Stanley (Project Syndicate) - The end of US democracy was all too
predictable, given the extreme inequality: A demagogue comes to power
in a free and fair election, only to overthrow democracy and establish
tyrannical rule
- Greg Palast
- Did Donald Trump actually win the 2024 election? Millions of voters,
overwhelmingly citizens of color, were wrongly purged from the rolls
or had their ballots rejected. It is Jim Crow-style voter suppression
| Vigilantes Inc.:
America's New Vote Suppression Hitmen (video)
- Tim
Dickinson (Rolling Stone) - You can't despair, because that is what
they want. What resisting authoritarianism in America will look like
in Trump's second term
- Parker
Molloy (Present Age) - Faced with a tyrant the media must stand firm,
prioritize truth over appeasement, and fulfill its duty to inform the
public without fear or favor
- Robert
Rowland (Kansas City Star) - The strength of America's democracy lies
in debate and its ability to expose "bad causes". – Trump's message is
fundamentally negative and divisive. It is a message of fear and hate,
designed to appeal to voters with an authoritarian personality
structure. Trump makes no attempt to lay out a case, he lies
constantly, and breaks every norm for how a president should talk.
Instead, a president should appeal to our better angels and engage in
public debate. He should try to explain rapid societal change, while
being focused on problems of the moment, with a coherent message that
is rooted in a fundamental optimism and an attempt to unify the
nation. In democratic debate, we are convinced that truth and reason
always win – at least in the long run (On The Rhetoric of Donald
Trump: Nationalist Populism and American Democracy)
- Robert
Reich (LA Progressive) - The nightmare of Trump's fascism. The lawless
cruelty of his regime has overwhelmed, demoralized, and freaked out
many of us. The good is that it can awaken America. So that we can get
back on track toward social justice, democracy, and widespread
prosperity
- Ralph
Nader (Common Dreams) - Dictator Trump has declared war on Americans,
driven by vicious cruelty, vengeance and greed. He thinks he is
invincible. He is not. He will be brought down by corruption
throughout his ranks, plunging polls, resistance by many states, and a
congressional GOP realizing that it is their political skin or his
- Heather Cox
Richardson (billmoyers.com) - Rats leaving a sinking ship. When people
finally start to turn on a bully, there is a stampede for the exits
- Eugene
Robinson (Washington Post) - Cruelty for cruelty's sake: Above all
else, Trump is a bully
Donald Trump acts like a child. He is
mentally unfit for the presidency. His White House is utterly
dysfunctional. The president brings nothing but chaos, divisiveness,
corruption, and a culture of abuse. He is deranged,
amoral, a bigot, a pathological liar, and a danger to the republic
"No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his
accomplices." - Edward R. Murrow (on McCarthyism)
"You have to treat the presidency with respect." - Donald Trump
(bullying the press corps). – You yourself are debasing
the presidency Mr. Trump. You are a bully and
a pathological liar. You are always projecting
your sins on others. You continuously call
the free press "the enemy of the people"
to discredit, intimidate and silence your critics.
You thus reveal yourself as a would-be tyrant. You violate
the Constitution with your relentless attacks on
the free press. You disrespect the Senate in
its unanimous resolution reaffirming
the First Amendment that "the press is not
the enemy of the people" and that your attacks
must stop. Have you no conscience? Have you no
self-criticism? Have you no grain of morality?
Have you not sworn to uphold the Constitution?
Have you nothing to uphold but your ego?
The president of the United States
as a mob boss: "The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete
control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying
about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty
that put the organization above morality and above the truth." - James
Comey, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership
"A president beholden to Russia had been installed in the Oval Office:
the most successful foreign espionage attempt against
the United States in the nation's history [...]
And from beginning to end, the president's
political party rallied to protect him - and itself -
from investigation, exposure, and consequences."
- David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic
"There was a cancer growing on the
presidency." - John Dean (on Nixon)
Donald Trump is "a fascist" who repeatedly praised Hitler and his loyal
generals. - Trump's former White House chief of staff, general John
Kelly
Donald Trump preached "the gospel
of the Führer". He is "the most
dangerous person ever", "a total fascist", "a fascist to the core". -
Trump's former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general Mark
Milley
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always
that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence
and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We
will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in
our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended
from fearful men – not from men who feared to write, to speak, to
associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. –
This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep
silent [...]." - Edward R. Murrow (on McCarthy's demagoguery)
An age of global confrontation and authoritarianism
- Richard
North Patterson (The Bulwark) - Trump's personal pathology is
America's foreign policy. The world is hostage to an unwell president
- Stephen
Walt (Foreign Policy) - Trump can't bully the entire world. Loudly
making threats doesn't amount to a foreign policy
- Stephen
Wertheim (Washington Post) - Quit calling Donald Trump an
isolationist. He is a militarist and a warmonger
- Doyle
McManus (Los Angeles Times) - Trump wants to grab control of
Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. He thus rejects the
rules-based international order and NATO, in favor of a return to
imperialism and spheres of influence – inviting Russia and China to
act likewise
- Mikhail
Gorbachev (Time) - It all looks as if the world is preparing for war
- Kim
Sengupta (Independent) - Trump as Dr Strangelove. Why his
access to nuclear weapons has 50 Republican national security experts
terrified
- Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists - Doomsday Clock | Russia's
invasion of Ukraine highlights unprecedented threat of nuclear war,
catastrophic climate change, biological weapons, and disruptive
technologies: It is 90 seconds to midnight
- Bruce
Blair (Politico) - What Trump doesn't get about nukes. Will Trump come
to his senses in time to avert an arms race and a nuclear war?
- Bruce
Blair (Politico) - What exactly would it mean to have Trump's finger
on the nuclear button? A nuclear launch expert plays out the various
scenarios
- Bruce
Blair (Politico) - Trump could face a nuclear decision soon. In North
Korea, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, escalating crises await the
new commander in chief
- Mark
Hertsgaard (The Nation) - Do you trust Donald Trump's finger on the
nuclear button? As tensions with North Korea escalate, Congress and
the military must prevent a nuclear first strike | More
| More
- Colin
Kahl & Jon Wolfsthal (Foreign Policy) - John Bolton is a national
security threat. The über-hawk behind the immensely disastrous Iraq
War is advising Trump to wage preventive wars on North Korea and Iran
- Garrett
Graff (Politico) - The Madman and the Bomb
- Adam
Shatz (London Review of Books) - The President and the Bomb
- Jeet
Heer (New Republic) - Don't just impeach Trump. End the Imperial
Presidency
- Scientific
American - No one should have sole authority to launch a nuclear
attack
- New
York Times - Mr. Trump alone can order a nuclear strike. Congress can
change that
- Fred
Kaplan (Slate) - Nothing can stop an unstable president like Trump
from launching nuclear weapons
- Fred
Kaplan (Slate) - Trump's belligerent rhetoric and his exuberance about
the sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons, are mirrored in his
scary plan to make first use of nuclear weapons easier
- Mehdi
Hassan (The Intercept) - Donald Trump wants to make it easier to start
a nuclear war. Does the narcissist-in-chief plan on using his God-like
power? Will an impulsive and aggressive Trump get us all killed?
- Joe
Cirincione (Ploughshares) - How Donald Trump could blow up the world
all by himself. Tell Congress that it is time to end this nuclear
insanity
- House
bill - Restricting the first-use of nuclear weapons | House
bill - Establishing an oversight commission on presidential capacity
- William
Perry (Arms Control Today) - The risk of "blundering" into nuclear
war: lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis | Backgrounder
- Scott
Sagan (Foreign Affairs) - The Korean missile crisis is "the Cuban
Missile Crisis in slow motion" – and even more dangerous
- Roger
Cohen (New York Times) - Trump's envy of Kim Jong-un. As an
authoritarian yearning for totalitarianism, the president saluted
evil. North Korea is "no longer a nuclear threat". The real enemy is
the media that speak truth to power
- Simon
Tisdall (The Guardian) - Faced by the imminent collapse of his only
diplomatic "breakthrough" that "there is no longer a nuclear threat
from North Korea", and worried about his support ahead of mid-term
elections, Trump may revert to his reckless posture to "totally
destroy" North Korea
- Robert
Dallek (NY Daily News) - What John F. Kennedy teaches us today: the
need for peace in the nuclear age
- Masha
Gessen & Isaac Chotiner (Slate) - Where Trump and Putin converge.
The assault on democracy and the threat of nuclear holocaust
- Garry
Kasparov (Newsweek) - Putin and Trump share an authoritarian spirit.
Abandoning our principles in order to defend them leads to tyranny
- Anne
Applebaum (Washington Post) - Totalitarian ideologies never die. Not
even in America
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Trump has given every despot on the planet a
license to kill "enemies of the people"
- Robert
Fisk (Independent) - The mad president of America talks of peace to
the Muslim world, while advocating a war between Sunni and Shia Islam.
A bizarre "battle between good and evil" in which the world's biggest
arms supplier opportunistically sides with the head-chopping,
misogynist, undemocratic, dictatorial Saudis whose Wahhabi Salafist
extremism is the main fountainhead of terrorism | More
- Julie
Ingersoll (The Conversation) - Why Trump's evangelical supporters
welcome his move on Jerusalem. It is central in the end-times
theology: hastening the rapture, the apocalypse, and the final
establishment of God's kingdom
- Sandy
Tolan (Truthdig) - Rapture-ready: How U.S. policy meshes with
Armageddon. The return of Jesus to the Holy Land now drives the Middle
East policy of the most powerful nation on earth. Christian Zionists
embrace a chilling, apocalyptic vision of vengeance upon the many and
salvation for the few. The evangelical conviction is that a strong
Israel, fully in control of "Judea and Samaria", is essential for the
apocalyptic prophecies to come to pass
- Julian
Borger (The Guardian) - Bring on Armageddon: the evangelical grip on
the Trump administration
- Cristina
Maza (Newsweek) - Trump will start the end of the world, claim
evangelicals who support him
- Mustafa
Barghouti (The Nation) - The US ends the peace process by siding with
the Israeli apartheid system
- Fareed
Zakaria (CNN/Washington Post) - Trump is dismantling post-WWII order.
Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement means that America is no
longer the leader of the free world
- Jeffrey
Sachs (Project Syndicate) - Trump's climate-change sociopathy. He is
knowingly and brazenly jeopardizing the planet
- Richard
North Patterson (Boston Globe) - Trump's misbegotten trade war risks a
global recession and massive job losses
- Christopher
Woolf (PRI) - Economists warn Trump's policies will start a 1930s-era
trade war
- Edward
Luce (Financial Times) - Make America 1929 again. The president is
committed to the pursuit of a trade war even if it costs the country
dearly
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - The Trump presidency takes a giant step
toward destroying the post-World War II liberal international order
based on free trade and alliances with other democracies
- Fareed
Zakaria (Washington Post) - Does a Trump doctrine on foreign policy
exist? Ask John Bolton. Rather than cooperate and compete peacefully
in a rules-based world to pursue democracy and freedom, the U.S. must
be aggressive and unilateral in a world of war and anarchy to pursue
its national interest – thus inviting aggression by other countries as
well
- Thomas
Friedman (New York Times) - Trump is ushering in a new global
political era of "anything goes". As America lost its moral authority,
we see democracy recede and authoritarianism emerge around the world
with utter impunity
- Sadiq
Khan (The Observer) - Donald Trump is like a 20th-century fascist, a
figurehead of the far right that is on the rise around the world
- David
Rothkopf (Daily Beast) - Is our era more dangerous than the 1930s? The
global rise of the hard right continues unchecked
- Bernie
Sanders (The Guardian) - A new authoritarian axis demands an
international progressive front | Speech
at Johns Hopkins SAIS
- Bernie
Sanders - Our common humanity: foreign policy and America's role in
the world (speech at Westminster College)
- António
Guterres - Tackling the inequality pandemic: a new social contract for
a new era (Nelson Mandela lecture)
- Max
Boot (Washington Post) - Can our democracy, our environment and our
world order survive a second Trump term?
- Madeleine
Albright (New York Times) - Will we stop Trump before it's too late?
Fascism poses a more serious threat now than at any time since
the end of World War II (On Fascism: A Warning)
- Timothy Snyder
(Time) - Donald Trump and the new dawn of tyranny
- Dana
Milbank (Washington Post) - The Reichstag is burning. The 2020
election is surrounded by the authoritarian language of a coup d'état
"Modern tyranny is terror management. When
the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such
events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires
the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties,
the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and
so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book." - Timothy Snyder, On
Tyranny
War
on terrorism
HOMEPAGE