The shocking view to the south - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

The assassination of Charlie Kirk, a prominent right wing supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, will most likely only speed the rapid decline of democracy in our neighbour to the south.

 

I often feel, as I watch the ongoing news from our neighbour, that it must be similar to being a resident of Holland or France in the 1930s, watching helplessly as Germany descended into dictatorship that was only halted with the defeat of Germany by western allies, but not before millions of people died.

 

Andrew Coyne, writing recently in The Globe and Mail, said, “By now it should be clear that the subjection of the United States to the dictatorship of Donald Trump is no longer a theoretical possibility or even a distant probability. It is an imminent reality.” And this was before the killing of Kirk most likely will be used by Trump to silence more critics.

 

Often, Coyne remarks, Trump and his acolytes  are expanding his power in defiance of the constitution, and although lower courts often rule against his action, he can appeal to his hand-picked majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and, so far, they have rubber-stamped his actions.

 

Coyne rhymes off the dictatorial actions of the U.S. President. He has:

 

•     Installed National Guard troops and other military forces in the centre of major American cities, first Los Angeles, then Washington, and soon (if Mr. Trump’s threats are to be believed) Chicago, Baltimore and New York, under the guise of fighting crime. Some of the guardsmen are armed; some have been conducting arrests, for which they have neither training nor authority. The D.C. police force was likewise taken under federal control.

 

• Seized thousands of suspected illegal immigrants off the streets, the snatchings carried out by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents without badges, their victims bundled into cars without markings, to be sent in some cases to barbaric foreign prison camps, in some cases to their domestic counterparts, without trial, without even charges. ICE is increasingly seen as Mr. Trump’s personal police force.

 

• Initiated criminal investigations into various of Mr. Trump’s antagonists, from Letitia James, the Attorney-General of New York who prosecuted him for fraud, to Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted him for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and for his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, to John Bolton, his own former national security adviser who has since become one of his severest critics, to Adam Schiff, the Democratic Senator and lead manager on his first impeachment, to Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor who stands in the way of his desired takeover of the U.S. central bank.

 

• Fired or demoted police officers and prosecutors responsible for bringing the Jan. 6 rioters to justice, having earlier issued a blanket pardon for the rioters themselves.

 

• Threatened television networks whose programs or performers irritated him with suspension of their licences, or adverse regulatory rulings.

 

• Extorted massive settlements from the same networks, or law firms who had acted for his antagonists, or universities he deemed too liberal, or even corporations, like Intel, he fancied a piece of.

 

• Demanded Texas, Florida, Indiana and other states redraw their electoral maps, in a transparent attempt to gerrymander more Republican districts into being in time for the midterm elections; at the same time, Mr. Trump talks openly of banning mail-in ballots, while issuing executive orders demanding “proof of citizenship” for voting and requiring federal review of state electoral rolls.

 

• Fired the head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics for issuing unemployment numbers that displeased him; fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for issuing after-action reports on the U.S. bombing of Iran that likewise disagreed with Trumpian dogma.

 

As if to give visibility to his intent,  Coyne says, Trump has been furnishing himself with various of the accoutrements of a dictator, from the giant portraits that now hang on government buildings, to the gold-encrusted palace that was once the White House, to the military parade on his birthday, to the endless public displays of sycophancy he requires of his cabinet members. 

 

Hopefully something might interfere to help our neighbour remain a democracy. As it approaches its 250th anniversary next year, the U.S. has been an inspiration to victims of dictatorships up until now.

 

I’m an old man, born mere years after my father risked his life to save us from a German  dictator. I hope I don’t end my life under a dictatorship in what has been our best friend.