reflectivepundit

Is Today’s America Still a Democracy?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In his latest column in the New York Times titled “Democracy Is on the Line in Israel and America,” Thomas Friedman wrote, “Are we seeing the slow-motion collapse of the rule of law in the United States and Israel at the same time?”  It is too early to answer that question, but it is no longer too early to ask it.”

I am sure that James Madison, one of the Founding Fathers and the fourth U.S. President, would not merely ask but also answer the two questions Friedman raised in the headline and first paragraph of his commentary—certainly with respect to the United States.

As Madison wrote in Federalist #47,

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

He added that “the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.”

Today, President Trump is firmly in charge of the legislative branch while threatening judges who are ruling against the daily abuse of power by the White House and other administration officials.

The Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate are not “separate and distinct” but obedient pawns of the president. By willingly and enthusiastically handing over their constitutional powers to the executive, they are abandoning their role as the “first branch of government.”

Unlike the congressional GOP, some members of the judicial branch—judges and prosecutors-- have resisted interference by the president’s eager servants. More recently, the ruling clique has not merely threatened to fight non-compliant judges but disregarded and acted contrary to their rulings. Last weekend, the Homeland Security Department deported alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, although a U.S. judge had blocked the removal. Similarly, a Lebanese professor at Brown University was deported in defiance of a court order to halt her deportation.

The so-called Border Czar Tom Homan, said on FOX News, “I don’t care what judges think…I’m proud to be a part of this administration. We’re not stopping.”

Since the courageous judges do not have the means to enforce their rulings without the assistance of executive departments, the president and his administration are now paralyzing independent judges and rely on loyalists in the judiciary to support their cause.

The triple separation of power designed by the Framers of the Constitution to safeguard liberty and justice--and thus democracy—is crumbling within the first 100 days of Trump’s second term.

 

King Don’s Court Prefers Complicit Reporters

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In the new White House order, the best and brightest political reporters representing the legacy press have lost their advantage to asking questions as part of the so-called press pool which has a limited and rotating number of wire, print, and television reporters. Traditionally, the pool members are selected by the White House Correspondents’ Association and share their first-hand observations with other White House reporters with both sides trusting each other.

All this changed eight days ago, when the White House announced that it would take control of the selection of pool members. Just as far-right online and television channels were regularly called on by Trump’s press secretary in the early weeks of his second term, they now are part and parcel of the press pool during events that allow only a limited number of reporters. This now prominent clique of MAGA courtiers mimics and promotes the narcissistic traits of their idol who strives to be king.

Take last Friday’s “made for television” assault on Ukraine’s president Zelensky by President Trump and his sidekick Vice-President JD Vance. After Trump himself had greeted Zelensky earlier with the loud remark directed towards the press, “He’s all dressed up today…,” a reference to Zelensky’s usual field uniform in support of his forces fighting Russia’s invading army, a pool “journalist,” asked the Ukrainian president, “Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit. Just want to see if…do you own a suit? A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the office.”

As it happened, this White House selected pool member represented a far-right cable channel with a history of conspiracy theories. He played his role to the full satisfaction of those who selected him over reporters who understand the crucial role of the press in a democracy—among them the Associate Press wire service. Note, that no far-right or any other White House reporter has asked Elon Musk during his repeated performances in the Oval Office why he did not wear a suit. Presumably, they all know that President Trump would not like such a question.

Even more shocking was the presence of a man working for the Russian government wire service TASS among pool reporters during the pro-Russian rhetorical assault on Zelensky. The White House claimed later that the guy was not approved for the pool and removed once his presence became known.

That is not credible. Whoever has been in the White House as member of a foreign press outlet knows that nobody without secret service clearance and security checks all along gets near or into the Oval Office. In this case, another pool reporter observed that White House officials, who reviewed reporters’ credential before allowing them to enter the Oval Office, waived the TASS reporter in. Thus, a journalist representing and paid by the Russian government attended the event that a Kremlin spokesperson characterized later as demonstrating that both governments have “coinciding visions.”

Similarities and Differences between Car Pioneers Henry Ford and Elon Musk

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, had the foresight to produce the first automobile that was affordable for the middle class. But the successful industrialist, who became one of the wealthiest persons of his time, was also a staunch antisemite. To spread anti-Jewish biases, he purchased in The Dearborn Independent, for which he wrote a series of conspiratorial articles about the so-called global Jewish threat. After some of those racist articles were published in book-form and translated into several foreign languages, Germany’s Adolf Hitler made no secret of his admiration for Ford’s anti-Jewish tracts. Indeed, in 1938 Hitler awarded Ford with the “Grand Cross of the German Eagle,” Germany’s highest award for foreigners.

A century later, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors, had the foresight to build electric vehicles that were applauded for their environmental benefits. Once he became the richest man in the world, Musk bought the social media platform Twitter and altered it into a far-right online media named X that did not fact-check certain hate speech. The day Trump was inaugurated, Musk used the “Heil Hitler” salute in his appearance before a celebrating MAGA crowd. Six days later, he gave his explicit support to the neo-Nazi Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) Party in Germany declaring in his virtual speech that it was time for Germany to “move on” from “past guilt.” His listeners understood what he meant, namely, that the German people should simply forget about the holocaust and the death of six million Jews during Hitler’s Third Reich.  

Henry Ford was a politically influential player in the first decades of the 20^th century. But neither Ford nor any other unelected person was ever given so much direct decision-making power as Musk got within the first two weeks of the Trump regime. That was his award for donating $277 million to the Trump campaign 2024.

The other day, it was reported that Musk and his minions gained unprecedented access to the Treasury Department’s records of the recipients of government payments. One can only assume that this is a key to the work of his imaginary Department of Government Efficiency and/or the new rule of revenge in the administration. The abrupt closing of the USAID agency’s headquarters and its work around the world is also part of the executive power grabs at the expense of the legislative branch.

The Republican majorities in both houses of the Congress are on their knees and not willing to defend their constitutional roles. Many are happy sycophants; others know better but are afraid of MAGA’s revenge against anyone not 100 percent behind the authoritarian rule of the oligarchs.

Those, who criticize congressional Democrats for not fighting what is unfolding, forget the restrictive role of the minority. It is only, when the negative consequences of the just started tariff war and other ill-advised policies of the current administration hit home in the electorate, that Democrats can and must blame those who caused the dilemmas to come…

Musk’s “Heil Hitler” Salute and Trump’s Pardoning of January 6th Terrorists

By Brigitte L. Nacos

I am old enough to remember Germans greeting each other saying ‘Heil Hitler” while raising their arms in the Roman or fascist salute. Not doing so, could and in fact did result in somebody reporting them as possible dissidents to the Nazi leader and his regime.

Today, “Heil Hitler is chanted and the raised arm salute displayed by neo-Nazis and White Supremacist here and abroad in their on- and offline gatherings.

Yesterday, as I watched Donald J. Trump’s coronation on television, nothing shocked me more than the behavior of richest man in the world, Elon Musk: While he addressed a jubilant MAGA crowd in Washington DC’s Capitol One Arena, he pounded his chest and then raised his arm in the fascist way screaming “Yes” and then turned around so that the people behind him could see his fascist salute as well.

This public spectacle by Trump’s most generous campaign benefactor and primary advisor came a few hours before the once-again president signed the executive order granting pardons to his supporters who attacked the US Capitol and police officers on January 6, 2021 to keep Trump in power.

Among the 1,200 or so men and women are the leaders of paramilitary groups, such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, whose members acted during and after Trump’s first presidency as “body guards” at MAGA events. They will soon be free to carry weapons and carry out political violence without fearing law enforcement interference.

This presidential decision did not come as a surprise. Trump promised all through his campaign that he would free all what he called “political prisoners” or “hostages.” Many of these people may never attack police officers again or commit other violent acts.

 But the hardcore members of the para-military groups will be soon available to move in their violent ways against former and present critics of Trump and his regime.

Autocratic leaders having paramilitaries at their disposal like Hitler had his vicious SS stormtroopers, is a sure sign that such strongmen can and probably will circumvent the normal law enforcement and judicial processes to move against their perceived enemies.

If the first hours of the second Trump presidency are guideposts for what will follow in the days, months, and years ahead, I pray for our democracy.

The Digital Robber Barons Have Staring Roles America’s New Oligarchy

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Joe Biden was right, when he borrowed the 19^th century “Robber Barons” metaphor to warn contemporary Americans of the present threat presented by money- and power-hungry digital oligarchs. Once the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Fists, Rockefellers, and others exploited public lands, oil, minerals to assemble their private wealth at the expense of the public good and their own workers; today the new American oligarchs use publicly financed high tech innovations, starting with the internet, to build global communication spaces of unprecedented economic, political, and cultural influence.

Yes, the old industrial oligarchs along with their high finance moguls could count on the nationwide newspaper chains owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. But the reach and influence of the old press-lords paled in comparison to the on- and offline communication platforms controlled by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdoch, and a few others.  

The Robber Barons of old became highly successful because they had significant influence on the governmental leadership of their time. Today’s Robber Barons are not satisfied that their generous donations to Donald Trump’s campaign and inauguration assure them political influence, where it counts. They want a piece of the incoming president’s power. The ideal vehicle is the non-existing “Department of Efficiency” that Elon Musk created for cutting billions of dollars in “wasteful” government spending that will free up resources for lowering the taxes for the largest corporations and the wealthiest individuals.

Among the many targets of the digital Robber Barons’ axes are regulatory agencies that watch out for the public interest. The National Highway Traffic Administration, for example, keeps track of car accidents’ causes. No wonder that Musk wants to abolish the agency that documents how many deadly accidents are caused by his self-driving Tesla automobiles. But that particular interest of Mister X is tiny in comparison to the several $billion worth of U.S. government contracts that Musk’s SpaceX and other companies receive each year. As the constant companion and inside advisor of soon-again President Trump, Elon Musk will have a direct voice in cutting government benefits at the expense of millions of regular Americans on the one hand and boosting increased benefits for a small group of rich individuals and large corporations on the other hand.

According to press reports, Trump has nominated an unprecedented number of thirteen billionaires for cabinet posts. They and the digital “Robber Barons” add up to an astonishing core of America’s new oligarchy that has fully embraced an authoritarian president as leader or vessel to bring about a new “gilded age” of political selfishness and corruption.

How does all this fit into Donald Trump’s populist campaign that attacked the elites of the “deep state” and valorized workers and farmer promising immediate pocketbook uplifting upon returning to the White House?

A friend asked the other day, why so many Americans are uninformed about politics and policies. I answered that most people are informed but they receive contradictory information from different sources. Thus, Americans do no longer agree on what qualifies as fact and what as fiction, what is the truth and what is a lie. I just read Timothy Snyder’s excellent book “On Freedom.” He considers the over-consumers of the leading online sources—social media-- as the targets of “brain hacks” and “surveillance capitalism.” If anything, this ill-influence of online sources will become more extreme given Zuckerberg’s decision against further fact checking which will result in unfettered access of hate speech and Big Lie extremism of the far-right variety.

Green light for America’s new oligarchy.      

Strongman al-Assad is Gone. What Now?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

During the last decade, the al-Qaeda related al-Nusra Front was in Syria a minor player in comparison to what was for several years the far larger ISIS organization. Like anyone else following the news, I was surprised by the rapid fall of Syria’s strongman Bashar al-Assad last weekend. I was far more surprised by the leading role that al-Nusra’s successor group Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) played in the rebellion against Assad.

What now? HTS is among those entities that are designated terrorist organizations in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and other Western countries. HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is among Washington’s most wanted terrorists with a $10 Mill. reward for information that would lead his arrest.

HTS and al-Jolani seem in control of Damascus, other big cities, and a big chunk of Syrian real estate. According to their Telegram channel and in public declarations they try to keep enough of the institutions of government working so that the country does not suffer the same fate as others after the fall of their authoritarian rulers. Just think what happened in Iraq and in Libya after the fall of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi—endless civil wars between a multitude of factions.

For several years now, al-Jolani has denounced al-Qaeda’s global terrorist agenda and instead embraced the liberation of Syria from the strongman Assad rule as his and his group’s only objective. Today, in Damascus, he dropped his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and reclaimed his real name Ahmed al-Shara—I suppose to signal his change from terrorist to a now celebrated freedom fighter.

Whether one believes that this man has changed or not, he is now perhaps the most important player in efforts to prevent another horrific consequence in the wake of another strongman’s fall from power. To that end, I understand why London, Paris, and Washington are considering the removal of HTS from their lists of terrorist organizations which would facilitate diplomatic contacts with the new power holder in Damascus.

Initially, at least, there are signs of a swift cooperation between the victorious rebels and high officials of the al-Assad government. The first goal is to establish and maintain order and security. The HTS leader has asked bureaucrats and police to return to work.

Making progress domestically will depend also on the role of former government officials and all kinds of professionals who are now returning from abroad ready to join in the rebuilding of a stable state and one in which the rights of ethnic and religious minorities are assured.

It will be difficult for Ahmed al-Shara to keep the various groups involved in the rebellion united.

What neighboring countries and the international community of nations can and will do and what the fall of strongman Assad means for the new geopolitical realities in the Middle East and the rest of the world, poses another set of questions without definitive answers.

After Biden Pardoned his Son Critics Go Bananas

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Joe Biden said repeatedly that he would not pardon his son Hunter. At a time, when America’s democracy was under sustained attack by the incoming president and the far-right cast he has selected for key positions in his administration, Biden’s promise spoke to his respect for democratic institutions, including the system of justice.  

Biden changed his mind. Last weekend, he granted his son a total pardon for a more than 10-year period. That same weekend, president-elect Trump nominated his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France. In 2020, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, a convicted felon; at the same time, a bunch of criminally convicted Trump associates were pardoned as well. More recently, Trump promised repeatedly that he would pardon the “political prisoners” convicted for violent crimes during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol “on day one” of his second term as president.

Although Trump used his constitutional pardon power excessively, critics claim that Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter makes it more likely that Trump will expand this veto power even further in his second term. Nonsense. Trump does not need a precedent. He makes his extreme rules as he goes along.  

While there was no outcry against Trump’s nomination of a family member with a criminal record for a top ambassadorship, Trump himself, many Republicans and Democrats, plus plenty of media commentators went bananas after the news broke that Biden pardoned his son.

“Biden was dishonest,” “Biden lied,” were common headlines and comments in the news. The chorus of critics grew and became louder every day. Where was and is the same outrage, the same anger, when Donald Trump lies day-in and day-out? Whereas being dishonest is mostly ignored when it applies to Trump, Biden is held to a higher standard for this one lie even by those who accept and embrace their Dear Leader’s perennial aversion to truth.

According to Biden’s critics, the president’s claim that Hunter was prosecuted because he was his son, is in tune with Trump’s hostility against the justice system that the former president considers part of “the deep state.” But unlike Trump during his presidency, President Biden did not interfere with judicial decisions—and not with the prosecutions of his son who was found guilty of tax evasion and falsely filling out an application form for his gun permit during a time, when he was an alcohol- and drug addict.  

A good guess is that the real reason for Biden’s turnaround on pardoning Hunter was the nomination of Kash Patel for the position of FBI director. Patel, like his idol Trump, has been tireless in pledging retribution for the alleged but not real persecution of President Trump by the FBI and the Department of Justice. The Bidens are on top of the MAGA reprisal list followed by many other leading Democrats, “disloyal” former members of the Trump administration, and critical media personalities.

What parents would not use their legal power to protect their son from a future power holder who has threatened a “bloodbath,” when talking about the existential fight against the “enemy within” and the public execution of his most evil enemies?

Donald Trump’s Rush to Strongman Rule

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Donald Trump’s nominations of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of Intelligence, and Matt Gaetz for Attorney General drove the reality home that the former and future U.S. president follows his fascist campaign rhetoric and the equally undemocratic “Project 25” playbook as he selects the supporting cast for his second presidency.

Trump did not hide his sinister plans during his campaign. On the contrary. He repeated, again and again, that he and his MAGA crowd were in an existential battle against the demonic “enemy within” which he attacked as more dangerous than foreign enemies. Thus, the alleged “deep state” of “liberals, socialists, and communists” had to be destroyed to make way for the MAGA revolution.

Trump added to his many lies, when he claimed no knowledge of “Project 25” during the campaign. Now, he and his transition team and some authors of the detailed blueprint for the deconstruction of the administrative state are hard at work to implement the prescription for building a government in which the Dear Leader has total power.

I know that the term “fascist” is over- and misused. Trump, like other fascists before him, called his alleged enemies frequently fascists in the latter part of the campaign. Now, we see unmistakable signs of a coming fascist state here in the United States of America.

The main characteristic of fascism is that all powers are in the hands of the leader. In this case only people totally loyal to Donald Trump, not to the U.S. Constitution, have been and will be appointed to and nominated for the highest positions in the administration.

Gaetz, Gabbard, und Hegseth pass this loyalty test with flying colors. The normal qualifications for such positions, namely, expertise, integrity, and independence are completely irrelevant in a fascist regime and thus, now, for Trump and the enablers around him.

Therefore, it does not matter whether the GOP Senators reject one or more of Trump’s nominees. Whoever is not confirmed, will be replaced by another Trump loyalist, who will be equally eager follow Trump’s wishes.     

Fascist leaders leave the legislative and judicial branches in place but do away with the check-and-balance system in which the branches share power. Trump has a compliant Supreme Court in place. The other day, he signaled that he also wants an impotent congress. He demanded that the GOP majority leader in the U.S. Senate must order a recess of the upper chamber which would eliminate the confirmation process altogether in a violation of the “consent and advice” role of the Senate.  

Fascist leaders do not accept term limits. They want to be leaders for life. Yesterday, Trump told GOP members in the House of Representatives, “I suspect I won’t be running again—unless you do something. Unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we have to just figure it out.’” Contrary to some reports, this was no joke. Rather, Trump launched a trial balloon that he will eventually follow up with a push to getting rid of the two-term limit.

Less than two weeks after Trump’s election victory and more than two months before his inauguration, the strongman is rapidly consolidating his power.

Once he gets back into the White House, he will be ready and able to implement his extremist policies.   

The Paradox of Donald Trump’s Victory Makers

By Brigitte L. Nacos

A few days after Donald Trump moved into the White House in January 2017, he signed an executive order that prohibited citizens of Muslim majority countries to enter the United States. He frequently called Muslims and Arabs at home and abroad terrorists. Yet, before Election Day, two Muslim and Arab leaders in Michigan endorsed Trump. One of them called the GOP candidate “a man of peace.” In Dearborn, where 55 percent of residents are of Middle Eastern descent, and in neighboring Dearborn Heights, where more of a third of citizens are Muslims and/or Arabs, Trump beat Kamala Harris handily. Most of these Trump voters are upset about President Biden’s support of Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon. But if they believe that Trump will be more helpful to Palestinians and the Lebanese population, they are mistaken. Netanyahu celebrated Trump’s “historic victory” knowing that his strongman colleague will not interfere with his controversial policies.

Exit polls revealed on Election Day that 54 percent of voters had an unfavorable view of Donald Trump and 55% considered his views “too extreme.” Yet, Trump won the national popular vote along with the winning Electoral College votes. In other words, although a majority of voters had very negative views of Trump, enough of them voted for him.

Given Trump’s starring role in the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the horrific consequences of draconian anti-abortion laws in a bunch of states, it was no surprise, when opinion polls suggested that a sizeable majority of well educated, white suburban women, especially Independents, would vote for Harris this time around. It did not happen. Harris won merely 54 percent of the women’s vote nation-wide. It was not enough. In Montana and Missouri abortion rights amendments passed with strong female support. But ironically, many of the same female voters ignored the threat of a national ban of abortions under the coming Trump presidency, when they cast their votes for the GOP candidate.

Since he entered the political arena in 2015, Donald Trump has called Latinos criminals, rapists, animals, and carriers of diseases and bad genes. Yet, 54 percent of Latino men voted for the former president compared to 44 percent for Harris. In 2020, Joe Biden received 59 percent and Donald Trump 36 percent of the male Latino vote. In some states, namely Pennsylvania and Michigan, the Latino share of the vote might have contributed to Trump’s victory.

In sharp contrast to many other countries, America is still not ready to elect a woman president. This time, voters picked the same narcissist for the second time, while rejecting his highly qualified female competitor.

Trump and Vance: Sexist Autocrats at the Gate of Power

By Brigitte L. Nacos

One reason why the name “strongmen” befits autocrats is that they typically have a male superiority complex. In the fascist mind, men are the superior and women the inferior gender.  

Italy’s Benito Mussolini claimed that women “never created anything.” 

Germany’s Adolf Hitler wrote in his manifesto Mein Kampf,

“The rights of citizenship shall be conferred on every young man whose health and character have been certified as good, after having completed his period of military service. The German girl is a subject of the State but will become a citizen when she marries.”

A century later, after women in western democracies won voting and other rights, anti-democratic far-right autocrats threaten the progress that women fought for in the past.

Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance are poster boys of sexist would-be strongmen in the current campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris is their main target.

At a recent campaign stop, Trump told the crowd that “Joe Biden became mentally impaired; Kamala was born that way.” What a display of sexism. For Trump, old age affected the male opponent’s mental abilities, the female opponent was never mentally fit but born, as Trump claimed at another occasion, with “a low IQ.”

The former president’s vulgar denigration of the vice president is both sexist and racist. When he called her the other day “lazy as hell,” he invoked an old stereotype of blacks. In 2016, Trump’s rhetorical attacks against Hillary Clinton were sharp, but nothing came close to his vicious language against Harris. “You are a shit vice president,” he shouted at one rally. And the crowd screamed back in an enthusiastic chorus, “shit, shit, shit.”

JD Vance seconds everything his “Dear Leader” spills out. And then he dishes out his own extreme ideas and plans. Like Hitler and other past and present strongmen nationalists, Vance’s reactionary notion of females’ role in life is their duty to bear children and keep house. Vance wants “childless cat ladies” and married couples without off-springs to pay higher taxes and have diminished voting rights. The latter punishment for not having “a direct stake” in their country would be achieved by giving children voting rights to be executed by their parents.

Just as telling is Vance’s agreement with the statement of one like-minded fellow that the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female is helping to raise children--supposedly he meant grandchildren.

Obviously, Vance has learned from his mentor Peter Thiel, a wealth, anti-democratic high-tech guy who wrote in an essay that “the extension of the franchise to women was one of the major reasons for the decay of America’s democracy.”

Thiel and his authoritarian Silicon Valley brethren, who are contributing generously to the Trump-Vance campaign, would get their say in a Trump/Vance administration.

With sexist autocrats at the gate of power, women must stop them, when they cast their votes.