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Speaking in the Oval Office this week, Donald Trump had something he wanted to clarify.
“I’m not a dictator. I don’t like a dictator,” the president said.
Yet his comments came weeks after he deployed armed soldiers and Humvee-style military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington, claiming, despite all available evidence, that the use of the national guard was necessary to control crime.
The remarks followed Trump withholding, or threatening to withhold, billions of dollars from universities, and after the increasingly politicized FBI raid on the home of John Bolton, a prominent critic of Trump.
Trump has also targeted law firms who have filed lawsuits he opposes, while the Federal Communications Commission, led by a Trump appointee, is investigating every major broadcast network except Fox, which owns the pro-Trump Fox News channel. Trump has personally sued news channels over critical coverage and fired the government’s top labour statistician because she published jobs data that he didn’t like.
He has threatened Democrats with prosecution, and demanded that former president Barack Obama be investigated for treason. Trump has done all this as his family has ostensibly earned millions of dollars from his presidency.
None of these things are typical for a democratic leader. So … is Trump a dictator?
“Yes, of course,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology at Princeton University who spent years researching autocracies including Hungary and Russia. Scheppele said she had been wavering on using the term “dictatorship” until recently, but said: “If I was hesitating before, it’s this mobilization of the national guard and the indication that he plans to overtake resistance by force that now means we’re in it.”
Trump, emboldened by a Republican party that appears willing to let their leader do whatever he wants, is now threatening to send troops to Democratic-run cities including Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco and New York City, prompting outcry and accusations of abuse of power.
Scheppele said: “He’s really planning a military, repressive force, to go out into the streets of the places that are most likely to resist his dictatorship and to just put down the whole thing by force.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/donald-trump-says-not-dictator-100034878.html
“I’m not a dictator. I don’t like a dictator,” the president said.
Yet his comments came weeks after he deployed armed soldiers and Humvee-style military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington, claiming, despite all available evidence, that the use of the national guard was necessary to control crime.
The remarks followed Trump withholding, or threatening to withhold, billions of dollars from universities, and after the increasingly politicized FBI raid on the home of John Bolton, a prominent critic of Trump.
Trump has also targeted law firms who have filed lawsuits he opposes, while the Federal Communications Commission, led by a Trump appointee, is investigating every major broadcast network except Fox, which owns the pro-Trump Fox News channel. Trump has personally sued news channels over critical coverage and fired the government’s top labour statistician because she published jobs data that he didn’t like.
He has threatened Democrats with prosecution, and demanded that former president Barack Obama be investigated for treason. Trump has done all this as his family has ostensibly earned millions of dollars from his presidency.
None of these things are typical for a democratic leader. So … is Trump a dictator?
“Yes, of course,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology at Princeton University who spent years researching autocracies including Hungary and Russia. Scheppele said she had been wavering on using the term “dictatorship” until recently, but said: “If I was hesitating before, it’s this mobilization of the national guard and the indication that he plans to overtake resistance by force that now means we’re in it.”
Trump, emboldened by a Republican party that appears willing to let their leader do whatever he wants, is now threatening to send troops to Democratic-run cities including Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco and New York City, prompting outcry and accusations of abuse of power.
Scheppele said: “He’s really planning a military, repressive force, to go out into the streets of the places that are most likely to resist his dictatorship and to just put down the whole thing by force.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/donald-trump-says-not-dictator-100034878.html
