Yes, it’s true: The evidence shows that Trump is a fascist dictator

I’ve examined all of the evidence carefully and it’s true: What Trump has done — from spying on journalists to unconstitutional treaties — is tyrannical.

Donald Trump at CPAC 2016Spurred on by my Facebook friends’ assertions that Trump is a dangerous fascist dictator, one who seeks to control all aspects of American life, I examined the evidence — and it’s true. He is. Here are the facts:

1. Trump has been using violence to shut down free speech.

Although he hasn’t activated any branch of the government to shut down free speech, Trump has sent his minions throughout America to quash free speech, especially when people are attempting to the right to free speech to advocate for free speech. We’ve even got the videos to prove it.

Here are Trump’s minions running riot in Berkeley:

And here they are running riot in Portland:

And here they are again in Berkeley:

Wait! Wait. I am so sorry, but my editor has just informed me that those black-clad people are not Trump’s minions. They are, in fact, opposed to Trump.

Never mind. Let’s move on to the next example of Trump’s fascist takeover of America.

2. Trump has spied on the media.

We all know that Trump has had a running feud with the American media, which he has accused of lying rather consistently about him and about other matters important to Americans. As part of this feud, he has actually spied on media figures. Thus, we have this story:

Fox News on Monday angrily denounced the Justice Department’s “downright chilling” decision to target of one of its reporters, James Rosen, in a national security leak investigation. Executive Vice President Michael Clemente portrayed the government’s actions as an assault on “what up until now has always been a free press.”

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter,” Clemente said in a statement.

“In fact, it is downright chilling,” Clemente said. “We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

And this story:

Exactly 10 days ago, President Barack Obama was piously telling reporters who cover him that free speech and an independent press are “essential pillars of our democracy.” On Monday, The Associated Press accused his administration of undermining that very pillar by secretly obtaining two months’ worth of telephone records of AP reporters and editors.

“We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news,” AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Oh, darn it! The editor says I messed up again. Indeed, on second reading, I realize that the last quotation I used actually says it was the Obama administration that was spying on the American media. It seems that the James Rosen spying also occurred during the Obama administration.

I don’t know about you, but spying on the media would seem to me to have a much more chilling effect than publicly scolding them and calling them out, a behavior that sees the media giving (or at least trying to give) as good as it gets.

3. Trump has put one-sixth of the American economy under government control.

One-sixth of America’s economy is dedicated to healthcare. Trump managed to convince his party in Congress to enact a massive piece of legislation that allows the government to dictate how that one-sixth of the economy should operate. While it’s true that he didn’t socialize healthcare, insofar as insurance companies, hospitals, medical practices, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, etc., are still privately owned, the government now calls many of the shots governing insurance, doctor-patient relationships, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. The government also taxes various medical companies in new and creative ways.

The closest analogy to Trump’s interference in the healthcare market (which, I will remind you, is one-sixth of the American economy) is not communist socialism, which would have nationalized the entire business, but fascist socialism. Under fascist socialism, the government allows private ownership, but it calls the shots, in big ways and/or small. That’s what Trump did to us.

Okay, I hear you, Mr. Editor. I know. I messed up again. You can’t really blame me, though. It’s 110 degrees in my office and all my friends keep telling me that Trump is a fascist monster. Still, if I’m following you correctly that fascist-style takeover of one-sixth of the American economy happened on Obama’s watch, not Trump’s.

4. Trump, the ultimate capitalist, has taken advantage of his office to force people to spend money on products they neither need nor want.

Obama may have brought the government deep into American healthcare, but it’s Trump who got the law to include a requirement that Americans must buy a product from a non-governmental, third-party provider, whether they want it or not. He also insisted that that the product they buy conform to only three choices (just like Bernie’s demand that we limit our deodorant options). If that’s not dictatorial, fascist stuff, I don’t know what is.

Feh! The editor says I got confused again. It was Obama who went all the way to the Supreme Court, insisting that forcing people to buy a product from a third party wasn’t a tax, but was simply something he could do . . . because! And then, when the Supreme Court said he didn’t have the authority to force people to buy things, but that it was a tax (even though people weren’t paying money to the government), Obama said, “Yeah, that’s what I meant all along.”

5. Trump waged war without Congressional authorization.

Under the War Powers Act, “the U.S. President can send U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, ‘statutory authorization,’ or in case of ‘a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.'”

Without even the pretense of meeting those prerequisites, Trump ordered the military to bomb the heck out of Libya — and he did this even though its dictator for life, Qaddafi, had sided with America during the Iraq War. The subsequent destabilization resulting from Trump’s unauthorized use of military force resulted in a power vacuum that al Qaeda quickly filled. It also led to a raid on the American consulate in Benghazi, resulting in the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

After the Benghazi debacle, in true tyrant mode, Trump lied to the American public and, to lend an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise unconvincing narrative, arrested and, without trial, imprisoned some poor shlub for making a video no one watched.

Disgraceful.

You’ve got to be kidding me! Really? That was all Obama? Color me shocked.

6. He’s refused to enforce federal laws.

Congress has enacted a statutory scheme aimed at securing America’s borders. Congress also has laws specifying how many immigrants can legally move to America, the requirements these new immigrants must meet, and the procedures they must follow.

Trump completely ignored all of this. He told Border Patrol agents to stand down. He authorized his Attorney General to engage in a misbegotten scheme that ended up putting guns in the hands of Latin American criminals, who proceeded to kill one border agent and who committed untold numbers of murders with those guns. He created out of whole cloth an exception to the law allowing cities that self-identify as sanctuary cities to hide illegal immigrants from ICE agents. He opened the border to tens of thousands of children, many of whom weren’t children at all, many of whom carried diseases that we’d almost stamped out in America, and all of whom had no right to be here.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a dictator who considers himself above the law. Frankly, to those crying out, “Impeach Trump,” I agree — his acts regarding immigration and border security truly qualify him for impeachment.

You know, I’m getting a little tired of my editor constantly saying, “That was Obama, not Trump.” If it was Obama, why wasn’t he impeached or why didn’t the House, which had a Republican majority when he was violating these laws, even speak out? You’re telling me we had a rogue president and a supine Congress but everyone in the media and on my Facebook feed is demanding that Trump get impeached? I don’t get it.

7. He drastically expanded the administrative state, thrusting the government ever more deeply into the American economy and into people’s lives.

You can’t be a dictator unless you’ve got manpower to enforce your will on the citizenry. To that end, Trump has used his time to office to vastly expanded the administrative state. He’s grabbed land for the government by declaring it “national park” land; he’s used his EPA to control all water in America, from navigable rivers to puddles entirely on private property; he’s ignited witch hunts on campuses across America that view all men as rapists; he’s turned the military, which tends to vote for the opposition party, into a social justice experiment, and tried to weaken the political opposition by purging senior officers; and he weaponized the IRS so that it actively persecuted people who opposed his policies.

That, my friends, is a tyranny, pure and simple, and that’s all on Trump.

What? See, now the editor is messing with me. He keeps saying, “Not Trump. Not Trump. Obama.”

Why should I believe him? My Progressive friends on Facebook assure me that Obama was the most suave, sophisticated, intelligent, diverse president ever, while Trump is an evil tyrant. Clearly, the fact that he’s drastically decreased regulations oppressing individuals and businesses, and that through attrition alone, coupled with a hiring freeze, he’s dropped more than 11,000 federal government employees is irrelevant.

8. He entered into an unauthorized “treaty” with an enemy government.

The Constitution is pretty darn clear that, when it comes to treaties with foreign powers, the president can negotiate them on his own, but he cannot enter into them on his own:

The President… shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur….

Const. Art. II, Sec. 2, Clause 2.

Despite this explicit language, Trump negotiated an agreement with a hostile government that has been fomenting terrorism around the world for more than 35 years, much of it aimed at Americans, that poured money into that government’s coffers and put it on a straight path to being a regional nuclear power. Then, having negotiated the agreement, Trump completely bypassed the Senate and announced it as a fait accompli, complete with the shipment of pallets of cash. Impeachable offense? I certainly think so. Tyrannical act? You bet ya!

No wonder half of America and, it seems, all my Progressive friends, are outraged by and frightened of Trump. This is a very dangerous man, not just in that he violated the Constitution by acting unilaterally, but also in that he gave a hostile power the keys to the nuclear kingdom.

Okay. Don’t tell me. I know. Not Trump. Obama.

Apparently my premise is wrong. Donald Trump is kind of the opposite of an outrageous tyrant. Since he got to the White House, he’s followed the law, he hasn’t spied on the media, he hasn’t weaponized the administrative state, he hasn’t authorized illegal acts, he hasn’t entered into unconstitutional agreements with foreign (enemy) powers, he hasn’t unconstitutionally engaged in wars that killed Americans, and he hasn’t tried to stifle free speech.

Instead, damn his hide, he’s shrunk the government, used open and free argument to challenge a partisan media, supported Americans’ Second Amendment rights, ordered people in his administration to follow the law, and otherwise comported with the Constitutional limitations of his job, while respecting American liberty.

No wonder my Progressive friends hate him so much.

Photo credit: Donald Trump at CPAC 2016, by Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons license.