Trump Has Germans Thinking a Lot About Democracy

The German people have not forgotten their past and president-elect Donald J. Trump has them revisiting those painful memories of a darker time.

An article in Der Spiegel asks "How Much Mussolini Is There in Donald Trump?" The writer reviews a number of fascism checklists and the results aren't promising for American democracy. He concludes that Americans should wait - and hope.

The article was obviously written before Trump's latest tweet on protesters who may burn the American flag:


"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!

"— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2016"

Of course, since 1989 the US Supreme Court has held that burning the Stars and Stripes is protected under the First Amendment. Trump, however, has repeatedly shown how little he cares for the First Amendment or dissent generally. 

Which brings us to former justice Robert Jackson's warning:


“Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”

We'll All Be Muslims Soon Enough - Chris Hedges

We're discrete about it, sometimes, but we treat Muslims amongst us differently.  We're suspicious of the way they dress, their religion, their culture and, well, just what they're really up to.  And we've worked out ways to keep tabs on them in the hope of being able to spot acts or words that suggest something is amiss.

Chris Hedges suggests the techniques we've developed to keep a state eye on Muslims will soon be used on you too.

"...violations of fundamental civil liberties will not, in the end, be reserved exclusively for Muslims once the corporate state feels under siege. What is happening to them will happen to the rest of us. 

“One of the misapprehensions of the last decade is that the government had to go outside the law to places like Guantanamo or Bagram to abridge the rights of suspects in the name of national security,” said Jeanne Theoharis, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College who has been an outspoken critic of the rights abridgement occurring in Article III courts. “But this is not the case. , but also—dismayingly—within the U.S. federal courts. A similar degradation of rights that has characterized the prison at Guantanamo has also affected the judicial system within the United States. The right to dissent, the right to see the evidence against you, the right to due process, the right to fair and speedy trial, the right to have a judge who will be impartial, the right to fair and not disproportionate punishment, and the right not to be punished before you are convicted have been taken from us in the name of national security. It is not just in special secret prisons that this occurs.”

...“Torture is legal in the United States in the form of years of solitary confinement and the use of special administrative measures,” Theoharis said when we spoke by phone. “The Obama administration has not only refused to hold Bush officials accountable for torture, but maintains torturous conditions in federal prisons. And the Obama administration willfully misled the European Court about the conditions these prisoners face.” 

Think a radical, right-wing government in Canada wouldn't follow suit, at least to the extent their actions could be concealed?  Stephen Harper had no qualms about establishing a secret police agency made up of Edmonton and Calgary police, the RCMP and our national spy agency, CSIS, to monitor pipeline opponents and identify those who were potential threats.   That is the state spying on our own citizens and it's drawn barely a whisper of protest from the Liberals or NDP.  Just where do you think people like Harper and Toews would draw the line?   Your opinion is as good as anyone's.