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Dictator Trump

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A president who claims he has an absolute right to declare a national emergency and spend government funds that Congress has explicitly refused to appropriate for the ends he seeks, is assuming the role of a dictator.

A president who shuts down government in order to get his way on a controversial issue, such as building a wall along the border with Mexico, and offers to reopen it as a concession when and if his opponents give in, is treating the government of the United States as a bargaining chip. This, too, is the behavior of a dictator.

As is spouting lies over what Trump terms an “undeniable crisis” at the southern U.S. border, which is in fact no crisis at all.  

Donald Trump is violating the Constitution. He is negating our system of government based on the rule of law. He is violating a president’s core responsibility to protect American democracy. 

But the threat to American democracy is not just from Trump’s dictatorial moves. And real threat to American sovereignty is not coming from Trump’s fantasized hordes seeking to cross the Mexican border. 

It is coming from a foreign government intent on undermining our democracy by propagating lies, turning Americans against each other, and electing a puppet president.

We do not know yet whether Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to win the 2016 election. What we do know so far is that Trump’s aides and campaign manager worked with Putin’s emissaries during the 2016 election, and that Putin sought to swing the election in favor of Trump.

We also know that since he was elected, Trump has done little or nothing to stop Putin from continuing to try to undermine our democracy. To the contrary, Trump has obstructed inquiries into Russian meddling, and gone out of his way to keep his communications with Putin secret, even from his own White House.  

He has also done exactly what Putin has wanted him to do – threaten to pull out of NATO, pull out of Syria, and accept Russia’s presence in Ukraine. 

Perhaps Trump’s current attack on American democracy through his assertion of a fake national emergency is intended as to distract from this larger attack on America. No matter. Both threaten the essence of the nation. 

There is only one answer: Donald Trump must be removed from office. Impeachment should start immediately.  

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About Robert Reich


Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; Beyond Outrage; and Saving Capitalism. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.

Comments

  1. Janice M Kelly says

    Robert stated the persons who are the greatest threats to our democracy. Our President and Putin. Two men whom everyone should fear given the destruction and lack of caring over their own citizens as shown by their deeds and totally engrossed with conning them. That is those in our country who have been happy to be duped. Most are not. But we must scream now to be heard because the Republican Senate is impotent. We must meet and plan how to make the impeachment process the first words out of everyones’ mouth. We have specific groups organizing in SC for that purpose and they are forming all over the USA.
    We will be successful because our children and grandchildren cannot be saddled with the grievous wrongs these men have perpetrated and the money Trump has wasted, AND WE TAXPAYERS ARE saddled with, given his greed and narcissism regarding his vanity businesses and MAR-A-LAGO, where he is now celebrating his supposed victory of the emergency declaration. God help us all from the lunatic idiocy of our president.