A somnambulistic public watches without much obvious resistance.  This is our president elect. Before he takes office, he is already impeachable.  The emoluments clause. So many good people have raised alarm bells.  No one listens.  “Just entertain me.”   It’s all Roman Circus.

Trump turning the White House into a cash machine is a quick video.  A must watch.  Cha Ching!  Shades of Pink Floyd Money.

The Press

Christiane Amanpour, who knows something of state repression growing up in Iran, recoils in disbelief and horror over the prospects of press represesion or even imprisonment:

In her acceptance speech, Amanpour said the current hostile climate for reporters in the United States, including the rise of so-called fake news, has led to an “existential crisis” for journalists, a “threat to the very relevance and usefulness of our profession.”

Amanpour says journalists can’t lose their nerve now, at such a critical time.

“We have to fight to defend facts right now,” she told CBC News, “in what’s being described as a ‘post-truth’ world.”

Joe Klein comments on the poison that is Trump’s brain –  Steve Bannon.  I have warned about his toxic influence:

And now the ugliness has trickled down to high school corridors and shopping malls. Steve Bannon’s presence in the White House seems a guarantee that the big lies, dog shouting and conspiracy theories will continue, especially if things begin to go south for President Trump. That is how demagoguery works.

This is how it works.  In a post-truth world truth is the enemy of the state.  Control of the media is concentrated.  Tweeting has become the new state media.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

— attributed to Josef Goebbels, chief propagandist and overseer of the 1936 Munich Olympics

America’s Berlusconi

Italy already suffered a most similar fate.  Silvio Berlusoni.  It took 3 election cycles and 9 years to finally evict him.

Ask Italian voters, who spent a total of nine years between 1994 and 2011 being governed by Silvio Berlusconi. Italy’s longest-serving prime minister, Berlusconi started out as a wealthy demagogue on the brink of bankruptcy, whose celebrity was — like Trump’s — rooted in both real estate and popular entertainment culture.

Berlusconi presented himself as Italy’s strongman, speaking like a barman, selling demonstrably false promises of wealth and grandeur for all. He made the electorate laugh while stoking fears of communists and liberals stripping privileges and increasing taxes.

Presaging Trump, the Italian media mogul cast himself as the only viable savior of a struggling nation: the political outsider promising to sweep in and clean up from the vanquished left and restore the country to its lost international stature. “I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I sacrifice myself for everyone,” Berlusconi said. Now we find Trump promising “to make America great again,” pledging to become the “greatest jobs president […] ever created.”

Wait and See?

A wait and see attitude is like standing on the train tracks watching an oncoming train.  It won’t really hit me — will it?  I can jump just in time. My old boy scout motto was “be prepared.”   Wake up America.  It is later than you think.   It won’t get better.   The Rogue’s gallery grows each day.

But I’m white.  Nothing will happen to me. Right?

Gregg Popovich — “We are Rome”

“The fact that people can just gloss that over and start talking about the transition team, and we’re all gonna be Kumbaya now and try to make the country good without talking about about any of those things. Now we see that he’s already backing off on immigration and Obamacare and other things, so was it a big fake? Which makes you feel even more disgusting and cynical that somebody would use that to get the base that fired up to get elected.

“What gets lost in the process are African-Americans and hispanics and women and the gay population, not to mention the eighth grade developmental stage exhibited by him when he made fun of the handicapped person. I mean, come on. That’s what a seventh-grade, eighth-grade bully does, and he was elected president of the United States. We would’ve scolded our kids, we would’ve have discussions and talked until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things, and he is in charge of our country. That’s disgusting.”

The Loyal Opposition?

We await the loyal opposition.  And watch it crumble.   There are no checks and balances any longer.    This is what the founders most feared.

Republicans lie, cheat and steal.  That is how they have amassed power.  Never apologize.  Just hunker down. For what aim?  For what purpose?  Democrats will wimper, cower and apologize at the slightest push back.

I leave you with this one provocative thought.  Just imagine Trump faced with the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Head to head with an implaccable foe.

Boom!!!