It’s no secret about President Donald Trump’s love and
admiration for dictators and autocrats. Throughout his run for president and after assuming office
he has praised them as “strong leaders unlike what we have in this
country.” He systematically ignores the atrocities that these leaders
have committed to rise to power and maintain it.
The list of Trump’s favorites includes: Rodrigo Duterte,
President of the Philippines; Xi Jinping, President of China; Abdel-Fattah el-
Sissi, President of Egypt; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey; Kim Jong
Un, President of North Korea; and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
Trump has even praised the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Anyone,
including Trump, can just Google these guys to read about the atrocities they
have committed.
President Trump, unlike all his previous predecessors,
avoids all discussion of human rights issues when he meets with these
leaders. The most cited reason is his many
business ventures and agreements with these countries, which always take
precedent over his influential responsibilities as Leader of the Free World.
However, if one closely examines the governing style of
Trump, he has learned valuable lessons about leadership from his dictator
friends as was recently pointed out on the John Oliver TV show.
In full disclosure, Oliver’s show is definitely leftist
biased in its reporting on Trump’s actions, but sometimes even the biased shows
can give one an “aha moment.”
I had such a moment the other night when Oliver pointed out
that Trump and his supporters continually use the following dictator
techniques:
Delegitimizing the media
“Whataboutism”
Trolling
Character discrediting (I added this one)
We are all familiar with Trump’s campaign to discredit most
news media outlets as “Fake News”. Accordingly he claims that his tweets
are one of the only sources of the real facts. This is the number one
tactic used by most dictatorships, delegitimizing and suppressing all opposition
media sources coupled with convincing people their regime’s news outlet is the
only true source of facts.
“Whataboutism” is an old Soviet propaganda tool used to
marginalize inquiries into current immoral, unethical actions or violations of
the law. It implies all actions share an equal moral
equivalence. An investigation or inquiry is initiated and to
cloud the issue the “What about” term is applied to incidents or persons from
the past as a comparison to minimize the present illicit activity. This
is a favorite of Trump, and his supporters. Watch Fox News and
count the number of times “What about” is used in their reporting. It
really is very amusing but doesn’t address the fact that the illicit or
unlawful behavior is occurring today and should be dealt with
accordingly. The past behavior of others doesn’t legitimize, minimize, or
absolve from prosecution someone’s present actions.
Trolling the internet is another technique skillfully
utilized by Trump to play upon the fears and biases of our society. Find
out what people fear most, incite mass confusion about it, and provoke
anger. Dictators like Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un love this
technique.
The last Trump governing technique is my personal favorite,
character discrediting. President Trump doesn't intellectually debate any of
his critics. Instead he makes fun of their personal appearance and plays
upon a personality weakness by assigning each a childish nickname, all in an
attempt to discredit them for criticizing his regime. Unlike dictators Trump
can’t have them physically assassinated, but he, like his beloved dictators, is
obsessed with the destruction of his critics.
If you’ve read this to conclusion and you’re angry with the
Trump characterization, just remember you can always invoke Hillary Clinton or
Barack Obama as your “What about” to dismiss the realities of the issue and
feel better.
