Thank you, Mr. Cohen!
84
Just read Madeline Albright's recent book, Fascism: A Warning. Then get ready. We ALL need to get a whole lot more active if we are to cease this man from becoming what he so admires and save our democracy,
135
Before expressing his admiration of Kim Jong-un, he might be wise to remember the fate of a similar dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.
32
I think it's the the haircut of Kim Jong-un that Trump is envious of.
47
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984
168
Mr. Cohen is wrong if he believes our democracy will somehow stymie Trump in obtaining Kim's powers. Because enough American citizens will give him these powers. Oh, perhaps not a majority, but a large, rabid minority is all he needs.
The parallels between white Americans and Germans of the early 1930's is eerie. The resentment, the feeling that their problems were the fault of people "not like them". Hitler seized on this fictional "enemy" and the Germans loved it. Trump took this page out of his playbook by demonizing Mexicans and other brown-skinned peoples. He tells his base, more than 40% of us, that the KKK and neo-Nazis are some very fine people. This language wasn't "accidental". It was continuing to feed the beast. His white base needs to continue hearing that they're the "true" Americans.
So consider this scenario. November 2018 gives Democrats slim control of the House, but since Republicans will have control of the Senate, Trump will still be untouchable. His followers will grow more extreme, as they've shown in the past eighteen months. He will cancel all elections, claiming they are "rigged" against him. He has the Supreme Court votes to do so. We saw five Justices toady to his Muslim ban.
He'll continue his vicious lies about minorities, and begin to set up camps for them. By then, the rest of us will be far too afraid to speak out. No one will come to our aid. Since Trump has made our nation a pariah, we'll be very much alone. And I hope to God I am wrong.
119
Trump tweeted “Our country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools.”
Translation: "Our country's big enemy is the liar and fool in the White House who promulgates fake news to achieve his own selfish ends. Our country's biggest enemy is the stubborn ignorance of the fools who swallow the fake news promulgated by the liar and fool they elected & who attack anyone who seeks truth."
68
And Trump has Fox News to rebroadcast his lies over and over until a significant percentage of gullible Americans actually believe this nonsense.
82
There is nothing better then President of these United States Donald Trump would rather do than send hundreds of missile's all named Otto into the lap of fat Kimmie boy but....but..."the greater good' always takes precedent over personal desires and crass domestic political commentary, (yours). In other words, even the commenter is ignorant of his own prejudice's or really is "crass" and could not care less about the lives of all the U.S. service persons stationed in South Korea and South Koreans, (our staunchest ally).
4
"You can't make this stuff up." This might hold for you and other members of a responsible press--but not for the guy in the White House. He lives by fabrication.
As to any future deal concerning denuclearization of North Korea--keep in mind a single key word: verification ( https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-06-12/historic-... ; "A Historic Breakthrough or a Historic Blunder in Singapore?," by Daniel Russel, posted 12 June 2018)
13
This piece is even more credible, at least to me, because Roger Cohen is one of our nation’s only commentators who possesses a global perspective, originating in his native South Africa. Cohen undoubtedly has written about and probably interviewed dozens of tin-horn dictators, two-bit thugs masquerading as national leaders, and small-minded empty suits. I can only imagine the restraint Cohen is exercising in writing about our self-loathing, insecure, misogynist bully who is playing pretend President.
58
Trump's comments about Kim and Putin make it perfectly clear that we have a fascist dictator in the White House.
His only obstacle is jailing opposition leaders, silencing the press and continuing to put his henchmen/women on the courts while demanding blind obedience from his party. The man salutes a North Korean General without regard for fact we are still at war with North Korea. I am 100% convinced Ivana's comments are true that the only book she saw Trump read was a book on Hitler's speeches which he kept at his bedside. Had Hitler been alive , Trump would have praised him and saluted Himmler and the others. Having a fascist mouthpiece like Rudy Giuliani as Trump's voice to gin up the masses makes the German comparison even more striking. And the endless attacks on the Rule of law are just another hallmark of the fascist agenda.
Anyone who still thinks this country is not in deep trouble as a democracy must be totally naive or unaware of modern history. The GOP is now the enemy of democracy and a free and open society.
100
Trump is the most pathetic and worthless excuse for a human being to ever disgrace the national stage, and I wish he were here so I could tell him to his hair. I've tried writing the white house but it always rejects my message and tells me I have to use a valid email address. Which I have done every single time. Even his inbox can't handle criticism. Weak! I guess I'll have to write a letter. Trump is a mental 2-year-old with a toddler's lust for power. I hope all the people who voted for him get their fair share of the destruction he has brought and will continue to bring until he is out of office.
42
"Who's the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?"
31
This idiot is not just jealous he is sick and very dangerous. He is doing his best to destroy democracy as we have built it for the past 250 years. One of the consoling things is that often personalities like this end up in self destruction. We should be so lucky.
41
The good news, such as it is, is that he is indeed a moron. He can't even grift well (hence the AG's lawsuit against his charity). It's taking longer than I'd like, but Trump will eventually blow himself up (figuratively speaking).
On the other hand, his presidency has shown us that the leaders of the modern GOP are pathetic, immoral and spineless.
VOTE
57
It is quite mindless and/or disingenuous to act like Trump's style, his lying, his attacks on respectable government and non government institutions, his courting of propaganda outlets in the place of normal journalistic outlets, his love affairs with murdering dictators, his gross personal profiting from the office, etc., are harmless. His life, his actions, his responses debase him and his apologists, but of more concern, they legitimize the authoritarian and rabidly anti-democratic minorities in the US and other countries. This is how Hitler and the Nazis, and Mao, Stalin, and various other communist movements played it. Anyone who has any actual awareness of the last hundred years of history recognizes the behavior.
29
The Huuuuuuge Dictator. Seriously.
5
The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui - this time as tragedy and farce
7
Having a president who praises a murderer/dictator is mind blowing to this American.
27
Not to mention envy of Putin, al-Assad, Netanyahu, Duterte. Can we just deport him to Russia, since that is obviously the type of government he prefers?
10
Trump has made it clear for years that he admires the worlds worst dictators.
About Kim Jong Un "You gotta give him credit," Trump said. "How many young guys — he was, like, 26 or 25 when his father died — take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden ... he goes in, he takes over, and he's the boss,”
About Assad: "I think in terms of leadership, he's getting an A,"
About Putin killing journalists: "He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country," Trump said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."I think our country does plenty of killing also." His attacks on the US press and the open internet and use of Alternate Facts are straight out of the "Dictator's Handbook".
Trump clearly wants to convert the United States to a fascist state with himself as Dictator. He is already an expert in the Big Lie propaganda methods of the 1930's.
Trump lives in an Alternate Universe where he is Dictator of the Fascist States of America. Worse, however is that the Republican leadership has no morality, no shame, not a shred of patriotism left. They know Trump is a disgrace to everything this nation stands for but they do nothing about it whatsoever. They prefer to have an incompetent, dangerously ill narcissist in the Oval Office.
We must make them pay for their contempt for the American people by voting them out of their Congressional majority in 2018.
18
"Trump saluted evil." Saluted in italics. Oh, come on, Roger, stop being such a drama queen!
I don't like Trump for stylistic reasons but he did absolutely the right thing in engaging with a man who has atom bombs and the ICBMs to drop them on LA. Sure, Kim might be a ruthless dictator who ought to be indicted for trampling human rights. But who's going to bell the cat? It's not even within the realm of possibility to go after the leader of a nuclear weapons state. So, one must bow to reality and deal with him. Which Trump did. Good for him
5
Will someone pleases read this article aloud, SLOWLY and with clear illustrations, to all the people who watch Fox News.
10
Here is something I just don't understand: Every once in a while when reporters find the stones (and the opportunity) to ask Trump why he supports these dictators despite their well-known atrocities, they give him a huge berth to avoid the question and don't follow up. Like in this most recent case, someone asked him why he has such nice words for Kim even though Trump himself said he blames Kim for what happened to Otto Warmbier. Do you think this guy actually remembers or cares? Trump's response was something like "Well he's a tough guy."
How about this:
"Mr. Trump, why are going out of your way to be so nice to Kim, not even a year after his regime tortured one of our citizens to death? The same regime that kidnapped the crew of the USS Pueblo? That starves its own citizens and sends them to gulags? That has no semblance of civil or human rights? Mr. Kim is responsible for murdering even his own family members. Why do you call him a 'great guy' who 'really cares about his people?'"
Don't leave any room for him to mishear or dodge the question. Bring this ugliness into the light of day for him to either vocally reject or visibly condone.
22
Trump wants to be a dictator - which is a psychological
inferiority complex.
Can't trust a man who don't read books.
10
Trump's "SharedFuture Video" is as wacko as Cheney & companies declaration that the Iraq people would welcome us with open arms. Then it was more like loaded arms.
9
Trump calling you “weak” is an accolade to the rest of still-free world!
4
A perennial question asked is: How did the civilized nation of Germany, a fount of great literature, art and industry, allow itself to fall under the spell of Hitler and thereby become the source of atrocities never before witnessed on such a grand scale?
We have an answer before our very eyes: witness what is going on with Trump and under Trump at this very moment in time. He has legitimized every manner of hate and every mode of authoritarianism that we're familiar with. While a sizable portion of our electorate, Congress, and the GOP remain in a thrall to him. I do not believe in miracles, but I feel that only a miracle will save us from this developing catastrophe.
26
I guess they thought that when they put "In God we trust" on the money that would insure that the "Power that hath made and preserved us a nation" would continue to preserve us.
Apparently not.
But, what I would like to know is exactly what sin America has committed, such that He is allowing a sociopathic traitor to rip our Republic to shreds...?
Is it our racism? Our narcissistic arrogance in thinking that we are exceptional? Or is it just another meaningless turn of the Great Mandala, allowing the barbarians to drag us into captivity in parts unknown of Asia?
4
This American expat been trying, not very successfully, to put himself on a Trump news diet. The man is making me sick, literally sick.
But then, as Roger Cohen so artfully points out, Trump is making the whole world sick. Attention must be paid. The only solution is to keep manning the levers of democratic opposition including, critically, the free press and the vote, and push back *hard.*
24
Don’t you think Kim is a “brilliant, romantic and towering figure”?
1
Donald Trump and the GOP which allows him to operate unfettered are despicable.
16
Dear So-called President Trump: In this country you have to earn respect. We are not North Korea.
12
The guy is mentally unbalanced and should be wearing a straight jacket and locked into a padded cell before he ruins what is left of democracy in the USA. It is so weird that's its hard to believe he can do what he is doing. And where are the Republican law makers as this charade goes on?
13
I think they should both drop trou and have some target practice. Now, that's male envy, of the most primate kind.
3
Trump is an old guy with orange fake hair whose days are numbered. While this is not a crime, his constant attempts to snooker our legal system, cheat his contractors and bankrupt his investors should be. Over the years he has sought to be outside the law, free of the IRS and allowed to do anything he wants. Is it any wonder that he admires people who have been allowed to do this for their whole lives. Kim Jong Un has almost a whole life time ahead of him as a gangster strong man while Trump just sees his chances for mob greatness slipping away.
8
The only thing which stands between the US and a despot in the WH is not the constitution, not the Congress, not the Supreme Court. It is Secretary Mattis.
3
Trump would like our citizens to obey him just like the North Koreans obey Kim. But they have no choice. If they don't they could be poisoned, tortured, or sent to internment camps where they starve and do forced labor. Trump would like the same scenario here. By separating kids from their illegal parents Trump and Sessions are following Kim. If he could and he's trying, Trump would close down any newspaper or media venue that criticizes him, leaving just Fox, who is no friend of America. He's polarizing the country and using the race card to raise his poll ratings. Would be dictators eventually fail due to their megalomania. His fall would be faster if enablers like Republicans didn't support him. They lost sight of the American dream and sold out the country. As for Trump he's about as patriotic as Benedict Arnold.
10
DJT’s starry-eyed admiration for Kim is disgusting and worrisome, not because DJT has the guts to be a dictator but because it makes DJT so vulnerable to manipulation. Case in point: that cheesy real estate pitch that our tax dollars put together. The only thing missing was the big gilded Trump sign on the condos. DJT now thinks that we are all safe and everything is fine because his head is filled with fantasies of lucrative real estate deals. Our foreign policy is now at the whim of a silly, greedy, vain old man who falls for flattery and promises of profit every single time. So much winning.
11
We have truly passed through the looking glass and there is nothing Trump would like more than to scream "off with her head" like the Red Queen. He barely stopped short of calling for the execution of his political opponent when he encouraged "second amendment types" to deal with Hillary Clinton. Now in power, he would like nothing more than to have the heads of anyone who gets in his way, and the admiration of the men he openly admires most: brutal dictators. We have a sociopath and malignant narcissist holding the most powerful office in the world, and no one seems willing or able to stop him. Children are being put in detention camps on U.S. soil -- what will it take? Where will we let this man take us next?
13
You are dead right Mr Cohen, you can't make this stuff up.
But you can, as Trump does, put more and more of it out there until it becomes impossible to recognize the 'real' news from the 'fake' so we lose the ability to know what to believe and what is just another pack of lies.
5
It is very frightening to realize that we are living with a dangerously mentally ill president and a Republican controlled Congress that could care less.
18
I'm still bewildered by the possibility that Trump is actually ignorant of the irony and incongruity with reality in statements like, sleep easy, the nuclear threat is over. Does he really not understand that he was the prime source of the anxiety over a possible outbreak of nuclear war, not the Korean dictator. There's no such thing as a restful night's sleep, as long as he is president.
12
Is it me or did trump just get a kim jung un hair cut and tell all of us we should stand at attention when he speaks.
Make America Great Again?
This Benedict Arnold that the minority of Americans voted into office are complicit.
Wise up Americans, we have a dodder as a commander in chief
9
Yes, that's what I see, too. Envy. Envy of the supposed adoration Kim's people have for him. Of his absolute power. And Kim envies Trump because he is, well, president of America, he made him a nice video and he is tall. This bromance will continue until Trump gets his Nobel Peace Prize, no doubt, or until Kim fails to flatter him or otherwise behave like a fan.
9
To all of the trump supporters, continue to live in trump's make believe world. One in which you envision yourself as a would be millionaire, white, privileged never without health care, a home or a future, a place where you can invent your own reality and fake news. Meanwhile the trump family and cronies will loot the national treasury, destroy millions of jobs and small businesses with his trade war and tax policies, give you dirtier water and foul air and destroy your freedoms with a dictatorial approach to government and utter contempt for our constitution. Just do the rest of us a favor, keep him to yourselves. The rest of us real Americans want a better life with and for our neighbors, want to preserve our democracy and want equality for all. So please pack your bags, take your guns and Donald with you and move to Russia. Vlad is waiting.
16
Our dictator wannabe is decompensating in fear of Mr. Mueller’s findings. Trump’s life of crime is about to catch up with him.
3
And can we also note the enormous mural of Trump and weird quote that was painted on the Walmart/immigrant-child prison/indoctrination center? If that doesn’t say “dictator wannabe,” I don’t know what does.
13
A fantasy video by the National Security Council of the United States of America! The "best and brightest" score again in defense of "freedom" or is it their "dear leader" in the White House they are defending. After trashing the Iran Agreement, the Paris Accord, the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd Frank protections against another financial disaster, consumer protections, NAFTA and TPP trade agreements, what is left for our "dear leader" to do? He must be very tired and perhaps it's time for him to go. Funny, it might be necessary for the people of this Country to make America great again after Trump leaves.
7
The Trump administration is so bizarre that it eclipses just about any political fiction novel. It’s sickening to watch Trump marginalize any questions about his fawning over Kim. It’s a real abomination that the president of the US and one of the most ruthless dictator’s act like two peas in a pod.
Trump’s silence on the immigration policy that separates babies from their parents is
8
Yes, you are correct in your warning. Trump has demonstrated many components of fascism i.e. the ongoing lies, the use of terms such as “enemy of the people”, the cult of hyper -and false-masculinity, racism and use of state power to support,contempt for liberal democracy with its emphasis on individual rights, civil society, private property, unlike the statist/grifter aspects of this regime. We can not predict with any certainty what is next; still another detail of fascism.
9
Once again Roger says what most of us are thinking.
4
Trump flatters Kim as way of flattering himself. "Look at us, two strong-men, father and son. Lucky Kim is a dictator. Wish I could a dictator too." Trump has a fascinating (and dangerous) fantasy life.
6
Trump is keeping all of his campaign promises. No one should be surprised by their bully president. The challenge now is to contain the damage. America is still a democracy despite Trump’s efforts to undermine the judiciary and a free press.The ballot box is the ONLY option. Americans of good will must resolve to remove this malignant president by their ballot.Everyone!
7
Obama bowed to the Ayatollah and a Japanese robot. George bush senior bowed and was Knighted by the Queen of England as a sitting president. Trump waving saluting a North Korean is not a sign that he wants to be a dictator. This article is ridiculous in its assumptions.
1
The people who voted for Trump barely looked up from their immigrant bashing to notice he was getting cozy with another dictator. Not that they would have
cared. Trump voters are fully aware of how much they benefit from dictatorial Donald.
5
Quote from another article in the NYT today:
"He praised Mr. Kim, brushing aside questions about the repressive regime and gulags in North Korea. “Hey, he is the head of a country, and I mean he is the strong head,” Mr. Trump said. “Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”"
O.M.G.
It's about time everyone realizes that at least a third of your population is willing to embrace fascism. Only so they can enjoy poking the "elites" in the eyes? What has become of this formerly free country?
And no, repeatedly reminding NYT readers of voting in November won't fix it. You are preaching to the choir here. The NYT is an echo chamber. Only massive grassroots political organization, outreach and endurance will have an effect. This is hard work, folks. I'm afraid senior NYT readers won't make it happen. As wise and ecouraging your comments often are, I just hope it's not too late already.
7
Another piece of evidence: he stoked the threat of nuclear war (not Obama) so he could end it and we would be grateful to sleep easy.
The Venezuelan president took away the food so he could hand it out to a grateful people.
8
King George III would probably also be a role model, if Trump knew who he was.
3
Condemn trumps enablers, the GOP, with the same vehemence you show toward the man with no redeeming qualities.
6
What is truly frightening is that the rise of authoritarianism in the United State is not unique. Besides us, many countries has succumbed. Mr. Kim has nothing to fear now in dictatorial countries like North Korea. Countries that has started democratizing like Russia and China are reversing themselves. One should not think that "Europe" is safe. While Poland and Turkey fought for joining democratic western Europe just a couple decades ago, authoritarians are in control now. Europe as a concept may be over if Merkel and Macron fail. If this rise of authoritarianism is left unchecked, human race is truly in danger. While budding authoritarians may play nice for a while, a world ruled by egoistic children with nuclear weapons will not end well.
6
And 40% of Americans want a dictator, so much so that they are throwing their support to literally the first person to volunteer for the position So the envy isn’t just from Trump. His supporters want to be a nation dictated to.
I always assumed that a transition to a dictatorship comes because the dictator had some quality than won over enough of 5he country. But now I see in America the opposite: the 40% want a dictator so badly that they pretend Trump has good qualities that earned their support, and other dictators like Putin and Kim get the same sort of pretense.
5
So Trump committed a supposed thoughtcrime. Notice how it's only liberals who condemn 1984-style what others might be thinking, instead of about actions and results. Keep up the good work.
Things will not change until we vote and rid the country of the Republican CULT. Yes, words are powerful. If Trump can change the minds of his usually decent followers with "witch hunt" the news should say it like it is. We are a one party system (Democrats) ruled by a cult (The Trump-GOP CULT).
5
Trump admires dictators, or at least the power they wield. He can't say enough good things about Putin, Kim, Duterte, Ertogan and others. His favorite presidential power is the power to pardon, but he would love to have the absolute power they exercise.
The only thing to stop Trump from achieving his goal of being like his dictator friends is our Constitution and the willingness of good people to stand up to his scornful defamation and the attacks of his supporters.
7
Mr. Trump's envy is understandable. Kim Jong-un is the absolute ruler of a small kingdom, and Mr. Trump obviously chafes at the limits placed on HIS personal authority both as a businessman and as the most powerful man on Earth. Unfettered capitalism is the last bastion of feudalism and Mr. Trump must long for the good old days when the gentry and peasants dared not speak against the king.
4
We would all really like to know what happened to all those gaudy, ugly coins?
Did Trump give the North Korean general he saluted one of the coins as a reminder of how great it was to meet the Donald ? Just curious.
6
The trick–and it is the toughest trick to pull off—is to unseat a hateful tyrant without hating him, because hating him means he is pulling our strings. Hate is the worst puppet-master of all, and we must use any emotional/spiritual means we can to avoid being manipulated by it.
We cannot outthink hate, because it is irrational, it is not integrated into our higher brain functions. It is like trying to outthink a rabid animal. But we CAN be smart about how we deal with it, just as we can be smart in dealing with a communicable disease of either body or mind.
A country free of Trump, but divided by hate and contempt is not free. We must strike at the root of the disease—not be tempted to target only the symptoms. Legislation always targets symptoms. To tap the deepest sources of values—the best and worst values—and starve or nourish them is the first order of business, but it is, sadly, not the business of government.
Government can only work skin deep. As a nation capable of greatness, but standing in the quicksand of contempt, it is time to see our plight and remember who we aspire to be and seek whatever help we may need from the wisest among us. Humility is the strongest foundation of all. A nation of people whose joy is in serving one another, weaves a fabric stronger than any armor. May leader-servants rise among us, steeled by the inner armature of humility!
2
American statesmen have never saluted foreign officers. John Adams declined court dress when presenting credentials to King George III. Ironically, President G.W. Bush, who welshed on his ANG commitment, began the practice of returning military salutes. Well, maybe it was Reagan, but that was different, since he served in the U.S. Cavalry. I digress. Someone remind djt of John Adams. The Founder.
1
Trump has bigger missiles than Kim, and his work, what's to envy. If you want to expose Trumps for his faults then choose something more credible, like the huge tax breaks he has taken away from his promise to make America great again.
America is in the column of the democracies and will never be governed by a dictatorship. That the republican party has control of all three branches of government was decided by the voters and Trump is simply making the most of it while the opportunity is there.
We live in interesting times. Is it a curse? Or an opportunity? Am I mixing my aphorisms?
1
President Trump, as the Commander-in-Chief, is saluted a dozen times a day. Whenever he walks outdoors or steps off a plane or helicopter, his Marine honor guard and any other uniformed personnel in attendance automatically salute him, because he outranks the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. President Trump, as does every other President in living memory, automatically returns these salutes as a simple courtesy. He is also saluted by foreign military personnel when he travels abroad. Of course he returned the salute of the North Korean general. I’m sure it was a trained reflex reaction, but it was also simple courtesy and the right thing to do. The criticism of Trump over this gesture is silly and mean-spirited.
I miss George W hallucinating with Putin's soul. Trump not only yearns for a totalitarian State, he legitimized a horrible dictator and is working hard to get rid of the first amendment and, create distrust in the democratic institutions. I would not be surprised if the name of the Department of Homeland Security gets changed to the Department of Propaganda.
So far, the Singapore photo-op and the suspension of the military practices handed China a big diplomatic victory: ease economic sanctions and avoid a massive North Korean migration to Chinese territory.
2
Trump has never made any secret of the fact that he is an unstable man of low intellect and low morals, with little or no interest in anything other than New York real estate, reality TV and the beauty contest business.
America’s great misfortune is a Republican Party that has chosen to hitch a ride on his great bandwagon to nowhere.
I never thought this could happen here.
His appeal to voters consisted of nothing more than an unsupported promise that he would bring about change.
Well, he’s given us the change, and it’s a terrible nightmare.
12
The United States can elect a dictator? That seems like a big problem that getting rid of Trump will not fix. Are we supposed to just roll the dice from now on and hope another one doesn't pop up? The Constitution should have been fixed a long time ago and all these "norms" need to be written down into law. No more running candidates under any kind of investigation. Thorough background checks need to be passed. Physical and mental testing needs to be done. This is a job and should be treated like any other job. If people need a credit check and a drug test for minimum wage then these people should be put through the ringer.
1
Right on, Roger.
And Trump later made the statement (subsequently reframed as a joke) that he wants "his people" to "sit up at attention" when he speaks, just like Kim's people do.
Did little Donnie always want to be a dictator when he grew up?
3
Recently read Sinclair Lewis novel, It Can’t Happen Here. It’s a frightening story of a political cult of personality. And it seems to fortell what is happening today, right now. I can only hope our democracy can withstand our current group of know nothings, oligarchs, far right crazies. Too many people want to believe them. Trump wants to be king.
9
The President is advised by a third rate team. He chose them because they were willing to get behind anything his addled brain could conjure and because as C players, they had little to lose.
National Security Advisor John Bolton was fatally discredited as the architect of the Iraq/ISIS debacle but he was rescued by Trump because he could harmonize on his world views (not to mention looking like a Dr. Seuss evil character)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was plucked from obscurity in Kansas, where he fell from a failed business career into a Tea Party candidacy. I have a begonia that knows more about foreign policy than Pompeo (tragically a deer ate it).
Economic advisor Larry "Wrong Way" Kudlow has been spectacularly wrong about every one of his most significant economic predictions.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is outdoing all of the worst EPA Administrators appointed by GOP Presidents, like Neil's mom, Anne Gorsuch Burford, quite an accomplishment. Most resigned in disgrace.
The rest are equally incompetent, excluding General Mattis, who has thus far been successful in his containment strategy, not of a foreign enemy but the President.
30
The salute was a meaningful and symbolic gesture, which Trump was totally unprepared for. He had no idea how to react. He didn’t know, hadn’t bothered to learn, and no one thought to tell him. Funny that the North Korean state cameras were ready.
16
Actually, in the photo it is the North Korean officer who appears surprised. He has his hand extended to shake hands.
2
I don’t believe that Trump gave Kim a single thought before the nuclear question heated up again, and I can’t think of a single reason why he should envy Kim. Roger tars Trump with a positively Asian mindset regarding use of power that Trump has shown NO inclination to seek. He probably despises the liberal MSM about as much as Reagan did, but nothing in his actions suggests that he would machine-gun them as Kim did his uncle.
At least not with impunity.
Someone should keep a running total of the pretexts manufactured by pundits for actually hating the man as evil. They are legion; yet they really target his policies, which the MSM can’t affect. I’m sure if I looked carefully, I’d find some sclerotic scribbler complaining about the likelihood that a 71-year-old president’s big toes have turned inward.
Trump may admire the fact that some world leaders far more easily can get things done than he, including Putin (and Trump’s hardly the only one who admires Putin for that), but Trump also obeys judicial orders he doesn’t like and waits on Congress for major legislation. Those are hardly the practices of a dictator.
The unchained, potted liberati despise Trump for being Trump, and hate him for the evil of rejecting their own burning bush of liberal orthodoxy. So they castigate him for setting the world on a marginally more stable course with North Korea, and fight him on all other policies not with coherent arguments but by calling him icky.
You can’t make this stuff up.
1
If you can’t think of any reasons DJT would envy Kim, you aren’t trying at all.
5
Solid piece, Mr. Cohen, even as we slide further into that nightmare blend fascist violence and unintended irony/humor.
For instance, when did the National Security Council go into the movie industry?
And who picked the title "Destiny Pictures Production" as their cover? -- I thought Bannon had left the WH!
63
I can only hope in the long run, it matters that there are more of us who see what trump's up to, and will do everything we can to stop him. His base (very appropriate word for them - for they are truly base), is a minority. They're on a high at present as they've assumed his power as their power - a sick kind of symbiosis.
He's pushing boundaries of civility, brazenly breaking laws while stuffing his pockets, an obsequious congress allows it, his supporters applaud it, they all keep issuing him rope and he keeps taking it. He's more evil than smart. He's also a coward.
Eventually, it's going to all come crashing down. That's when were going to find out who we are and what we're made of. And when it's over, there will no longer be a market for certain red hats.
52
The elements of the Authoritarian personality type, which Donald Trump is, are:
Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong.
Respect for submission to acknowledged authority.
Belief in aggression toward those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking, or who are different.
33
Lenny
The President is attempting to get Kim Jong-un to denuclearize North Korea. I assume that you know that North Korea has nuclear missiles that can hit the United States and other countries in the world.
It is time to support the President. It is not the time for sarcasm and jokes.
The only remedy to Trump's attempt to become our dictator is democracy which allows us to vote out demagogues and put in place a congress that would rein in Trump's authoritarian impulses. If we do not temper his fascist tendencies Trump will subvert the rule of law ,our free press and use the justice dept to operate as his Roy Cohen style henchmen. The economy boomed under other dictators but only the family and cronies reaped the rewards while dissidents were imprisoned ,Trump's dream come true and Putin's investment paying off big time as he unravels the western alliance to get patents for Ivanka.
36
So, has Mr Cohen finally changed his registration or is he still a loyal member of the GOP like he was back in the years during the disastrous Iraq wars when the military and President sent him to the Iraq capitol to report on how incredibly safe it was there?
8
Well wjat difference does that even make?
Cohen, unlikemany others...ahem, can see things as they are. Party affiliation aside.
I dont agree with all of Mr Cohens views in the Israel/Palestinian thing, but he has reasons. He thinks it through.
THat is exaxlty the point of his piece here today. Where does ones scruples, or sense lie? Party over commin sense, thats what would rather see? This is precisely the problem.
2
I agree that Mr. Trump’s behavior seems as though he is trying to achieve a Stalinist totalitarianism form of government in the United States. Congress must show that they are willing to override a veto. They should do this to save our democracy from a revolution that appears to be already underway, and also to avoid being charged with violating human rights by isolating children from their parents at the border into big detention centers. It looks to me like Mr. Trump is following a Nazi how-to-do-it book. The beginning of the Nazi regime began with negative advertising, followed by blaming "disloyal" people, and along the way, came the separation of children from parents. We are living in a frightful time. Congress has the power to override a veto. They should pass a compromise bill that would provide freedom to DACA children, allow family immigration, and stop taking children from their parents. We also should welcome asylum seekers and protect people in our country who are being abused. We are all being demeaned by the policies that Mr. Trump is promoting. Congress can fix that.
29
The majority of Congress support this fascist demagogue. They cannot fix anything unless the republicans get rebuked by voters.
2
You did not take a look at Congress in its make up now . They don't want to challenge Trump. They do not want to do the checks & balances with him . So what is our choice? Let us change Congress in the Fall. Let us stop this do nothing Congress now. Let us stop this Presidents corruption & selling us out to Russia or China.
4
Oh, trump followers, do you remember how you shrieked about President Obama's 'apology tour'? You don't want to think about your own hypocrisy, but I seem to remember y'all screaming about Obama 'meeting with our enemies!!!' when he agreed to talk to Cuba. Remember the Romney/Obama debate where Romney accused the president of going all over the middle east "apologizing for past US behavior"? Why is this different? You now pout that those SAME critiques, accompanied by tRump's OWN words, somehow is different cuz tribes!! I'll wait for your responses, and I'll bet (snark alert) they'll be thoughtful and factual.
29
DebinOregon
The President is trying to prevent nuclear war.
It is the time to back up the President.
If you do not know what nuclear war looks like, then research Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II. Both cities were totally destroyed by Atomic Bombs.
Mr. Cohen,
Thank you. You hit the nail on the head. This column cuts to the heart of what Trump is all about.
This paragraph gave me chills:
"But of course history is not our esteemed leader’s strong point. Trump also tweeted that the nuclear threat from North Korea is over — abracadabra, just like that! He urged Americans, in this light, to “sleep well tonight!” This recalled nothing so much as the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, on his return from Munich in 1938, declaring “peace for our time” and saying, “Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”
Congress: Are you LISTENING?? WAKE UP!
106
Which part of Congress? Certainly not the Republicans, if recent primaries are any indication. The GOP is now a subsidiary of Donald Trump inc and their priority is to make Trump even more rich, full stop.
So we obviously need Democratic majorities in Congress come November. And despite what some of the commentators are saying the Democrats’ first order of business is to start impeachment proceedings. No they won’t succeed but they will tie up trump in knots.
6
as a description of an American President,today's column is chilling. but as a description of the head of one of the five families circa 1960,it is all very understandable and
predictable.
Trump models himself on the tough,in-charge mafiosi he grew up working with in NYC real estate and construction. his idea of diplomacy is making an offer you can't refuse.
no wonder he won't release his tax returns and badmouths the FBI.
hint: Sing Sing has lovely Hudson River views.
28
Dwight Eisenhower never once returned a salute after he took off his military uniform. Nor did a single American president before Ronald Reagan.
The salute is a military courtesy, exchanged between members of the military. The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but he is not a member of any of them. Eisenhower and every president before Reagan understood that a civilian is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and hence not required - and perhaps not entitled - to return a salute.
Perhaps Reagan did not get enough of saluting when he was making movies in Hollywood during the Second World War. He certainly got a lot of pleasure from returning salutes as president, that's for sure. He could not keep the grin off his face. Didn't even try, I would guess.
And now any American president is likely to set off a fire storm of criticism from the Real Americans of the Right if he fails to return a salute, even from an officer in the army of a totalitarian dictator. What hath Reagan wrought! Yet another corrupting practice we have inherited from the principal author of the conservative revolution that continues to vex our politics to this day.
52
Trump looked into Kim's eyes and saw ... himself.
A man born into privilege with a penchant for ruthlessness. What's not to like?
148
Evil has many faces.
3
Thank you Roger Cohen.
Yes, let's keep the Republic.
Is there anyway we can do this by not paying so much attention to this man?
Maybe have a portion of the newspaper dedicated to his tweets, his version of matters, to keep it separate from what is real. Color those pages yellow.
Let the people on the right wing TV channel be the exclusive issuer of his thoughts as reality.
23
God help us all, I fear you are right.
(and not that I'm starting to get paranoid, but when I was reading this Trump as-would-be-dictator article, I lost my connection and was stopped from finishing the article. Not that I'm paranoid, but....)
14
Same here. Including the article crash.
1
KIM needs buttering up, "passer la pommade" as 1 says in French, and this is why our c-in-c is bending over backwards to please him. I envision a visit to the US. Trump's alleged envy of strong men is not original. Every chief of state dreams of absolute power. De Gaulle was able, on his return to power in 1958 as president of 5th Republic, to reduce Nat. Assembly and Senate to a rubber stamp, and as late Muriel Reed reported in her book, 'Visites Chez Les Francais,"legislators complained that under De Gaulle, all they were reduced to doing was to "enteriner, enteriner, enteriner!"De Gaulle also extended his authority to south America where he sent counter insurgency experts to support dictatorships,mainly the juntas in Argentina during the "Sale Guerre,"(1976-1983).In field research for Hoover wrote of a "coup fourre"involving a former OAS militant. Bertrand de Perceval and Afredo Astiz, Argentinian marine, to sequester, kidnap and torture to death 2 French nuns, Leonie Duquet and Alice Damon, for which crime Astiz is serving life in Marco Paz Prison in Buenos Aires Province. But I digress. Trump did not elect Duterte. Phillipino people did."Entre parentheses,"interviewed a colleague of abovementioned Duquet, who informed me that even after she knew she had been targeted by the military, she decided to remain to help the poor in the "poblaciones"of the capital, so strong was her faith!Mr. Cohen writes well, but needs to play fair, be objective.
One possible outcome of Mr. Trump's half-baked diplomacy and his further desire to have the Japanese and the South Koreans pay more for America's security guarantee is that they (Japan and South Korea) might decide they should go nuclear.
What would prevent that?
What should be done if they do?
12
What should be done when ROK and Japan go nuclear? Which they only would do because we kicked them in the teeth.
Be very, very nice to them, and hope they'll forgive us someday.
… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Japan_That_Can_Say_No
1
And yet we are told again and again that it is the fault of progressive-minded people for not understanding the worldview of Trump supporters. I understand their views very well. I can predict their answers to almost any policy issue. And I know what their problems are. Because none of this is new; and these views and policies have never ended well for the security, health, prosperity and liberty of the people affected by them.
74
Sorry. But this "poor us" victim scenario preferred by Trump supporters is really starting to chafe.
And it's not the fault of "progressive-minded people" that most Trump supporters are close-minded racists and bigots.
Get real.
2
Mr. Trump said the following in a 1990 interview, "Russia is out of control and the leadership knows it. That's my problem with Gorbachev. Not a firm enough hand."
Mr. Trump has been nothing if not consistent in siding with oppressors against the people.
35
Yes, America does indeed have a "deep state." It's called the Constitution. America, by design, is a constitutional democracy, a constitutional republic, with multifaceted institutional allegiance to fundamental principles and the rule of law. No one takes an oath to support and defend the president. Mere electoral victories, control of even both the executive and legislative branches, has never been enough. When Trump and FOX propagandists rail against the "deep state," it is the full-throated cry of despotism and our greatest peril that we ought to hear. Trump is the demagogic tyrant the Founders most feared when they framed our government as they did.
58
Question is: What are we/those who are, or were ever, bound by oath, duty, honor to PROTECT and DEFEND the CONSTITUTION going to do about it?? (This includes all who work/ed for the federal government)
What will allow us to look ourselves and our children and our grandchildren in the eye 20, 10, 5, 2 years from now? A month from now? A week? Tomorrow?
5
Edits:
Change
This was an unserious summit, cobbled together in haste by an unserious man, and summed up by the video fantasy of a glorious shared future,
To
This was a serious summit, cobbled together in haste by an serious man, and summed up by the gaslighting video of a glorious shared future...
Then print it.
1
The bragging. The bombastic. The vitriolic rhetoric. The hate. The constant stream of lies. The narcissism and the misogyny. This is Donald Trump, the President of the United States. In a word, the man is barking mad.
His abhorrent behavior is tolerated, condoned and enabled by a difunctional and basically useless and feckless Congress that has put self and personal interest and party before the interests of the people and the country. They are afraid of this dangerous and very disturbed man.
Given the chance and the opportunity, Donald Trump would love to run this country like a personal fiefdom. He's hateful and cruel and mean. His admiration and worship of the likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim jung-un is more than obvious. They are what Donald Trump wants to be, what he most admires.
Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to this Republic.
Look into his eyes and you see a void. There is nothing there but hatred.
47
for a certain category of voters, it's like looking in a mirror- one with an ornate, guilded frame to flatter the viewer into believing that the self reflection is not only worthwhile, but superior.
for extra credit: when Trump says something patently untrue (hint: it's when his lips are moving), is he intentionally lying or does he believe his own delusions are real?
try this test: ask him a simple yes or no question, such as "are you still beating Melania?"
1
Let's all stop saying that Trump is mentally ill , deranged, and mad. He's not. He is following in the footsteps of some of the most infamous dictators in history. He is practicing the telling of "The Big Lie." And it's working.
1
Trump would like to be able to force all Americans to adore him, or else...
18
This is a living nightmare.
33
Yes, clearly, The Donald suffers from "dictator envy."
35
The truly shocking thing in all of this is that Sarah Palen's Former-Fox-Friend Gretta washed up at VOA. Deplorable.
3
And still, republicans in House and Senate, refuse to rein him in.
40
Well of course the narcissistic sociopath envies dictators. But the more salient point is that the American people who support him also do.
58
"In Facism there is the desire to obey, not just to lead."
1
In “preparing” for the summit with Kim Jong Un, did anyone ever show Donald Trump the video of the North Korean soldiers running down and shooting the guy trying to flea to SK?
That would have been a good example of “Kim’s love for his people.”
54
Trump and Kim would have pointed-with some justification-at the dozens -may a hundred or more-civilian and police tapes of American cops either shooting unresisting civilians or beating them to death by choling-shooting them in the back as the "flea"(sic) or any number of similar killings. Trump cares little for these as all are carefully "ajudicated" and no judge or jury , for various reasons ever dares make a peep, or hold any of these insividuals resoinsible. i man in Korea shows pretty small compared to dozens a year in the USA.
I don't condone Kim but I bvet this is how they'd respond . . .
1
Cult leader needs a cult following to exist. His base willingly follow him and mistake his weaknesses for strengths. When he spits venom at a long time ally they call it standing up for an American First strategy. When Trump embraces a brutal dictator combined glowing praise. They call it realpolitik to get a deal done. When Trump brushes aside human rights abuse with everybody does it. The Right claps knowingly. But if Obama would had shake hands with a brutal dictator he wold had been called a traitor. If Obama had saluted a North Korean general he would had been called weak. We now live in a world where is up and down and down up, welcome to the alternate reality known as Trumplandia.
17
When did the National Security Council get into the business of producing promotional videos of "His Supreme Ignoramus" Donald Trump and "Dear Leader" Kim Jung-un?
Isn't producing such propaganda for the president well outside of the NSC's job function to protect the country?
29
Wow, and so correct. Definitely the most depressing, upsetting thing I've read today (and it's only 4 p.m. Israel time), probably because I'd never considered the Trump-Kim jealousy factor.
One puzzling thing, however: While he's known for his love of McDonald's hamburgers, why would he go looking for Melania - the elusive first lady, she who never smiles in his presence, who smacks his hand away when he tries to hold it, and who, if I read her body language correctly, cannot stomach him?
Please clarify, Roger.
21
Don't feel sorry for Melania. She knew what she was getting into. Money doesn't always buy happiness, and I suspect that the prenup she signed before marrying the Orange One limits her options. Feel sorry for her son Barron, who is only 12 years old. No child deserves to be living anywhere near the Orange One, who probably severely limits any interaction with him.
14
Donald Trump wishes that he had a son like Kim Jong-Un. Instead he has Don, Jr. and Eric. And he has Jared Kushner as a son-in-law
Trump wishes he had a Dad like Kim Jong-il and a grandfather like Kim Il-Sung. Instead he had Frederick Christ Trump as a father and the German Friedrich Trump as a grandfather
Trump wishes that he had a country like North Korea to lead. A country that does fake news better than Fox "News". A country that does military parades much better than France and Russia. Trump wishes he was as young as Mr. Kim.
48
Or as thin.
10
What is there left to say, Mr. Cohen?
Max Liebermann, the famous Berlin impressionist said in the 1930s while observing the the rise of fascism in Germany and the cultish admiration of their Dear Fuehrer who promised to make Germany Great Again after the loss of WWI:
"I can't gorge enough as I want to throw up".
With Trump at the helm of our government, the foundation of our country is almost as vulnerable as the short lived Weimar Republic was.
56
Indeed Trump is truly envious of dictators and wants to be one. The scary part is that the Republican Party has turned in to a fascist party and a good percentage of people in the United States seem to be okay with this. That's what keeps me up at night.
30
I'm wondering what the Korean War survivors of the Chosin reservoir and other battles think of this traitor in the US presidency, saluting a North Korean general? Trump is without question a psychopath and traitor to this country. His base and the GOP need to grasp that thoroughly and quickly, before our country is destroyed.
30
Trump is mentally ill. It does not matter if his wish is to be a dictator or become a fairy princess; whatever world he lives in is not reality for anyone other than himself.
Rational people can ruminate forever on how terrible he is and why he is so terrible, it does not change the fact that he is mentally ill.
Trump's actions ultimately will be explained and excused because of his illness - the real criminals in action here are the GOP, corporate and media enablers keeping him in power to ensure the agenda they could never achieve through democracy.
51
But you're absolutely correct that the people enabling him - specifically Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, the rest of the Republican Party-before-country, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Mercer and daughter Rebekah, and sanctimonious, hypocritical Evangelicals - are the ones who ultimately will be responsible for tearing down our once great country.
28
Couldn't agree more. His whole presidency reminds me of the scene in The Dark Knight. When Harvey Dent went on his rampage, and the gangster said he didn't kill his girlfriend, it was the joker. "He's just a mad dog. I want the guy who let him off his leash." Thats precisely what this is. You can't yell at a dog for being a dog. You go after the people who are allowing the dog to kill everyone in it's path. Trump is what he is, and everyone knows it. But everyone on the right(except the cowards who are retiring and have only now grown a spine), is enabling this just to hold on to their power.
17
Sneeral
The president is trying to prevent nuclear missiles from hitting our country and other countries by getting Kim Jon-un to denuclearize his country.
for the thousandth time,I am no Trump admirer,
but a momentary lapse of judgment in saluting
a North Korean general is no worse than Barack
Obama bowing ignominiusly to a Saudi Arabian
King who is just as brutal as Mr.Kim when it comes to dissidents. we need to concentrate
on issues not photo ops.
5
While I agree the issues should get more coverage than the photo op - it actually is different. Using the customary greeting, as dictated by their culture, for a foreign leader is a sign of respect and good will - not submission. In fact, not doing so is a either sign of ignorance or disrespect.
A salute is governed by an entirely different set of protocols - ones that, for the president, were actually made up by Reagan and adopted by his successors. Saluting members of a military still technically at war with one of our allies are not a part of these.
41
Donald Trump's real enemy is us -- we, the American people who would and will destroy in any way possible, the totalitarianism of our 45th president. Trump's Singapore Summit with the "very smart, very talented, great personality, loves his people, a pretty smart cookie" D.P.R.K. dictator Kim Jong-un was a lesson we must heed. We have been bombarded by Donald Trump's ignorance and demagoguery since long before he won the 2016 election. We are less safe under this president than England was under Chamberlain in 1938 -- "peace in our time" -- what a load of hooey! And now Trump tells us "we'll sleep better tonight!" because he has made peace and had " great chemistry" with North Korea's Kim at their instant Summit in Singapore last week. God help us as Churchill and we helped England to crush Gernany from 1939 through April of 1945. The American people, all of us, and American democracy are on the road to ruin under president Trump.
26
Well, the thing is, you don't need to make this stuff up.
I never thought I'd live to see the day when the US president actually declared in the context of a discussion about North Korea "Our country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools."
In this world view, American and global citizens have more to fear from The New York Times and CNN than they do from a nuclear-armed, missile bound Stalinist state even more brutal than Stalin's USSR ever was.
Even scarier than the notion that a US president could say such a thing is the idea that America's voters could put such a tyrant wannabe into the Oval Office.
41
I must conclude, Mr. Cohen, that when the 63-millions voted for Donald Trump on November 8, 2016, they had one issue: America’s own unique version of “ethnic cleansing.”
Like their president, they had no knowledge of Stalin or Lenin before him. Pol-Pot? What? Is that a dish?
When an American president salutes a foreign general, then the door has closed behind us.
47
Even before the summit, Trump made it clear he likes dictators and hates the messiness of democracy, particularly the rule of law and a free press, which exposes him for what he is: a liar and corrupt grifter. As such, he is the biggest enemy our country faces today.
38
Mr. Cohen says "you can't make this stuff up.", but George Orwell already did - or was it Mother Goose ?
11
Perhaps Alfred Jarry?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubu_Roi
Of course Trump is vile. Thankfully, he is also stupid, or the US would be facing a much, much bigger problem. But the real problem is not Trump - it is the American people who voted for him and continue to admire him and believe in him even after so many opportunities to see through him. Democracy in the US is failing because the people have failed; too many of them have no knowledge of what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. I am hardly sanguine about the idea that the Republic is going to be saved by its institutions. True, Trump undoubtedly feels constrained by the limits placed on his power. But he is far less constrained than he should be by an obsequious Congress that has abysmally failed at fulfilling its counterbalancing function. Trump's willingness to attack the fundamental institutions of the state have gone largely unanswered and the GOP's reluctance to hold him in check means that he may still succeed in destroying the Republic. If you don't think that there is, at least, a 50-50 chance that Trump will try to end the Mueller inquiry - and that he will have the full support of the GOP when he does so - then you have not been paying attention. When that happens, you will know that American democracy is teetering on its last legs. After that, between voter suppression and gerrymandering, the ability of the American opposition to push back may be severely limited. So much rides on the mid-term elections, but there is no guarantee of success.
12
Whether is was "Destiny Productions" or the National Security Council which produced the fluff trailer for Chairman Kim, I lost all respect for those who made or showed the work when I saw the image of Machu Picchu flash across the screen. What in heaven's name does a 500+ year old Incan site have to do with the future for America or the DPRK?
The inmates are running the asylum.
8
Who says the National Security Council doesn't have a sense of humour!
2
HE has finally realized he can't be King. Dictator is the next best title, and more in line with his ego and " goals ". Said goals being absolute authority, adulation from the population and freedom from prosecution. Good luck with that, and congratulations on the birthday. Every day you're getting older. Just saying.
12
There are conservatives, and there are other conservatives. What we have at present is indefensible, no matter quoting the Bible.....whether taking babies from parents, or supporting Kim and his murderous regime. We are some big trouble. Congress is intransigent despite the record number of candidates for the 2016 GOP presidency. Now for some unknown reason, the right side of the aisle seems to have drunk some kind of Koolaid.
I am sorry that McCain will not be able to sway opinion.
5
Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and hope that maybe Trump was just a bad dream, but to my horror the dictator wannabe is reality. Trump has chipped,no, hacked, away at our democracy (however flawed it was)until it is unclear if we can recover, when and if he is gone. His perverted adoration of all thugs, "strongmen" and dictators and his hostility towards our allies clearly is at the behest of his adored Putin.
9
Trump has dabbled in dictator flattery and propaganda creation throughout his term - but this morning, he told Fox and Friends:
“Hey, he [Kim Jong-un] is the head of a country, and I mean he is the strong head. Don't let anyone think anything different. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”
"I want my people to do the same."
THAT should strike terror into the hearts of ALL Americans.
20
Kim prepared for the summit by talking to a stubborn toddler and trying to get concessions from him with reasonable arguments. At least that's what a German satire magazine wrote. Anyone who thinks that's not true is fake news.
7
“We had a great chemistry- you understand how I feel about chemistry.”
Trump talks so much about his extraordinary ability to establish “chemistry” with murderous tyrants like Kim Jong-un, that I’m beginning to think he not only believes that he deserves the “Nobel Peace Prize,” but expects to receive the “Nobel Prize for Chemistry” as well.
16
Trump is the very opposite of a kind skilled genuine mature democratic leader. He is destroying everything we stand for, as is everyone propping him up. I do not understand how anyone in the military can support this monster as he puts us all in danger while giving away our country’s backbone and dignity.
We must do better. We must be better.
6
Only trump can make this stuff up.
Trump received a master class on dictatorship during his one-on-one meeting with Kim. With his attack on all of our institutions and the rule of law, caging immigrant children and destroying the families of American children with immigrant parents, trump is well on his way to becoming Big-Daddy-Rocket-Man.
The trumpian administration is now using the Bible to bolster its own propaganda! Evangelicals love it!
"A Russian attempt to subvert the last election" THAT SUCCEEDED "also goes ignored."
Now he claims that Putin did not invade and steal Crimea - instead he claims Obama lost Crimea. The perverse thought process and logic, his vehemence against America and Americans is astounding - look at all the Americans and aspects of America he has debased, insulted and torn down - more than any other country - with the lone exception of Putin who he has NEVER EVER criticized. He represents Putin, Kim, Duterte, Erdogan, MBS and Netanyahu in America at our peril. Likewise, his vehemence against our allies and friends he has stabbed in the back makes no sense whatsoever.
As leader, trump lost America's leadership of the free world, giving it to the G6. Merkel is effectively the current leader of the free world. Trump to North Korean citizens - you can give up all hope now.
11
"Weak" was the adjective Trump kept using to describe President Obama; "strong," by comparison, went to Putin.
So what was it about Obama's leadership that Trump looked down on? Well, President Obama could not put the fear of God into his adversaries, at home or abroad. He played by the rules even when others didn't (see: Supreme Court appointment). He was honest when others weren't (see: environmental responsibility, value of guaranteed healthcare). And globally, Obama did not believe in "stupid wars" and wasn't about to start one. He didn't lie to exaggerate the dangers of Muslims or refugees. And, of course, Obama believed in diplomacy (ahem!) as a way of containing threats.
What Trump considers laudable are ruthlessness, brutality, manipulation and absolutism. To Trump, decent people like President Obama finish last.
15
And yet Republicans in Congress say nothing, do nothing. I wonder how they sleep at night knowing that they should be doing something to stop this man. And yet his followers believe his every rant and tantrum and disbelieve real news. In the future people will talk about the time the United States government once tore children away from their mother's arms and kept them in separate facilities in order to deter others from coming to this country to seek asylum.
Somebody please stop this man before it's too late. Our country is in peril.
21
The DPRK has MAD. Kim has said he will not deploy any of his weapons against anyone except the US, and he definitely has lots of nukes and ICBMs that can reach the east coast. Even if he can't manage re-entry, he still has EMP that will destroy all bank records and the electricity distribution system (read the novel War Day for the consequences: the DPRK would be utterly destroyed, but so would the US if any president tries to force regime change). Saying we need the kind of president who would stand up to Kim and force regime change shows complete ignorance of what Kim can do if anyone is foolish enough to try.
3
It has been noted that Trump often reflects his own flaws and sins onto everyone else. So when he says “our country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools”, he may well be exactly right. (Just not in the way he thinks.)
7
Mr. Trump is a lovely bouquet of fragrant flowers: Chamberlain, Putin, Quisling, Pétain, Spencer, Duterte, etc. Yes: "you can't make this stuff up." Trump's critics cannot even imagine or anticipate how low this man will go. And Trump's cult cannot make themselves believe what is happening before their eyes.
The annotated version of the Trump video, produced by the NY Times, is excellent.
6
I'm not as concerned about a descent into actual despotism during Trump's reign as president, as what we may get next, now that he has demonstrated it is possible to literally destroy our conventions and erode the checks and balances that have constrained presidents in the past. Trump is ignorant and uninterested in learning anything, believes that he is more competent in every field of human endeavor then experts who have devoted their lives to them. What if we get another president with Trump's disregard for the law, who is extraordinarily intelligent and competent in pursuing his goals? Then I think we may see an actual dictatorship in the United States.
14
Trump says it's all rhetoric. The harsh rhetoric was necessary, now the fawning rhetoric is necessary, and if in 6 months Kim doesn't perform, trump will " deny what he said, not admit it and make up some excuse". This is actually why his supporters like him. He is honest about how dishonest he is. He breaks every false promise he makes and they see it as " telling it like it is". The problem is, we are all beginning to realize he's and empty vessel.
7
The unintended historical allusions sounding across the Atlantic these days are getting increasingly ominous. Flinging “betrayal” and branding someone as “enemy of the people” aims at delegitimizing one’s (political) opponents. Purporting one’s own “stab in the back”-mythology aims at nurturing imaginary grievances, elevating one's own group as victims of an ill-intentioned and hostile outgroup.
Do they not realize who it was that used exactly the same words before them? Do they not care?
I remember the last time somebody in my country claimed they were “stabbed in the back”, and what happened afterwards. Many things contributed to the rise of right-wing extremism then but one thing seems clear: Lies like the “stab in the back”-mythology were used systematically to stoke hatred and all the while the conservative elites stood by and granted legitimacy and actively helped extremists to come to power.
And the most powerful tool dictators hold is having monopoly on what is truth and falsehood, because from that follows what is right and what is wrong. They start with spreading lies, and more lies, even contradictory lies, so many lies that ultimately people have no way of coping or deciding by themselves.
Of course President Trump envies the dictator Kim Jong-un: They both like to imagine their own world of alternative facts where truth speak only those who venerate them.
8
Trumps aspires to be what Kim, Putin and Xi are: Absolute dictators whom no one can question. And the Republican Party is helping Trump become the first U.S. dictator.
8
This guy was born and raised in America.
He is a product of our culture.
We don't have to make this stuff up
It is who we are.
6
It's not who I am, and he is not my president.
7
It is the end result of his profound Narcissism in play. Everything has to be built around his ego needs. No boundaries, No rules, NO apologies, he is Never wrong, No facts to muddy the waters of his unreal world.
This is a real psychological phenomenon. He really does want adulation all the time. His self image needs constant reassurance and he will trash those who don't give it to him.
When will Congress, the Republicans, his hangers on ever understand that he doesn't give a rip about them?
5
Yes, our current narcissist-in-chief wants to be a dictator; he's so used to that in his other life. 'You're fired' - easy.
Americans are such bad citizens that we hope someone else will save us from the multiple and complex issues we face. Some vote for a few issues: abortion, guns, immigration. They don't want to have to deal with the heavy lifting of democracies - and that will never go away.
Our founding fathers knew that the 'mob' may well not be up to the task at understanding how to govern, what the issues entailed and the importance of tolerance. So right they were.
We get Trump because the working people, the common people have been used and abused by the rich (like Trump) for decades. Their standard of living falls, quality of life degrades, while stress, worry, desperation come with regularity. They're lost. They have no time to deal with climate change, they're worried about housing, food, transportation, medicine, etc.
They elect the loud-mouth bully that lies (though, they may tell their kids to do none of that). This guy's a fraud, a criminal, a shameful example of what greed can do to our souls. Serial-womanizer elected by evangelicals. This is our current curse, burden, sin.
We have much promise. Democracy demands good and decent and engaged citizens. If that fails, we get a small, powerful, rich upper-class (plutocracy) in charge and the many mere serfs/slaves. This is today's America.
Right now, only the Democratic Party is moral. Trump is my proof.
12
Trump can't even fire people in person in real life. He does it by tweet or via television news when his victim is on the other side of the country.
When Trump was a "businessman," here's how he fired people -- he sent his son to do the dirty work.
Trump employee (TE): Hi, Eric, good to see you. How are you today?
Eric: (Picks his nose and giggles uncontrollably).
TE: Is there something you'd like to tell me?
Eric: (Nods head vigorously, continues to giggle and drool).
TE: Come on, boy, what is it? What are you trying to tell me?
Eric: (Emits series of grunts and growls).
TE: What's that? Your dad isn't happy with my work? What are you saying?
Eric: (Bangs his head on desk repeatedly).
TE: It's that bad? What are you saying?
Eric: (Makes motion of striking a match).
TE: I'm fired? Your dad's firing me?
3
Our truth is more frightening than science fiction.
6
We could be rid of him tomorrow and we are done for as the nation we fancy ourselves.
Social media is a destruction mechanism that is being perfected by Putin's Russia and others, being aided and abetted in this country by crypto-fascist forces.
See the so called 'Freedom Caucus', the TeaParty, and untold billionaires.
There will soon be candidates running on platforms to break up the USA, and getting huge traction in the right wing media.
Trumpyism is a deadly bacillus, and the 11/8/16 breach was fatal to the republic.
This is Russia's goal, our own self-destruction, and it may be working better than they dreamed possible. Trump may simply have been a test run; A kind of 'Lets see what happens' run.
Now comes the real program.
Call me a paranoid conspiracy monger if it will help you sleep, but history is on my side.
14
Trump's emotional and cognitive development was set in concrete during middle school. He engages with the world as a 12 or 13 year-old would. The evidence is everywhere. He's enthralled with the pomp and circumstance of military parades. He loves leaders who base their authority not on diplomacy or expertise, but on beating up their critics and opponents. He both mangles and excitedly shares the few facts he's picked up as president as if we didn't know them; e.g., Frederick Douglass "is being recognized more and more, I notice."
He's insecure about his abilities, and tries to convince us that he's, "like, really smart," which would be charming coming out of the mouth of a 12 year-old, but unnerving at 72 and leader of the free world. He struggles to to string together coherent words when he's not reading from a script. Describing meeting a member of Congress, he told an interviewer "Well he said, you’ll be the greatest president in the history of, but you know what, I’ll take that also, but that you could be. But he said, will be the greatest president but I would also accept the other."
While his syntax may be indecipherable, there is no subtlety to his decorating tastes. They revolve around big, shiny objects. This became even clearer this week when he told us that his dream for North Korea is not food and economic stability for its people, but hotels and condos on its beaches.
7
Trump sees video of North Korean artillery firing out to sea, and imagines beachside condos. He's creating incoherent foreign policy based on personal chemistry, money-making opportunities, and an affinity for tyrants. And yet, his base remains enchanted. I will grant that his base is not all racist, but they are essentially authoritarian. Trump is to flighty to become a dictator, but we now know that 40% of the population is ready for one.
2
So right. And what does all this say about the millions of Americans who cheer Trump's every statement and action that moves us in an authoritarian direction? According to the goodthinkful pundits, we are supposed to reach out and engage with these enablers of those whose values are contemptible.
1
Mr. Cohen, you have it all backwards. It is Kim who envies his US counterpart. The president was elected by a democratic process, although engineered by Russia. But I digress.
The president can claim that the American people chose him over his opponent. He didn't have to murder family members to gain or consolidate his power the way Kim did. The president is doing away with democracy in America by intimidation and with the encouragement of the US Congress. The president hasn't yet threatened death to those who disagree with him but dissenters know the penalty for disloyalty. Just ask the former FBI director.
Finally, the president has the firm loyalty of %40 percent of American voters. For someone with no political or military experience, he's taken America by storm. All he wants now is a military parade. That's Kim's only bragging right.
2
The solution is clear. Elect enough Democrats to win the House and Senate and unleash all the committees to go after Trumps many faults. That will sink him in 2020 if he doesn't get impeached before then.
Anything else is just hand-wringing, not problem solving.
6
Trump will change his tune when Kim tells the rest of the world that he is in favor of complete nuclear disarmament (which Trump agreed to do!) on the Korean peninsula but that the US will not comply by removing our nuclear weapons.
He will make the case along with Russia and China that sanctions should be lifted due to Kim's compliance and US refusals.
If Trump does agree to remove nuclear weapons our allies in Asia will feel abandoned and seek other security assurances thus weakening our standing around the world. Trump will have done exactly what our enemies want.The great deal maker is either incompetent or traitorous. Quite likely both.
1
Yes, Roger Cohen has perfectly analyzed and summarized Trump's views and ambition. Add to that characterization the news this morning that Trump is pushing and planning for a mano-a-mano summit with Putin, perhaps as early as the NATO meeting next month, and Roger, you can tie your characterization of wannabe autocrat Trump with a bow. Trump has managed in 18 months to steamroller the Republican Party--criticizing him is akin to committing political suicide--and now he has set his sights on the entire American populace. I am more than concerned about where this is leading.
4
I’ve been saying this for months. It isn’t that Putin has something on Trump, or that he was flattering Kim to gain advantage. He WANTS to BE a despot, to bend the national character to his whim, to decide who thrives and who withers, even who lives or dies. He is incrementally taking us there, with his rants against the press, the imprisonment of innocent people at the border, cutting the social safety net, selling off the environment to the highest bidder, on and on ad nauseum. Every day we let it continue, we sow our own destruction as a nation. TIme to act, America, before it’s too late.
1
I was listening to NPR this morning, where they were interviewing someone who was born and raised in North Korea and managed to escape some years ago. He was relating an experience when he was about 12 in a NK school. The principle took the entire school on a "field trip", that turned out to be the public execution of two "criminals", one of them committed the crime of saying there was no pork in North Korea; the other had stolen some copper from his workplace in exchange for food.
This is the country that trump has plans for?
4
Persuasive as this assessment is, you still to have wonder, how did American politics come to to this? Who made the Trump horror possible? Even granting that 30-40% of the American public is irredeemable, you need more than that to win nationally....
Maybe it's time for the Clinton/Obama-worshippers, the "centrists", the "moderates", all the reasonable people who have countenanced the steady decline of Americans who actually work for a living, to ask themselves: how is it we failed and undid so many, that they could look at Trump with admiration -- or at least with hope?
Unless, of course, this cohort is determined to blame Bernie Sanders....
1
(3/3) Following up on my previous comment, it seems to me that President Trump is 'in over his head'.
In my earlier comment, I outlined Robert Kegan's model of adult developmental stages, which correspond to increasing levels of mental complexity, and suggested that Donald Trump in a broad sense could be located at the overall stage of the imperial mind (adolescence, around 6% of adult population).
The world in which the president finds himself is a complex one, not just a complicated or a simple one, in the sense of the well-known CYNEFIN framework for corporate and organisational leaders.
There now seems to me to be a most interesting match between the levels of contextual complexity as per the CYNEFIN framework and the aforementioned broad stages of adult development.
For, someone at the overall stage of the socialised mind could manage or lead in a simple context (such as a production plant), but would find himself in over his head in a complicated and even more so in a complex one (such as the current global political climate).
The self-authoring stage is adequate to a complicated context, and the self-transforming leader (all other factors remaining equal) would be able to handle a complex scenario.
But someone at the imperial stage would find himself 'in over his head' to a whopping 3 orders of complexity … and that would be a rather tall order for anyone (including most of us) to master without further vertical development in our leadership capacities.
Your argument is correct, Mr. Cohen. Trump is envious of Kim Jong Un. I saw a video filmed this morning, after your editorial appeared, that makes your case even stronger. Trump spoke of the North Korean leader with these words:
"He speaks and his people sit up, pay attention. I want my people to do the same."
Out of the orange horse's mouth. When Trump's desire becomes reality, we cannot say we had no warning.
6
Tale of the Two Dons
I remember Don Corleone's, the Godfather's, aphorism: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Could Don Trump be cozying up to the enemies of democracy, Russia's Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong-un and the Philippines' Duarte, to keep an eye on them so that they don't upend the balance of world power in favor of dictators"?
If this is his intention, however, he is pushing our allies away, our friends, that we faithfully kept close during and after the world wars.
Don Trump is turning the balance of power on its head: our friends are dictators; our enemies are our allies.
If Don Trump is following Don Corleone's playbook, he is not a dictator, as Roger Cohen would have us believe. He is a gangster who like Don Corleone could eventually take the whole family down with him.
Trump needs to be the sensation of the moment. Whether his meeting went well or whether it went poorly, the bad parts will later be denied and the good parts will continue to be front and center. Some will be fooled. The truth takes longer to surface but it always does. One thing for certain is that Trump, Inc. will be making lots of $'s no matter the outcome.
2
Of course Trump "saluted evil. Evil is good in Trump's world. It is all he knows, so he self identifies with it. And he has his trolls who believe the same thing. Look at his Cabinet. They exude evil.
At this point, every time I read anything about Trump and his Administration, I think of the Seven Deadly sins.
As a reminder they are: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth.
It appears to me that all of Trump's personality traits are one with these. And the Cabinet members seem to foster these traits as well.
I guess virtue is not "its own reward."
Crime does pay after all.
3
Trump realizes that constraints of all kinds limit what one may do in every situation, and he genuinely thinks in terms of maximizing his return on every deal without worrying about other consequences. He sees how dictators and criminal kingpins do this and admires them. He thinks like that and has frequently gone bankrupt and been sued thousands of times. He has difficulty finding legitimate sources for finance because his simplistic take on the craft of power has left too much damage. His activities are basely selfish with no effort to consider things in a greater context as one does to follow ones enlightened self interest. He can do this because he has never really learned about the value of all the money that he has enjoyed as a seemingly endless resource for him.
1
Well, thanks to the efforts and lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General against the Trump Foundation for malfeasance -- he's about to realize those money resources are't as endless as he thought.
1
The REAL issue are the 30% or more of Americans who support this type of authoritarian behavior, or, more so, are all too willing to be compliant and feel that this is their new-normal. And, I do not think it will pass quickly so long as it is a rich, white man in charge. Our nation is in decline and will never be able to recover due to the multitudes of people who are willing to countenance Trump's behavior.
3
Trump's base will now proceed to endorse his take on the summit, saying what a momentous diplomatic achievement it was, and that a Nobel prize is in order - and anyone questioning this 'doesn't want peace'. we're about to see yet another staggering show of people willingly pulling the wool over their own eyes. Hannity's already done a 180 - the sheep will surely follow.
1
My husband and I had this discussion the other night. I was astounded it had never occurred to me why Trump cozies up to these strongmen. My husband said to me, “it's easy to see why, dictators have the only word, the final word, there is no pesky government of checks and balances to worry about”. And I thought this was all about absolute power and photo-ops! Trump loves these guys because he can cut out the middlemen, you know, the democracy part, duh.
4
I do not understand how Trump gets away with spewing the term "fake news" and that reporters are enemies of the state. Trump did place his hand on a bible and swear an oath to upholding the constitution, re: the first amendment - freedom of the press. If anyone else did this, especially a democrat, we know how that would go. Even more concerning, the POTUS is using the word "enemy", which could be planting a seed of hostile action by one of his warped followers. The list just keeps getting longer of impeachable offenses, but my theory is that a lot of republican house and senate members have been paid off to stay silent. And I am not a conspiracy theory believer.
4
Mr. Cohen has hit the nail on the head.
Apart from Trump's salute to the Northcorean general in a hat that resembles an inverted pot, Trump would want to be an absolute ruler of TRUMPISTAN. Then he would also not be encumbered in his quest to enrich himself further and his family, henchmen, and acolytes.
2
My grandparents lived on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain during Stalin's times, with my Grandfather and Uncles spending time in camps.
Cohen -doesn't know what he is talking about, and his observation of Stalin-ism to an egotistical western politician, that could be out of office in 2 years, is deeming to the suffering of close to a billion people.
3
I'm 75 years old and realistically probably won't be around all that much longer. But I weep for my two son's who will have to
voyage on with madman trump at the helm,zig zaging here and there,chartless and clueless,putting us on the rocks. I weep...
7
Craving for power is insatiable until it is absolute. Trump shows at every opportunity how power hungry he is, from admiring people like Kim Jong-un to using powers of the office he holds. His use of the pardon power, imposing tariffs on our allies, helping Chinese companies to "save jobs" all manifestations of this hunger, hunger for uncontrolled power.
The American Democracy will show, however, that it has more power and resiliency to withstand the abuses committed by Trump and his allies. It will shake the dirt put on it, get up, and continue its solid stride into a better future. This may very well be a test of its powers and resiliency. It shall overcome!
4
Let us not forget how the drumbeat of the summit started. It was when the Stormy Daniels story was being splashed about in the media and Trump stuck out his head on his way in saying there was a dramatic announcement coming later that evening - "stay tuned". That deflected from the Stormy affair as news organizations outfitted their cameras on the WH press briefing room, showing a countdown clock to the announcement. Of course it was non-serious! The country is being run by a third grade third-grader.
4
What are Trump's benchmarks for knowing when we are finally great again?
1
Please don't forget that Trump kept (keeps?) Hitler's little black book on his bedside table. He may not be able to read, but he's memorized this little bedtime story.
5
"That’s a pretty ignominious way to bring down the curtain on more than seven decades of American stewardship of the world after the defeat of evil in 1945."
"Listen to me and you shall hear, news hath not been this thousand year: Since Herod, Caesar, and many more, you never heard the like before. Holy-dayes are despis'd, new fashions are devis'd. Old Christmas is kickt out of Town. Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see...
... the world turn'd upside down.
R.I.P.
Pax Americana
6
Schadenfreude is not a particularly lovely attribute, nor does it necessarily indicate a superior mentality.
1
It would be good to re-read the 1990 Vanity Fair article in which Trump’s second wife, Ivana, explained that her husband kept a collection of Hitler’s speeches called “The New Order” beside his bed.
This came up during the campaign and several articles raised questions because the Hitler speeches were a blueprint on how to maneuver public opinion to his cause.
It would be worth revisiting this in light of the fact that Trump has indeed cozied up to dictators in a manner that should be of concern to every American and perhaps his model for undermining American institutions and democratic values came from Adolph Hitler.
4
What a ridiculous first paragraph. I stopped reading at the end of it. I don't really like Trump either, but this paper has gone off the rails. I want to be told the news; not be told who I should hate. I'm cancelling my subscription. Sort it out, NYTimes. Grow up.
1
I'll quote Trump: " a low IQ individual ". Yes, Donald, you are.
Seriously.
4
one doubts that our 'less than dear leader' has the vocabulary to use 'promulgated'. his slothfulness allowed a w.h. press sycophant to develop yet another 'tweet', that the flatulent president gleefully approved to send. with trump, new lows occur by the minute, not by the hour, day, week.
3
Roger,
Why don´t you have a talk with your colleague David Brooks, who has opined that it is an advantage to have a thug like Trump to deal with other thugs….David needs your wise guidance..
9
The 'heartland' of America, numerically, the 95% or so of the entire number of counties throughout the land that preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton, is THIS the life you really want?
Mr. Cohen, in this piece, describes the hell on earth foreign policy disaster headed up by our President, only a day after his attorney General and press secretary invoke the Bible to justify the God-forsaken conditions that they and their administration have imposed on CHILDREN at our nation's southern border.
My God, when will our national nightmare finally end?
Mitch, Paul...where are you?
9
Terrific nuanced and informed news as usual from Cohen. "Destiny Pictures Production" is really Leni Rifenstrater(sp) who filmed great films for Hitler. And this produced by the NationaSecurity Council on whose orders? Also a new moniker for Trump: an unserious man.
No, you're right Roger, you can't make this stuff up.
Bravo.
5
Trump's like Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost:
"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
6
Trump is jealous of everything dictatorial. He would love to have a parade of goosestepping stormtriopers, like Kim has. He would love to put his enemies in a gulag, or better yet, just have someone shoot them, like Kim has. The problem is, we have voters who wouldn’t mind a dictatorship, as long as the are on the “winning” side. These are scary times. For the first time in this scary landscape I can see American electing Trump again, and again. The slide out of freedom is subtle. Sometimes you don’t see it until the door to your cell hits you in the butt.
8
He's already voiced the idea that Preident-for life has a nice ring to it. The Idi Amin of Washington; gag me with a spoon
1
I studied the Soviet Union and Easter Europe at Ohio State, in the International Studies program. Watching Putin made me think the good old days of the Soviet Union are back. Invading countries, cracking down on the press, ruling with an iron fist, etc. The Good Old Days doesn't explain Trump's actions. The US has never had a president that wanted to be a third world dictator. With Trump, it's the Weird New Days. The Right gave President Obama nothing but grief anytime he was diplomatic or dealt with other countries. Trump urinates on our allies and sucks up to evil empires. Calls the press America's biggest enemy! Acts like a criminal mob boss, breaking all kinds of US law. All America must see this for what it is, and where it leads. Base, Not Base, Wildly Liberal, this is going to take all of America down and we will be North America's Third World empire. Down with Trump! Down with Trump NOW.
7
No, not Trumplandia.
Trumpistan!
9
Or maybe Trumpingrad...
1
"Trumpiscam."
2
When i heard President Trump say he has great chemistry with chairman Kim, i was hoping he didn’t
mean they exchanged how to make zyklon B.
10
Trump is getting his marching orders from someone or
someplace else and it's not our Constitution.
Initially, Trump had backed out of going to No Korea, then quickly changed his mind.
I've read that Kushner made reference to using 'backdoor channels' to talk to the Russians at their embassy thereby being able to avoid our intelligence agencies listening to phone calls from perhaps, Putin?
Putin entire aim, I believe is to undermine the US in the eyes of the world.
He's doing a hell of a job, and the thing is, no one is seeing his hands nor fingerprints.
What we are seeing is a president of the US being manipulated, or not working for the interest of a country he was voted and sworn to protect.
We have a president who is for all intent and purposes is committing treason right before our eyes.
I have watched as we had imprisoned young men naive enough to be interested in communication with ISIS.
But we are only interested in seeing if this president can possibly pardon himself if he is caught violating an oath he took.
If he is found guilty, I hope it turns out to be when, and even if it takes both the Supreme Court and Congress to correct and seal the language so this will NEVER happen again, I will applaud it.
Many people talk about how the DEMS are weak.
We now have a majority GOP Congress who has done nothing but made it easier for banks and rich guys to screw us for 10 years.
It's time for Americans to wake up.
Putin is obviously controlling this president.
.
9
Well as Socrates always reminds us: Vote in November!
25
Yep! The whole deal is hanging by a thread.
1
Donald Trump's foreign 'policy' represents a curious combination of contradictory tendencies, the product of a mind governed by impulse rather than reason. His signature slogan during the campaign promised to make America "great" again, a reference to his claim that Bush and Obama had sacrificed the world's respect through their feckless policies. Trump would rebuild our international image by beefing up the military and forcing our trading partners to renegotiate treaties he considered unfair to the US. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
At the same time, however, he dismissed the value of our military alliances and threatened to withdraw military protection from Japan and South Korea. While these statements might reflect Trump's determination for America to reject the need for interdependence in world affairs, they also pointed to a much smaller role for this country in the preservation of international security. If our allies could no longer depend on America, would that enhance their respect for us?
In like manner, the president's fondness for autocrats betrays contradictory impulses at work. As Cohen notes, Trump aspires to emulate them, because he believes that dictatorships are stronger than democracies. A great America, in his view, would be one in which he did not have to compromise with his adversaries. This very attitude, however, means that he does not think he can "restore" our power and greatness without fundamentally changing the system the Founders created.
14
Why Kim is really the whole package,
Young, smart and ready to ravage,
While Trump, hair and all,
Does rust belters enthrall,
But his mouth needs soap and water lavage.
20
How to state this clearly? Closely held businesses, like the Trump Organization, are, more or less, dictatorships. They are run by fiat, with top down, hierarchical managers who only want the minions to do their bidding.
So yes, Trump comes by this naturally. This is the way he has always done things. And this is why having a businessman in charge is not the panacea that so many Trump supporters thought it would be.
So yes indeed. Trump likes Kim and Putin and Duerte, because, like them, he enjoys shooting from the hip, not ever being questioned and smearing anyone who might think differently than he. The GOP elected not a President, but a mob boss who cares only about himself and his family. Period.
160
While I tend to agree in general, I think you make a mistake lumping Putin in with Kim and Duterte. Putin is entirely too clever, and specific, to "shoot from the hip".
Yes indeed. Putin didn't make it to the top of the KGB by shooting from the hip. He was spymaster in chief, he knew how to recruit "assets" he probably ordered assassinations, and he certainly knows how to handle a wannabe dictator like Trump. And he certainly knows hot to rig elections.
(1/3) Spot-on. My own take on this adds a dimension to the discussion that, to my knowledge, is seldom if ever proposed in the media.
Let's ask whether President Trump is just 'different' (in a horizontal sense of a level adult developmental playing field relative to others) or whether there's more to it than that. I think there's more to it, and in order to make headway with this, we need to add a vertical dimension to the playing field.
This vertical dimension (and I'm only ever talking about levels of development IN people, never levels OF people) is, as far as I'm aware, all but absent from public debate.
But it's not absent from academic research and debate. One of my favourite authors here is Harvard's Robert Kegan, who as you may recall has contributed a robust, proven and science-based broad model of adult development that has found wide application in organisational life.
Robert Kegan talks about 5 broad stages or orders of mind that adults can develop through:
1. Impulsive mind (early childhood)
2. Imperial mind (adolescence, around 6% of adult population, including Donald Trump)
3. Socialized mind (around 58% of adult population)
4. Self-authoring mind (35%)
5. Self-transforming mind (1%)
Please note that I never confuse or conflate a model, no matter how useful, robust or proven it may be, with the person. A human being is always more, and more complex, than any useful model we may apply to gain a working understanding of him.
17
I try to be in 3 and 4, but I would love to indulge the number 2 in me.
1
I'm mostly in 3, sometimes in 4 with occasional regression to 2. I'm a senior citizen but sometimes I do or say something that takes me right back to when I did the same thing when I was 17 years old.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, Judy.
To indulge the number 2 would be fine.
From an integral perspective, once we grow up into higher stages, we still contain the lower ones, and that is as it should be.
The crucial difference is that we can be flexible in which stage we choose to operate from (although we can of course all lapse into unconscious behaviour from time to time), rather than a particular stage (2, for example) having us and running the show.
In other words, you can be powerful and imperial when the situation calls for it (in terms of exceptional personal leadership), but be aware of what you're doing.
A person, on the other hand, who remains stuck at a certain stage, and hasn't grown beyond it, doesn't have that kind of larger awareness. The stage speaks through him, as it were, and he isn't aware of it.
To pull this together, an integrated person can be powerful, social, rational, and more, all in one flexible, aware, wise and compassionate package!
Trump may indeed envy Kim Jong-Un and the other autocrats mentioned in the column. We can't read his mind, so we don't know. But, contrary to the image Trump seeks to project, it takes far more strength and intelligence to be an effective leader in a democracy with its checks and balances and a strong press than to be an autocrat. It takes strength of character to put the welfare of the country ahead of one's ego, to admit mistakes and work to correct them, to exercise self-restraint in what one says and does, to negotiate with others to find common ground. Hitting one's perceived enemies with big weapons is easy and takes no intelligence whatsoever.
50
The mix up over the salute has been so overblown. The General certainly was most experienced in how to greet a head of state such as his own leader. Salute! He quickly shook hands with Trump after Trump quickly returned his salute just as he has learned how to do as commander in chief here. The rest of the article is much of the same stuff one gets from the Trump haters.
I did not and never will vote for Trump, but as a Korean War veteran, I will give him my thanks for doing more to settle this conundrum of NK than any other President to date. I hope for the best here.
1
Forgive me for asking, but just what, exactly, did Trump do that hasn't been done by previous presidents? And just why should we expect the results to be any different?
42
The fact is that President Trump has done very little, so far, to "settle this conundrum of NK". Compared to President Clinton, for example, who had explicit requirements and international inspections, this flimsy agreement amounts to nothing, which is what all the unbiased observers have been saying. It is possible and effective agreement could come of this, but there's a lot of work and a lot of details to be spelled out. So Mr. Cohen reminding us how premature Trump's reassurance about the nuclear threat from NK is something we should all remember.
46
Exactly so. Trump is at the exact same point with North Korea as previous administrations have achieved. The only difference is that trump is declaring victory before the battle ever begins. Naturally his worshipers believe every syllable.
1
Mr. Cohen, as you know, conservatives seem (according to some polls and surveys) to prefer an infallible leader. That's how Trump positions himself, having never apologized and having no need to ask God for forgiveness.
It's sad that so many people are easily swayed by lies, but then our culture is rife with claims that are untrue, only small print providing disclaimers.
58
I believe the opposite to be true. Conservatives fall in line, happy to overlook flaws along as their side is in power. Liberals are the ones who pick their leaders to death.
1
Having lived inside East Germany, and a city divided by a Wall, it hasn't escaped my attention that a totalitarian society where he has absolute rule, is exactly what Donald Trump is craving to exact here in the United States.
And this is why I must concur with Mr. Cohen's assessment of the president and Kim Jong-un, as frightening as it is.
Most Americans have no clue of what it's like to live under an authoritarian government, or in a country where you will be shot if you try to escape; that is something both North Korea and East Germany had in common.
That is also why it's nothing short of amazing that this country is being led down the same garden path by Mr. Trump and a compliant Congress, content to do nothing about it.
And don't be fooled by that photo-op between those two shaking hands in Singapore, or Trump saluting a North Korean general, because it could very well be a picture of this country's future, since we seem to be on our way.
One can only hope we won't let it get that far.
381
Bravo ! I lived in Europe too in the 1930s and this is déjà vu.
Those who ignore History are doomed to repeat it. Let's educate the good American people to the danger of a would be dictator.
9
Most Americans have no clue of what it's like to live under an authoritarian government, but will gladly vote against a union which makes there jobs at least like that.
1
I spent a brief amount of time in East Germany in 1965. We were driving a VW squareback which we had bought at the factory in Wolfsburg. What I remember about East Germany (at least what was near Berlin) was that there were armed Stasi (police)with rifles at every overpass on the Autobahn and that there were no road signs of any kind (to ensure that it would be difficult for citizens to escape to the west) if they could avoid being shot. When we finally got to the checkpoint our car was literally taken apart, down to the wheel wells, to search for "contraband". An experience never to be forgotten and never to be repeated. And that was just for a short time--imagine living under that level of scrutiny and distrust.
5
I think those few remaining Republicans who still care about this country and don't want to see it slide into complete autocracy should be having conversations about which deep-pocketed one among them will challenge Trump in the 2020 Republican primaries.
And, if said person does not defeat Trump in the primaries, said person should run a third party general election Presidential campaign, hopefully splitting enough of the rightist vote, as Ross Perot did in 1992, to give the election to the Democrats. Hopefully, for concerned Republicans, that's STILL more palatable than another term of Trump.
(T. Boone Pickens, you readin' this out there?)
67
Can we just state it straight up? Trump likes dictators because he wants to be a dictator. He ran his business as a dictator and disregarded as many laws, rules, norms and mores as he possibly could. Thus far, he has been able to prevent Congress from putting limits on him. He has Congress helping him pack the judicial system with extreme conservative judges who will detrimentally affect American democracy for a generation or more.
Is it that much of an exaggeration to suggest that if he could get away with it, Trump would declare a national emergency, suspend the Constitution, Congress and the Courts and rule by executive fiat?
172
"Fire breaks out in the Reichstag, the German parliament in Berlin, on 27 February 1933. The building is partially destroyed...To the Nazis, the arson attack offers a handy excuse to get rid of political opponents, the communists and social democrats. Hitler convinces his cabinet that the fire was part of an attempted communist coup. Hindenburg declares a state of national emergency. Civil liberties are restricted. Freedom of speech, right of assembly, and privacy of correspondence are suspended. The government is also given more investigative powers. Hitler and his henchmen abuse these to persecute their political opponents.
In this climate of intimidation, new elections are held again a week later, on 5 March. Nazi posters and flags dominate the streets. The NSDAP wins with 43.9 per cent of the vote. It isn’t the landslide victory the Nazis want. Two leftwing parties, the KPD and SPD, together have 30 per cent of the votes. But they are powerless. Many of their supporters are in detention or have fled. They cannot prevent parliament passing an enabling law allowing Hitler to govern without parliament. Germany has become a dictatorship."
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Anne-Frank/Life-in-Germany/Establishment-Naz...
It doesn't take much.
14
Been saying it all along...he will declare elections null & void because they are rigged (therefore not trustworthy), declare the Constitution & Declaration of Independence are fake documents, put congress under protective arrest (never be heard from again), and disband the DOJ, FBI, & CIA, putting armed militia in their place. Oh yes he can declare himself dictator because he has already said he is above the law & as president can do nothing illegal.
1
We think it pretty clear that Trump's likes and dislikes were set up in his business world. Lenders among our friends were scarce, but plentiful among our more hostile friends where oligarchs or autocrats with lots of fuzzy money were more than willing to provide loans or gifts for access to the American economy and the country itself.
33
The latest effort to bring North Korea into the fold involves several nations - the US, but also China, South Korea, and probably Russia and Japan.
The war threats and this meeting were our contribution. Trump is unstable enough to credibly threaten to flatten North Korea and therefore pause the bomb and missile tests. Trump's meeting with Kim was a flattering show on the world stage, that gave the North Koreans a picture of a future among the world's nations. So I'm happy about the meeting.
The US is now out of the picture as an obstacle to peace in Korea. Hopefully China and the two Koreas can take it from here. Trump played his role well.
Hopefully smart people are working on a meeting between Trump and whoever pulls the strings in Iran.
3
Where ya’ been, Murray? ‘Fredo” is, as he says, “like smart”, but he really, really doesn’t seem to like REAL smart people very much. Ya’ know, all that darn readin’ and book-learnin’ just gets in the way of your lizard brain makin’ snap decisions that throw the world into chaos but, more important, philosophical introspective types never seem to appeal to FOX News toadies or get too much print media coverage. Just between you and me, Murray, I think eventually he’s gonna’ have all the smart people rounded up and, I’m goin’ out on a limb here, are you ready for this?, make THEM build his wall. Don’t laugh. Have you met him?
1
Great synopsis of the Trump phenomenon, and his lust for the freedom to rule like a tyrant, if not for these pesky checks and balances.
I don't know which was worse, Trump saluting the North Korean general, or the video he ordered produced by the Security Council.
Your tax dollars at work. Instead of studying history, Trump focuses on the gauzy fantasy. Kudos to the NYT for countering with their own video.
OK, enough of the Trumpian fantasies, and on to some hard realities: Trump's impulses are cruel and can only get crueler.
He's behind the inhumane treatment of children at the border. He's the one who claims false equivalence between world dictators murdering their opponents and the US often doing "things that are not so nice."
Proof? Proof is for suckers. Just like his claim that thousands of parents of slain Americans clamoring for Trump to bring back the remains of their sons.
Only in Trumpland would this lie go unchallenged: those "parents" would be anywhere from 104 to 112 years of age.
Kind of hard to see them running to the front of a Trump rally to convey their wishes.
Let's just hope that Trump doesn't get what he craves: the power to exert force against his opponents.
250
"I don't know which was worse, Trump saluting the North Korean general, or the video he ordered produced by the Security Council."
Well, he wasn't really saluting the general, he was returning the general's salute. Not really the same thing. As much as I might prefer not to, I'll have to give him a pass on this one.
Our slow but painful descent into the abyss, away from our democracy and real friends who share our ideals and values, continues on in so many different ways.
And we are quite powerless until Election Day to do anything about it.
What a place to be in.
75
Trump is a grand narcissist who wants to be in charge and wants to be revered, but most importantly he wants as much as he can get for himself. That includes money, material positions, and attention. Trump is a bottomless pit for all of these things.
Russia has the goods on Trump; Trump is scared. So he bows to Russia. But the key is also that Russia, China, North Korea, Singapore, and a host of other countries will make deals with Trump. That is, they will bribe him, and that is a very, very effective strategy with him. Is Canada willing to do that? Are our European allies willing to do that? No; or not yet, anyway. Maybe they will learn how Trump works, who knows. Our allies are still treating Trump as though he is a world leader dedicated to rational discourse with the best interests of humanity at heart. They are being foolish. He is nothing at all like that, and he never has been.
We need to stop analyzing Trump as though he is anything like recent presidents and see him for what he really is, not what we hope he is or what we hope he might become. Trump will not change. He is solely out for himself. Everything he says and everything he does must be viewed through that filter, and only that filter.
Could Trump make progress for the U.S. with North Korea? No; but that is not the point. Trump couldn't care less. He just wants wealth for himself from personal deals there.
North Korea and China understand Trump. That is surely a bad thing for the U.S.
181
"Our allies are still treating Trump as though he is a world leader dedicated to rational discourse with the best interests of humanity at heart. "
In other words, they are treating him as if he is a normal human being instead of the monster that he is.
25
Singapore?
1
"North Korea and China understand Trump. That is surely a bad thing for the U.S." Bingo. And American's the opposite side of the coin. The Manchurian Candidate. Easy marks.
3
If you're right (and I think you are), the question is how much longer will people accept Trump as a legitimate president? And what are we willing to do about it?
Trump thinks of himself as the king of Trumplandia. I view him as a hostile foreign power who is occupying my country and who should be treated as the enemy.
153
Trump's fascination with dictators, and disparagement of democratically elected leaders has been developing for some time. We aren't going to change him, and I've accepted that. What I haven't yet given up on are the people who believe what he says. The people who believe that the mainstream media reports only fake news, that the NY attorney-general's prosecution of Trump is a liberal democratic plot rooted in envy. Is there anything we can do to get them to see that they are being tricked by smoke and mirrors? Or do we need to write them off and hunker down for a fight over the republic?
57
The NY attorney-general's prosecution of Trump is a warning to Trump, Michael Cohen, Manafort et al that a presidential pardon will not allow them to subvert the fundamental premise of our democracy that no person is above the law.
26
I fear that this "fundamental premise" is no longer operable In America. I've struggled for weeks to get my Senator, Cory Gardner (R-CO) to answer a simple question: "Do you believe that the President is above the law? Yes or no?" Despite repeated calls and emails, I have never received a response.
When the time comes, Trump will use every lever at his disposal to remain in power, aided and abetted by the resounding silence of his Republican co-conspirators. I hope history proves me wrong.
hard to understand
Roger - What you are dealing with is mental illness. These are SYMPTOMS of severe nacissistic personality disorder and possibly worse. The failure was/is not insisting that Trump report for psychiatric screening. That said, we now have two choices: 1) Removal from office (25th amendment), or 2) wait for the next election. Thing is, it's only going to get worse and the damage likely irreparable. The man is operating in "back-up" - doesn't have a clue what's motivating him. All this is predictable, No one should be surprised, stunned, etc. This is what we signed up for, down the slippery slope.
130
We did NOT sign up for this! More people voted against him.
Yes, he is mentally ill, but he is being used by conservatives and by Putin. Trump is doing a great job destabilizing our country and losing us our allies and convincing a large segment of our citizens that his lies are the reality. Terrifying!
8
If recent events do not alert centrist Americans to the truth there is no hope. Why do the most conservative citizens welcome bonds with Putin, Duterte and Kim Jong-un while attacking the leader of our post-war allies? Why do they tolerate measures designed to prevent Americans from voting? Why do they support candidates who act against their financial interests? Why do they permit a proliferation of guns when the majority believes limitations must be imposed?
Incomprehensible? Not at all. As long as Trump holds to his anti-black, anti-latino, anti-gay and sexist postures, he can do anything he desires. These racist attitudes are at the core of Trump's support. Without them, he would crash and burn. Each day I mourn the state of our nation. We can only hope that decent and moral patriots take the only steps that can prevent the complete disintegration of American democracy. Vote against racist, xenophobic and sexist candidates.
408
he has learned the true art of mass hysteria in playing to the fears of white america every where. the future is grim with pro-nazi Holocaust denying, white supremacists, sex offenders, pedophiles winning in primaries (mostly are republican). They are all using the Bible as their justification & defense. this man who claims to be a president is supporting these candidates. Everyone needs to stand up against this assault on our country.
4
Before they do any of the things you suggest, these voters need to get angry. But they aren’t, and the lack of anger makes them passive. They see what’s happening but feel no agency to do something. They have a child’s belief in somehow being saved — by something — but they don’t know what.
1
There are no centrist Americans.
Trump lives and acts in the moment. He then defines success by twisting what he accomplished in that moment to make it seem significant. Co-sign a document with vague commitments and call it a done deal. If NK resumes testing a year from now, he will resume blasting Obama for leaving him a mess. And the uneducated knaves who cheer him on will continue to do so. Because fools would rather continue to be fooled than to admit they have been fools. It is quite transparent, except to the fools. P.T. Barnum would be proud.
80
I believe this trip was all about him "making history" and his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize. It's all about his ego and being the first, the best, the biggest. I also truly believe that he sees the possibility of Trump hotels and condos along the "beautiful beaches" we see in the photos of them testing their nukes. He's despicable.
141
Anyone with a guess on how many land deals trump made while in Singapore?Trademarks soon to be granted to Ivanka & trump organization? "Kim Trump" hotel in North Korean capital with gold toilets. Oh yeah it was personal business he was on...had been planning this for decades he said. Not peace but purchase.
3
He will never get the Peace Prize. He thinks he will but it will never happen. He has no understanding of peace.
3
We know. We go over and over it in our minds. We know what he is. We know the damage he is doing. Let's now start talking about what we have to do to get rid of him. We need to start fashioning the themes that we are going to stress in the coming elections in November and in 2020.
We need a public conversation that can mature into a public minded consensus , as far as that is possible.
We need those who wish to lead to start stepping forward now and initiating the debate.
After having gone through this literal nightmare of our nation, it may be the time to try to launch a period of profound examination of who we are as a nation and what guiding values and principles we are still committed to to flourish and prosper as a nation in this world.
Enough carping about Trump. he is a pathetic creature, who by the twists of fate, landed in a position that he is completely unqualified for.
Let's band together and create a new day for the best of us to do the best we can to create the best future for all of us.
103
@LibertyLover: and "the best future for all of us" you wish for shall have to start at the grassroots level, as always. [here's to the anti-vietnam movement.] will #me too, #march for our lives, #occupy wall street & others create enough momentum? b/c it will have to reach across the US and way beyond ... -- and as to djt's feelings: the NYT might want to focus even more on what goes on BEHIND the SCENES, not mention the distractor-in-chief's name for a while. [that'll give him time to envy all those who are mentioned - even in a medium he -supposedly- despises.]
1
Totally agree. But is there actually any room left for public debate in a media landscape that is solely guided by the profit motive? Right-wing media has run its propaganda for decades, successfully selling fear, disinformation and hatred, making billions. I don't see them suddenly turning around. An no, PBS, or what is left of it, won't help much either. So what you actually ended up with are two echo chambers, catering to their tribes and unable to convince anyone from the other side.
3
One additional a dangerous factor is Russia. What they learned and what they know, what could stop them for continual interference?
We have beaten down by the noise, the lies. There are no more checks and balances. But yet, we must vote and try to alter our trajectory.
3
It's really Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard---with first-strike capability. John Kelly playing Max.
26
Au contraire you can "make this stuff up" that is precisely what happens at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and that is the nub of it all. Stuff just gets made up - after a life time of this dysfunctional action the hard public reality of the responsibility of being POTUS meets the internal fantasy 'sales' world of DJT.
36
But why do Trump's supporters not see this? They do see it and they love it. They crave his wanton desire for power and control. They worship Trump for displaying it as much as Trump covets power. There is a reason for this behavior.
Trump is their tribal chief. You see, many people want to be ruled not governed. They don't want democratic freedom. They don't want the personal responsibility of figuring things out and acting accordingly. They want to be told what to do. They want someone, an authoritarian, to take control and run the place. That's Trump and the source of his appeal.
As the tribal chief, Trump promises to elevate the status of white Christian males. They deserve to be on top and unchallenged. This was deemed by God through the principle of manifest destiny.
Kim is a true dictator. He is as ruthless and brutal as they come. Millions of people suffer and die because of him. Remember Otto? He was just a college kid who took a paper poster as a souvenir. They killed him for it, probably tortured to death. On-line, I have read many comments that stated he deserved his punishment because he broke "their" laws. These are the Americans that want to be ruled by Trump. There is no ultimate good or morality to them. There is only fealty to the dictator, subservience to power.
That's the saga of Trump and his base. They worship power. Kim Jung Un is Trump's ultimate wannabe figure. His idol. Trump is the antichrist of freedom.
587
Bruce has it exactly right and it depresses the hell out of me.
2
What you say is true, Bruce Rozenblit, but at the same time, it should be noted that Trump followers are suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance: for these folks that are cheering on Trump's anti-democratic ways and lust for unbridled power are the same ones who are always calling for a smaller government and keeping the federal government out of their lives (like the Bundy family).
What these people want, I suspect, is not to be ruled by a dictator themselves, but to have that dictator remove or at least clamp down on all of "those" people that they don't like: immigrants, Muslims, people of color, etc. As you say, they have no sense of an "ultimate good or morality," which makes this situation a very frightening thing indeed.
1
@bruce rozenblit: yes, sad but true that plenty of people don't feel like figuring things out for themselves. BUT is that b/c they really find it too difficult OR b/c they weren't taught to do so = willfully kept in ignorance, i.e. living examples of how there's method in the madness?
2
No doubt Trump has chemistry with Kim. Every word of this article is staggeringly, frighteningly true.
Unfortunately the Republic has been abandoned by a complicit GOP majority in Congress.
The next several rounds of elections might very well determine our fate.
If things don't change, we have just seen our future.
306
Would that we have "The next several rounds of elections . . . [will] determine our fate."
The next round, and perhaps the one after that, will decide the outcome of the American story.
9
"The United States now has a president who would have told East Germans in 1961, as the Berlin Wall went up, that the Soviet and East German leaders were to be congratulated for walling them in because they were concerned about their people’s safety, happiness and wellbeing."
Of course Mr. Cohen, no doubt about it. Mr. Trump just LOVES walls as you might know. All kind of walls. The higher the better!
98
Well said. Trump's claim that we are now safe is truly stunning, but not surprising. He truly believes that his personality is so amazing and wonderful that all he needs is a few hours of buddy-buddy to completely change a brutal dictator into a lovable pussy-cat who will, of course, then do his bidding. I'm sure that in his mind, this is what happened in Singapore. In Trump world, what dozens of highly educated, dedicated hardworking officials could not accomplish, Trump accomplished with his great whit and wisdom, a few elaborate hand shakes, and a bit of empty praise. It is more than likely that he has been played like a fiddle.
That said, I don't make too much of the salute. It looked reflexive, i.e., the general saluted so Trump saluted. While it was truly a bad moment in terms of appearances, it more likely reflects his inexperience and inattention than any thought-out move to show respect.
218
Trump and “thought out move” do not belong in the same universe.
2
Isn't that the problem with the salute, however, that this ignorant oaf has no standards, no rules, no instincts, no clue about what is dignified or proper, what will look bad or be readily and understandably taken the wrong way? Doesn't he do things like salute a murderous dictator's general because he is devoid of good character, and isn't that why every possible moment as president is fraught with peril?
5
The Korean summit: instant gratification with nothing concrete foretold. Trump is having his way with America and it is not good. Our future becomes more and more unpredictable.
115
Of course, we knew we were in trouble when Trump, by sheer dumb luck and timely 'help' from Comey and Putin, and his constant barrage of lies, insults and exaggerations, assaulted the presidency. We knew for a long time his racism, xenophobia and misogyny; that he was a sneaky demagogue and charlatan, dimwitted to a fault but not dumb (as shown by his innate ability to cheat on others, even come ahead unscathed after all his bankruptcies). The question is, Why does his 'base' continue to believe his lying is the dogma truth? Have they stopped thinking for themselves? And another mystery as yet unresolved, the cowardice and hypocrisy of the republican party, toeing the line of 'our' ugly American in-chief, however insulting, and destructive, his behavior. Paul Ryan, the altar boy, despicable as well. Trump's latest boasting about 'saving America' from his newest and admired friend, ruthless dictator Kim Jong-un, is as empty as all the other nonsense Trump tries to distract us with, knowing our public, credulous as it is, demands circus and entertainment. No intellectual feat here, just pure emotional garbage based on 'fear, hate and division'. And the latest insult to decency, Giuliani parroting Trump's push to be freed from Mueller's. Having Trump in the Oval Office, trampling on all democratic institutions, is a real disgrace, as his mafia-like pluto-kleptocracy consolidates power, and drawing 'strength' from like-despots "a la Kim/Xi/Putin/Erdogan/Duterte". Ugh!
164
Re: the "base" They watch only Faux news and listen to Alex Jones. They do not see or hear factual news. Therefore, they believe everything that trump tweets. They never hear another opinion, even in church. And, as I am fond of saying--remember that half the population of the country is below average in intelligence. Plus, if one does not know what to do, confused by rapid change in society, threatened by the "brown wave," a "strongman" seem like a good idea.
9
Trump discussing Kim Jong Un, the brutal dictator who rules North Korea, in his impromptu appearance on Fox news this Friday morning:
“He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same...”
That says it all.
457
The majority of this country may pay attention every time he speaks, but none of these respect, admire, like or believe him.
2
Bill
That says nothing. He was kidding.
“My people”? Ahem, the whole point of the USA is that we are each FREE unto ourselves. None of us belong to Mr. Donald Wannabe-Kim/Duarte/Putin/Stalin — not even those Americans who voted for him.
While we are still free, let’s also prove that we are Brave. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, take note.
3
"I’ve just watched footage of Donald Trump saluting a North Korean general"
"Trump, in Singapore, saluted evil."
Oh, please. Cohen is using the magic of out-of-context. Trump extended his hand to the general, the general then first awkwardly saluted him, probably to show respect, and he politely saluted back, and then completed the handshake. It was nothing more than that.
Cohen telepathically manufactures the worst motives in Trump's mind, and then demonizes him for it. And there are numerous other instances in this article of projection.
There are plenty of Trump's horrible actions to point out. Demonization by telepathy doesn't belong in a serious article.
18
You seem to forget that he was instructed not to salute any military personnel...
1
The respect he showed Kim and his regime all throughout the whole episode conferred much more legitimacy on its evil than the breach of protocol, which in the grand scheme of things is no more than a hiccup.
The objective is to get an evil regime to relinquish its nuclear weapons. If a show of respect works, it's worth it. If it doesn't work, the show can be turned off. People who are outraged about a salute are to begin with looking for an excuse to hyperventilate.
How to Be President 101: Do not, under any circumstances, salute a military officer representing a hostile nation. Period. It is not a matter of "politeness" or context; it is a matter of protocol. POTUS certainly must have been briefed; as usual he wasn't listening and just responded with whatever might please whomever he was encountering at that particular moment.
POTUS is like the star athlete who doesn't have to study or follow the rules. Except the stakes are geopolitical and have enormous consequences.
1
Mr. Cohen nails down exactly what is most loathsome of all of Trump's character failings: he does not like democracy.
The United States cannot function under the thumb of a leader who does not share the values of the 2/3 of its citizens who do not want a dictator in the Oval Office surrounded by a coterie of equally disdainful enablers.
Democracy must protect itself by checking Trump at every turn and repudiating him personally and Trumpism itself at the ballot box.
297
What people seem to miss about Trump with their amazement with his admiration for ruthless dictators, criminal kingpins, and his peevish attitudes towards people who lead democratic and collaborative organizations is that he does not value ethical nor moral conduct, but he does admire those who take what the want and do what they want without any self imposed constraints. It’s not the power he admires it’s the license to get away with anything that he admires.
Trump has pretty much lived a distorted existence where in his reality his money has always saved him from the kinds of loss that most people must work hard to avoid. He lives in a bubble and while he does business with sociopathic individuals who routinely break laws, he must stay slightly removed to remain safe from criminal prosecution that might deplete all of his legitimate holdings.
I do not think that Trump finds much of anything to admire in life nor much of anything in human history interesting. He manipulates people and craves center stage because he’ s bored.
190
I don't think he does it because he's bored. I would posit it's because he actually enjoys watching people jump, and gets pleasure from railing against what society deems admirable behavior. He attacks every virtue or trait normally assumed is "good" because he does not possess them, and since they aren't part of his being, they are not valuable. If he did all these things he does because he was "bored" I don't believe there would be such vitriol behind his tweets and actions. There isn't some master plan. He is just craven.
31
Great comment. Thank you Casual Observer.
1
What else can we expect from a greedy, selfish, cruel man? He's always been this way and always will. Why any sane, thinking, American would think of voting for him is beyond me.
3