After “Trial,” It Is Now Happening Here

TUCSON — After the Senate kangaroo court delivered its verdict, Mike Pence crowed, “It's over.” No, it's not. Weapons of mass destruction — Donald Trump's thumbs — have attacked America from within, and they seem to be winning.

Trump, who takes his transparent distortions as divine truth, sees any challenge as lèse majesté. Americans have less than 10 months to set him straight before another term entrenches monarchal oligarchy — or worse.

Yet Democratic candidates snipe at one another to attract voters guided by emotional impulse as though the most crucial election ever was simply picking a winner on Dancing With the Stars.

The world badly needs the wherewithal and moral compass of an America that works with others to fend off global calamity. But too many voters ignore this big picture to obsess over day-to-day political horseraces and nitpicking sidelights.

Having covered self-obsessed demagogues since the 1960s, I know one when I see one. Some are far less brutal than others, but all have one basis in common: they do whatever they want and take vengeance on dissenters.

Upon acquittal, Trump strutted through the White House behind a military band playing “Hail to the Chief.” He heaped praise on his sycophants then spewed vulgar invective and threats at “sick, horrible” Democrats who made his family suffer.

His unhinged hour-long ramble treated assembled Republican legislators like a dog trainer tossing biscuits at his neutered poodles. He lavished encomiums on Mitch McConnell for blocking bills and packing the Supreme Court.

Later, he told reporters that Nancy Pelosi broke the law by tearing up a copy of his lie-laced State of the Union speech, an “official document.” It was, he said, “so disrespectful to our country, and actually very illegal.”

Payback was immediate. Alexander Vindman, a U.S. Army colonel with a Purple Heart whose family fled the Soviet Union for a country that speaks truth to power, was frog-marched out of the White House under guard. So was his twin brother, an NSC lawyer whose only sin was a family tie.

Last week, I recalled Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel on how a fascist-minded elected leader in the United States could follow Hitler's path to power: “It Can't Happen Here.” Now, William Shirer's “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” is more apt.

Shirer quoted an editor in Berlin, close to Hitler, who told him in 1938 that at times the Führer “lost control completely, hurling himself to the floor and chewing the edge of the carpet.” Men like that are capable of just about anything.

I mentioned Michael Getler, a wise colleague who two decades ago cautioned me not to underestimate the American people. His correspondent son, Warren, responded to say that his father would have been horrified at today's hypocrisy in Washington.

Warren studied Nazis at Princeton before covering Germany. He remembers journalist Dorothy Thompson who interviewed Hitler and outlined how dictators seize power: fire up less-educated, largely rural workers with xenophobic tropes; scapegoat non-white minorities; discredit the press with big-lie propaganda.

Obviously, situations differ. Hitler exploited fear in a nation crippled by inflation and postwar political turmoil. Trump evokes baseless fears to con workaday cultists as he enriches the ruling class and plunders natural resources.

I first saw despotism at its worst in 1967. Joseph-Desire Mobutu added “Democratic” to Republic of the Congo. Then he Africanized his name, with a ludicrous list of glorifying titles, and ruled by fiat. The thud of rubber stamps drowned out token opposition in his parliament.

My stringer, Baudouin Kayembe, edited a brave weekly that shed light on corruption. He was jailed on trumped up charges and died from what Mobutu called an unfortunate illness. Uncounted millions have been killed in the Congo since then.

Singapore was the other extreme. Lee Kuan Yew, brilliant and ruthless, shaped democracy according to his iron whim. His ruling party groomed future leaders from grade school. Fines discouraged “Western permissiveness.” Critics were sued, or worse.

After a leading Chinese-language daily irritated Lee, its publisher got the message and moved to Canada. Singapore today is rich and orderly, a model state for those not troubled by what amounts to a better-packaged North Korea.

Americans once paid more attention to the world. During the Ronald Reagan 1980s, farsighted conservatives began to reshape the society. They started with primary education, as Lee Kuan Yew did, backing curricula that discouraged critical thinking and curiosity about the world.

News was once a one-way feed from reporters who witnessed what they wrote about. Now the internet vastly expands access to information but also gives a false sense of omniscience. People form fixed ideas from whatever sources they choose.

As McKay Coppins reports in The Atlantic, Trump's billion-dollar disinformation campaign blurs reality with false stories targeted at specific groups and slimes critical reporters with made-up slurs or damaging details dug up from the distant past.

Overwhelmed by it all, Americans tend to base opinions on impressions of the moment and personal concerns, losing sight of how global currents impact on their lives. Many overlook the complex indirect electoral process that determines who wins.

Logic points to Biden. November will be, as he says, a fight over America's soul. And more, it is about choosing a president who foes take seriously and friends see as a known quantity equipped to thwart an authoritarian trend that Trump encourages.

Germany is troubling again. As Angela Merkel prepares to step aside, the far-right gains strength. Neofascism looms elsewhere in Europe. Iran has been pushed to extremes. Trump's pro-Israel policy inflames the Middle East. Turkey is a wild card on NATO's eastern flank. The list is long, and each case demands proven diplomacy.

But after a clown-car caucus in Iowa, commentators declared that Biden was on the ropes, rejected by voters in one small state. Then a shiny new object from leftfield and a redoubtable old warrior took commanding leads in the New Hampshire primary.

Age is relative. If some people are past it at 50, others hit hard in their 90s. Bernie Sanders is a year older than Biden, and both are up to the job. But elections hang on a few swing states where wavering Republicans fear the bugaboo word, socialism.

Hillary Clinton has already showed that a woman can win. Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren would be good vice presidents; both now do vital work in the Senate. A more seasoned Buttigieg can make a strong run in 2024. As for Mike Bloomberg, should billionaires buy elections, skipping the scrutiny of debates and primaries?

Biden shows signs of fraying under the constant eye of crowds and cameras. In New Hampshire, he told a 21-year-old woman who said she'd been to an Iowa caucus, “You're a lying, dog-faced pony solider.” He said later that was a joke, an old John Wayne line.

Video shows everyone laughing that off, and it is hard to know the context. But Fox News and late-night comedians made much of it. Like Howard Dean's odd scream of enthusiasm in 2004, it will cost him.

Most young voters, less likely to factor in how the Electoral College works, already dismiss Biden as an uninspiring relic. His TV ads belittling Buttigieg's small-town inexperience and his repeated references to Barack Obama don't help.

At this stage, it's all guesswork — to the Republicans' delight. If Biden is the candidate, the risk echoes 2016. Bernie diehards, Never-Hillary people and apathetic nonvoters put a demagogue in the White House.

Trump, along with his idiot-prince older son and big-money backers, has made his intentions clear. He intends to make America in his own image. For those who oppose him, the lesson is old as Antiquity. If you go after a king don't miss.

Bloomberg, the dark horse, is coming up fast on a separate track. He is the anti-Trump, an honest billionaire with far better instincts. New York insiders who knew him as mayor tell me they have doubts. He apologized to those discomfited by his stop-and-frisk policy but not for the principle. He is a money man, focused on results.

Bloomberg's news agency outraged some of its staff by basing editorial judgment on hits and comments rather than editors' judgment of what mattered. One story reporting hard evidence that Iraq had dismantled its banned weapons, the reason for invasion in 2003, stirred little interest. It was not pursued.

It may come down to showdown between two New York rich people with opposing ideas about what is best for America. A benevolent dictator is a much better choice than a malevolent one. But money is not how we should keep score.

Illustration courtesy of Jeff Danziger