Donald Trump Isn't the Victim of a Witch-Hunt. He's Leading It.

[babylonsister]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-isnt-the-victim-of-a-witch-hunt-hes-leading-it?ref=home

Donald Trump Isn't the Victim of a Witch-Hunt. He's Leading It.
From the 14th Century to McCarthyism, the president’s predecessors were the ones doing the hunting. Now Trump claims to be the victim, when in fact he's the witch-finder general.
Jay Michaelson
09.02.18 9:38 PM ET

snip//

He learned that stuff from Cohn, who before becoming Trump’s mentor was Senator McCarthy’s henchman. It was Cohn, not Robert Mueller, who helped orchestrate the actual “greatest witch hunt in political history,” now known as McCarthyism. Careers were ruined, lives destroyed, and anyone who ever supported a union or protested a politician was regarded as guilty until proven innocent.

It’s a short stone’s throw indeed from Cohn’s imprecations against all those he deemed Un-American to Trump’s evil claims that the free press is the enemy of the people—and, more recently, his stripping of security clearance from his critics such as former CIA Director John Brennan.

More broadly, McCarthyism was a burst of populist conservative paranoia, just like “Make America Great Again.” Both claimed that America was both the best nation in the world and threatened with imminent destruction by anti-patriotic elites and unpopular minorities “opposed to our way of life” (then: communists, African Americans, Jews; now: Muslims, immigrants, Jews).

Both movements are radically anti-rational, anti-education, anti-science. Both are fervently particularistic, placing America First and defining America as narrowly as possible (white, suburban/rural, conservative, Christian).

Trumpism is, itself, a great witch hunt, desperately in search of an enemy.

snip//

This is what self-hatred looks like, and Cohn and Trump can’t help but show it off: the preening, the vulgarity, the tacky taste for the gaudiest luxuries imaginable, the constant need for validation. (If Roy Cohn could’ve hosted demagogic pep rallies in the 1950s, he would’ve done that too.)

In other words, whenever Trump tweets against contemporary witch-hunters, he’s attacking his own reflection in the mirror.

[duforsure]

1. So familiar sounding

Putin's had his puppets in numerous other places using the same talking points putin had them used after rigging their elections and installing a puppet. Lock her up, fake news, wouldn't it be nice if we got along with russia, all used before by other installed putin puppets. Wonder how much trump supporters believe him now.Putin also had his puppet criminalize his opponents and make up stuff to use then his kangaroo courts sent them up the river, like he has trump working on doing here now. Pretty obvious putin has trump compromised and his asset working for him.

[pazzyanne]

2. "Wonder how much trump supporters believe him now."

Unfortunately they still do. They would rather associate with Russians than with Democrats, and have the shirts to prove it. They are not patriots even though the tea baggers promoted themselves as patriots. They are noting more than alt-right and Natzi followers destroying the United States. They are so entrenched in their ideology that they cannot see what they have become.

[sarge43]

3. "....he's attacking his own reflection in the mirror."

Because, no matter what, it's always about him - morbid narcissism.

[YessirAtsaFact]

4. Dumb as a bird attacking your window in mating season

Because he sees his reflection

[sarge43]

5. The Society of Hormone Addled Birds will be in touch.

Trust me, that's a lot of birds.

[Mr. Ected]

6. The Trump movement gains its strength from excluding all other points of view

Kind of like Christianity. If you're not a Christian, you're going to hell. At least that's what my evangelical 'friends' tell me.

Same with Trumpism. To subscribe to its tenets, one must first discount every word, every utterance, of any media or politician not called FOX or Republican, respectively. If you're not on our side, you're an enemy of the people, an enemy of the state.

In their eyes, any attack on their veritability is akin to treason. It is discounted between hearing it and thinking about it. It's a witch hunt, because they fashion themselves victims somehow. Again, it's another artificial condition they believe themselves plagued by, but when your head is in the sand, it's easy to start to believe yourself, particularly if you're surrounded by millions who feign the same victimhood.

Donald is running the show using his crib notes of Putin's tactics. We're suffering through a 3rd grader's interpretation of fascism, which makes it all the more insufferable yet surmountable due to the sophomoric nature of the players.