The autocrat in Washington

Autocrat- a ruler who has absolute power, taking no account of other people’s wishes or opinions

“Autocratic Distraction: “Who do my supporters hate? Who can I get them to hate? How can I make the hated targets angry so they lash out?” – Garry Kasparov tweet 7-26-17

“The president needs something — anything — to fire up his most loyal supporters. He is willing to sacrifice the careers of thousands of troops to do that.” – EJ Montini, The (Arizona) Republic

Chaos, misdirection, and dysfunction. Do you want to know why Donald Trump so admires Vladimir Putin? Despite the fact that it appears the Russians elected their supreme leader in a fair, democratic process, he is at the end of the day, an autocratic ruler a position Trump desperately wishes to hold over the citizens of the United States.

And here is the problem, 35 to 40% of American citizens are okay with that. Better yet, they want it, encourage it, hell that is what they voted for. They would be happy with one political party, one state news agency, and one supreme autocratic ruler. In their mind, that is the only way anything will ever get done in Washington. Why do they believe this? Because that is what Donald Trump told them to believe. They have accepted this as the truth from a chaotic, and unstable individual. When Trump said “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” he wasn’t joking. Most of us gasped at this remark while many others said “Damn right!”

Garry Kasparov is a Russian-Croatian chess Grandmaster, and a former World Chess Champion. Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time. He is also an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, a man and a system of government he knows very well. His tweet above, though directed at Trump, could just as easily have described the tactics Putin has employed in Russia “Who do my supporters hate? Who can I get them to hate? How can I make the hated targets angry so they lash out?”.

Putin has held “total” power in Russia for 17 years, first as president and now as an unchallenged dictator. He has eliminated every form of real political and social opposition in Russia by convincing 35 to 40% of the Russians citizens that only he has their best interest at heart while he fills his and his friends pockets with gold coins. Sound familiar?

Trump wants us to believe that Russia is our friend, but the truth is, Russia is no ones friend. They are a stand alone society free to meddle in everyone’s business. For Putin it is simply a game, a game he excelled in as a career KGB officer. When the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia did in fact tamper with the 2016 presidential election, it was silly to later add that Vladimir Putin was directly involved. Certainly he was involved. He takes particular interest in operations dealing with disinformation and manipulation and when they involve the United States, the one entity that has the ability to disrupt his supreme power, that is just the icing on the cake for him.

Trump has established the state enemies for his loyal minions, the main stream media, Democrats, the Deep State, Washington Bureaucrats, the intelligence community, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton. These are the opponents of MAGA, the ones that have refused to give Trump free rein, the ones that second guess his efforts, that try to keep him in check. And the ironic twist to all this, if it were United States President Putin they would be his enemies as well.

What are you going to do?