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Birth Of A Dictator When 'It Can't Happen Here' [1]
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Date: 2025-03-11
The photo above is of a ‘control tower’ in a detention section at the Cuban Island prison Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, now undergoing an ordered refresh for vastly more expected detainees to arrive, during the second administration of the current President of The United States of America, Donald Trump. If there is one diamond-hard crystal-sharp idea that the United States Of America has at the core of it’s birth as a nation, it is arguably this: that we all are as a people pledged from the start, that our honor, and our mortal lives, will never be subject to the absolute rule of a king, or a monarch, or a dictator, whatever they might consider themselves, wherever they come from, and whatever their costume looks like. At least, that is my view on that question, should anyone ask me. All the rest that we and our ancestors fought to acquire and then to hold: voting and representative government, individual rights, branches of government with delineated and limited powers, religious freedoms, freedom of speech, everything else … comes after this: that here in America we declared to the world in print, we shall never be subjects ruled by the purposes, whatever they might be, of just one person. If political values can be ‘sacred’, that one is for us. Many have perished to secure that value. It is the cornerstone I believe of our political republic. And many more have thankfully survived their experiences defending our nation, physically and emotionally injured, doing the same. On Sunday, news came, however, sadly indicating that the current President does not consider himself part of our American founding idea, and he will not be constrained by the blood and wrenching sacrifices and the tears and efforts of our history. None should be surprised.
What makes a dictator a ‘dictator’ of a nation-state, however their political power was gained? There are a lot of possible answers to that question, you may have your own criteria, and I won’t write a list. For me, however, one stands out above all others and this is it: the act of one person directing the arrest and confinement of people whenever they want. For any reason, for no reason, for no criminal acts (and ‘criminal acts’ under dictators are always expanded to fit their desires), for whatever the dictator chooses. And the cold calculated ultimate goal, whether the motivation is political advantage and supremacy, revenge, money, all of those or whatever it might be, is: FEAR ! Less public opposition, when those arrested are a dictator’s opponents, is a nice secondary objective, but it’s just gravy. Because, to stay a dictator, those who are dictated to, as many as possible, must be always afraid. Will I be arrested too? They are made to wonder. Will my friends? Will my family? My associates? When might it happen? What will I do, is there anything I can do, to avoid detention? And so, avoiding arrest and disappearance, becomes uppermost for most people, especially so for those who do not support the dictator ... and even for those who do. Frank Herbert’s Paul Atriedes in his novel ‘Dune’, learned as he was raised (by his monarch Father), that “Fear is The Mind-killer” from his Mother’s ancient religious order, and, of course, for most people, it is. We’re human, and fear helps keeps us alive. It also inhibits, dictators believe, people from speaking out and acting contrary to the dictator’s desires and plans. So, dictators create fear by their ordered arrests to help them keep in power, dictating. But, for some, fear is not always ascendent.
Like who? For Americans, one might start by reading the details of the recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Or, by reading about the ‘Underground Railroad’ for slaves escaping human bondage. Or the last speech by Martin Luther King before his assassination. Or the writings of brutally beaten protesting ‘Suffragettes’. The list and known fates of the signers of the ‘Declaration Of Independence’. Our own history is, as the saying goes, ‘full as a tick’ of those who did not let their fear become their ruler, despite the possible consequences they faced in the circumstances when they acted. Even one public arrest by a dictator, and publicity is key … even just one, can create that fear in a population that every dictator needs.
In a recent story here, I wrote that I cannot predict the future. At the risk of sounding regretful for those words, here is something I think is highly likely to be true in the passage of time: Donald Trump will never be awarded a Nobel Prize. One American who was awarded a Nobel Prize, however, a first for our country in ‘Literature’, in 1935, was the writer Sinclair Lewis. Subsequent to that award, just a few years later, Lewis wrote and published a political novel called ‘It Can’t Happen Here’. It is a story about an American politician, who is a fascist, that is elected President. Lewis wrote this prescient and often comedic but ultimtely harrowing novel, when fascism was infecting Europe but before it began to mass-murder its hosts and adversaries both, ninety years ago. Fascism back then, like now, is always a hydra that is difficult to slay. Until recently, Lewis’s imagination remained just that in this country - a story of fiction. Now, though, better than I certainly, his musings and words seem straight out of a polished crystal-ball from our distant past, and unfortunately for our possible futures, prophetic. Not in every exact detail, but in disturbing replicant-similar reality.
Here is why I think that. Donald Trump gleefully just ordered the arrest of someone because he felt like it. His ICE agents dutifully complied, his toady agency and department and Secretarial-level advisors are falling into jackboot line, and so that person was arrested a few days ago in New York on Saturday March 8, 2025, and he was quickly transported and incarcerated in a distant state. So far there seem to be no criminal charges, just a public statement from Trump that the arrested person had been involved in “illegal protest” activities that he believes, support ‘terrorists’ he does not like. Others writing here are telling of that arrest, and a few … too few actually … opposition political leaders are speaking out about it. So far anyway, they still can. I will not describe the details of this person’s situation, others are, much better than I can, who know the circumstances well. That is not why I decided to write this story. Why I did, is, because for me, as I described above, for the first time that I know of, Donald Trump acted in a way that makes him, clearly, irreversibly, horribly, drop-dead-certainly, for me anyway ... a damn dictator in The White House, with all the despicable attributes and damaging consequences ahead that always come from one of those, who we Americans are and have forever been, trothed to oppose and, if necessary, fight even to death. Here we are though, and ‘here’ is not good at all. Trump himself, like dictators love to do, of course, trumpeted his arrest order in public, and said in fact that he will order the arrest of “many more”. He demands compliance. He desires fear. He craves more fear like he drools for his beloved hot ‘Big Macs’ ... and we should take him at his public words to be worth our water.
He has his reasons for his order, he claimed. This is it in my own words, and while we still have the imperiled freedom to say things we think, I use that liberty here to translate it in a nutshell: ”I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Bill Of Rights, or the revered document it is part of, that I lied about preserving and upholding and all that crap in that stupid oath I never intended to honor, and I do what I want because I can and because I am your king, disagree with me, piss me off, then get arrested and you will be gone, too...”. In 1933, before Lewis wrote ‘It Can’t Happen Here’, but after he was the Nobel prize winner that Trump will never be … when Germany got their disastrous dictator, the first thing Adolph Hitler set about doing was arresting and imprisoning his political opposition leaders and their associates, sometimes also their families, and his violent street enforcers got very good at it very quickly. Opposition political parties were legally outlawed, their leaders incarcerated. Trade unions also were outlawed, their leaders rounded up. And others who somehow existed in ways Hitler and his monstrous advisors thought troublesome, met the same fates. In just a few months, many tens of thousands of his political opponents disappeared into his growing system of ‘concentration camps’ spread around Germany. Many never left. The rest, as they say, is history … dark, and full of death. We Americans then, true to our originating revered values, helped end that monstrous dictatorship that murdered so many and threatened everything everywhere.
Here in America, now, if Trump decides to act in in a similar way ... with this first arrest and promises of more to come he is beginning to do exactly that … we should understand that a few thousand arrests of those he has repeatedly called “enemies of the state” would mean that, for example, ALL of the leaders of The Democratic Party at the federal level, and state and major city levels, would all be gone. It is far less people in opposition leadership than tens of thousands in Germany, maybe as many there were arrested as one hundred fifty thousand of Hitler’s initial opponents ... they were arrested and imprisoned and often killed. Trump’s enforcers here are discussing in public, we see, about arresting Democratic leaders opposing them already. Will Trump actually do this? Well, when dictators begin their arresting their opponents, someone is always first. What or who is to stop him? Republican leaders are already afraid of the Magazies that threaten their lives. It won’t be them.
At the moment the news is, first, that ‘news‘ is still available so far … and second, regarding this first arrest of an immigrant permanent resident ‘green card’ holder apparently disappeared from New York into a notoriously brutal prison in Louisiana ... that there is a recently issued judicial court order delaying the arrestee’s deportation. Will Trump comply? Maybe, maybe not. Dictators arrest judges, too. And ignoring adverse judicial decisions is part of the ‘dictator’s toolbox’ of increasing popular support among their indoctrinated fanatical followers, while ridding themselves of pesky troublemakers. So we shall see. If Trump defers to a court this first time, will he the next time? In my opinion, his history screams that counting on Donald Trump to ever do ‘the right thing’ is an astronomical-odds dark-horse-bet. While Green Card permanent residents have somewhat less legal protections than full citizens, they still have many. Of course, expecting Trump to respect those they do have, and caring whatsoever about them even if he knows what they are, which is vanishingly unlikely, is beyond reason and experience with this throughly corrupt dictator-order novitiate.
Sinclair Lewis’s ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ has much of its’ story in the great state of Vermont. If you have not read the novel, perhaps you should consider doing so. Also, I highly recommend the detailed Wordpress essay ‘Fascism and imagination: reading _It Can’t Happen Here_ in 2018’, by Bryan Alexander. bryanalexander.org/… In his essay, he actually compares and contrasts Lewis’s novel’s events with Donald Trump’s first term actions, and the then-current American political and world landscape … the 2018 version of Trump, that is. Trump is different, now. He is much worse. The novel actually describes as a plot point, the fascist President’s promised economic prosperity gains failing to materialize, Lewis imagines ... that causes disillusionment among his followers. It even foretells an invasion of Mexico! Where have we heard of that possibility, lately?
I end this story with this ominous personal conclusion: we are now, after this arrest, in a budding Trump dictatorship. And, we had better believe that we are. To wish we are not, belies our reality, and Trump’s intent expressed in his own words, and by his own actions. He has fervent, and fearful … cult-like dangerous supporters, and now government-employed and widely emplaced powerfully empowered enforcers that are dedicated to enacting his capricious will, in every sphere of our lives. He, and they, do not give a cold damn about our scared political historical values achieved and maintained with our ancestor’s blood, sacrifices, and our national-origin-inspired determination over centuries. They say they do, but they are lying through their Magaism-capped teeth. Donald Trump, now arresting who he feels like ... is our first American dictator. It has happened, it is happening ... here. And, unfortunately, it will probably take much more than hope and luck, to ensure that Trump damn well is the last in America for a very long time. Good luck to our country, and to all of us who will never consent to being a dictator’s subjugated subjects.
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