All The Good Trump Is Doing

 Like weakening our global influence through starving American research:

Self‑censorship, more stress, tougher recruiting – we asked US researchers how the Trump administration’s science policies have affected them  

 Like lining his own pockets with our tax dollars:

IRS barred from auditing Trump’s old tax returns  

Republicans defeat Gallego amendment pushing back on fund to compensate Trump allies 

Trump’s stunning IRS settlement  

Vance defends stock-trading spree in Trump financial filings: ‘Come on, man’ 

Trump’s $10 Billion IRS Shakedown Takes Darker Turn, Unnerving Experts 

America’s Fascist Playbook Is Wreaking Havoc around the World 

Chomsky was not convinced the US had turned completely fascist yet—but he did think it was heading there. For Chomsky, the saving grace of the moment was that Trump was a cartoonish figure. “I’ve said for a long time that the United States is very lucky that we haven’t had a charismatic figure who is honest, dedicated, committed to establishing fascist rule. What we’ve had are clowns: Joe McCarthy, Jim Bakker, Donald Trump, who’s just a narcissistic megalomaniac. We haven’t had a real Hitler type. Well, we could get one.” 

***

Should American democracy fall, other democracies will fall with it. Constitutional systems and charters of rights and hard-won battles for freedom that took centuries will crumble. This cannot be our fate. Nor can the eventual lurch into doomsday be our future. The great challenge before us now is to defeat fascism and save the planet. It will fall on people alive today to build a new consensus and win this struggle for democracy and freedom. 

 Or as some fellow once said:

... It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 

sch 5/19