Michael Lind: Trump is Ruling America Like a Petty, Vindictive Mob Boss

Some of this is hysteria--as you won't be surprised to learn...

But some of it seems pretty much right, unfortunately.

Some of the hysteria:

Trump has yet to dissolve Congress with a whiff of grapeshot in the manner of Cromwell, or to send members of the opposition party, not just illegal immigrants, to the new “Alligator Alcatraz” detention centre in Florida. The progressive Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans who think they live in Weimar America will continue to be disappointed when there is no Reichstag Fire or Enabling Act. 

Some of the stuff Lind gets right:

[A] Ever since the celebrity property developer descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower on June 16 2015 to announce his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, many have warned he would become a fascist dictator and predicted that he and his followers would replace democracy in America with an authoritarian police state. But the comparison between Trump and dictators like Mussolini and Stalin was always absurd. 

[B] Unusual as he is compared to other American presidents, Trump resembles a figure familiar in American local politics in all regions of the country: the sleazy city mayor who, without using direct coercion, strong-arms others into doing his will. [my lettering]

Now, Democrat lawfare is severely damaging the country...and I'd love to see Perkins Coie spectacularly self-destruct in some particularly embarrassing way...but...it's not clear to me whether Trump's lawsuits are laudable cases of giving the Dems their own medicine...or lamentable cases of being just as bad as the other guys.

   I'm not wild about Trump's lawsuits...and I could pretty easily be persuaded that they are abuses of power. OTOH, they do seem awfully similar to Democrat lawfare...and if they constitute the legitimate fighting of fire with fire, then I'm for them.

   I'm undecided on this point.

   HOWEVER: crazy shit like forcing the Redskins to revert to their old name, or trying to revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship...well...Lind certainly has a point in such cases. This is the kind of stupid shit that made people like me hesitant to vote for Trump. I hope this is just late-night Twixxer ranting...though late-night Twixxer ranting is one of the things I dreaded about a second Trump term... Still, that's better than him being serious about such bullshit.