Authoritarian
Hobbesian
Narcissistic
Nationalist
Reactionary
Shady
Shielded
Thuggish
Wealthy
White
Which of the two or both?
Perhaps all that separates Presidents Putin and Trump are America’s still-intact Constitutional checks and balances and related authentic cultural precepts, tenets, and values having to do with equality, freedom, and justice bound to a modern and spacious appreciation of universal human character and potential.
The tapped popular perception of both of these heavy handed and extraordinarily wealthy politicians is that each exists to protect his image, his power, and his cronies and may be otherwise concerned with the needs of their respective nations overall to only a minimal extent.
The democracy of the United States of America requires — as do others — a soundly educated population on one hand and (it is this one on the other that’s tough) highly experienced and well educated statesmen on the other. The Republican vote coming for Biden, an “old school” politician with a manner familiar from far better days, will represent a mass of voting against the incumbent Donald Trump, but that will not hack it for American democracy except to forestall its dissolving into another shitty pseudo-democratic dictatorship.
Whoever wins 2020, it will be America’s 2024 election that will spell whether Americans will be governed by a fully responsive and responsible leadership or one bent by measures of dogma, excessive narcissism, and greed.
Regarding the psychology of dictatorship, BackChannels offers a page with a few interesting, even novel, concepts (like the “Paranoid Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation“) on it: https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/ .
“Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” might be worth a look as well.
At the end of his congressional testimony in February, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer, floated a nightmarish possibility.
“Given my experience working for Mr. Trump,” Cohen said, “I fear that if he loses in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”
Block, Daniel. “How Trump Could Lose the Election and Remain President.” Washington Monthly, April/May/June 2019.
Donald Trump falsely accused Democrats of trying to “steal” Tuesday’s special election in California amid the Covid-19 pandemic by adding a polling place in one of the most diverse sections of a district.
But the county actually added the polling location at the request of the area’s Republican mayor.
Levine, Sam. “‘It’s all rigged’: Trump foreshadows how he could undermine presidential election.” The Guardian, May 12, 2020.
The announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin won last week’s national vote to rewrite the country’s constitution and allow himself to run twice more for president was not exactly a surprise. Putin has a long track record of winning elections through a mix of genuine popularity, electoral skullduggery, and—most important of all—ensuring that no real alternatives are allowed on the ballot. This most recent plebiscite took Putin-era elections to new depths of meaningless.
Miller, Chris. “Lukashenko Is Putin’s Future.” Foreign Policy, July 9, 2020.
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*fictional* transcript of Trump’s secret call with Putin. It isn’t just America and Russia that are at risk … consider: if Trump becomes dictator of AmeriKKKa, Putin will control the vast majority of nuclear warheads. I don’t think he will simply start bombing places willy-nilly, but he will extort concessions from the world’s remaining democracies…small ones initially…until all of NATO is destroyed.
https://petersironwood.com/2020/09/01/5060/
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