What kind of a country do we want to leave for our children and grandchildren? I had the rare opportunity to spend 20 years of my life visiting family living in a communist dictatorship in Yugoslavia. I began that experience by witnessing how dictators consolidate power from the beginning as a student in pre-wall Berlin. 1958-1959. From that, I certainly learned what sort of a country I want to leave to my children and grandchildren, and it is not one that is under a Trump dictatorship. He is on his way to establishing one, and I have deja vu all over again.
The downsides of a dictatorship," strong man" president, autocracy, king, fascism, in a nutshell:
1) The people's voice and needs can be easily ignored. With so much money and power in a few hands and few checks left to curb power, a few in charge can pursue their obsessions, which may not be yours or the ones the strong man promised when he was preparing to assume the reins of power. For that reason, Turmp can just ignore the egg grocery and cost of living..inflation in his obsession of tariffs as he is doing now.
2) It is unfair to favor those with power and money and subvert or ignore laws that all once had to abide by with the rule of law. It is unfair. It is not fair to all, but it benefits only one side, the winners and those who hold the reins of power and money. How far is he willing to go on this one, but he is testing the ability to stop him in nearly all of his overtly unconstitutional executive orders and policies, including due process. Neither due process nor civil rights exist in dictatorships. Trump is attempting this with his recent finger raised against the Supreme Court on that issue, due process, concerning shipping deportees to El Salvador's gulag, and his obsession with anti-DEI, rolling back 50 years of gains in civil rights. The question is whether he will abide by Supreme Court decisions or defy them. He is setting himself up to be the ruler of law, the decider of which laws, judges, and courts and their decisions he will honor. The current dispute over the return of Abrega-Garcis, wrongfully sent to the El Salvador gulag may put the term and value of "due process" as a right that extends to undocumented migrants as well. Taking that away, refusing to abide by court rulings and demands, is not something confined to such migrants. Instead, per Donald Trump, he believes that it should be ignored even in the case of American citizens who commit crimes.
3) Fear permeates words and actions throughout society, government, and business.. The repercussions, however, are on the people who are made to fear what happens if they are not loyal to the ruling group or who dare to challenge them. It drives speech and action instead of caring what is helpful to the public good or constituents..Fear of loss of income or political position drives private and public policy leaders to repeat the leader's talking points, whether or not they agree, bow to the president's demands, or keep quiet. Placing federal law enforcement in the president's total control, the Department of Justice is the enforcer. This is what Trump is attempting to do to academia if they do not bow to his anti-DEI orders and in society in general, in curriculum, and in speech and journalism.
Trump's attack on academia is very disturbing, especially when it targets my alma mater, Northwestern, and Cornell and Harvard who gave degrees to cousins and a son.
I applaud Harvard for refusing to buckle to Trump's extortion to force them to do what the federal government demands. tt may look like Trump is using the conflict and ahorrence of anti-Semitism to try to control academic freedom on campus. I hope my alma mater, Northwestern, holds firm against Trump's demands to control them. Northwestern has gone out of its way to deal with anti-Semitism on campus, and its president himself is Jewish. The issue is not anti-semitism. That is a pretext for forcing academia to bend the knee to a wannabe dictatorship. If they do it on this issue, what about others like DEI, of which, in my view, is a Whtie Christian nationalist agenda Trump is enacting with a vengeance...including forcing the ideology down academia's throat as a consolidation of dictatorial powers. Full disclosure: within my family are also Harvard and Cornell graduates, and me, Northwestern.
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This is an updated, condensed version of two prior postings:
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