The Rise of a Dictator

Writing puts ideas into a visual form, aiding the writer in clarifying his or her thoughts.  The written word is also an efficient means for transmitting information that is well suited to contemplation.  In contrast, Trump tweets and arouses his followers by yanking at their emotional strings, blinding them to reason.  It matters little to them that much of what Trump says is utter nonsense that often contradicts his own recorded words from the past.  There is no need to consult the "crooked" media.  One can easily verify Trump's duplicitousness through his Twitter feed or recordings of his own words that can be found across the internet.

Trump spews many lies. Each one demands a rebuttal that is grounded in fact and an analysis that through logic illustrates the dangerous consequences of his intended actions.  Unfortunately, the sheer volume of lies and inaccuracies makes it impossible to have a true discourse that leads to effective policies.

Each day, I intend to write about his most crazy utterance, but there are just too many of them to keep up.  So instead, I decided to let off some steam by writing this post.

I feel that it is in the best interest of us all to preserve our democracy -- a precious but fragile gift.  Democracy allowed Trump to win, and our citizenry deserves a chance to vote Trump out of office in four years if his actions fail to enrich our society.

In closing, below I have produced a list of techniques needed to become a dictator.  How many of these has Trump used and how far down the list will he get?

• 1. Use fear to convince your population to give up its freedom for security
• 2. Identify a scapegoat group that you can blame for society's ills
• 3. Discredit the press to limit information, maximize disinformation, and prevent scrutiny of your actions.
• 4. Weaken the judiciary so that you can be above the law
• 5. Imprison the opposition
• 6. Surround yourself with miliary leaders that are loyal to you
• 7. Empower the police to control the population rather than protect it
• 8. When things go wrong, blame others and lie
• 9. Use your power to enrich yourself