I have been silent for a while now, but I have decided to start posting again. I don’t know if I will return to my almost daily schedule, but I will be posting from time to time. Call it my little act of resistance to the fascist coup going on in this country by a bunch of oligarchs. Hitler was able to take over in Germany and subsequently much of Europe because people were silent or just continued to live in a state of delusion pretending what they were seeing wasn’t really happening or that it somehow would not adversely affect them. And we all know how that turned out. It is important for everyone to speak up against every act of tyranny. This will be my voice.
Several years ago, during Trump’s first administration when I began posting in this blog and it was becoming very obvious Trump had an affinity for Vladimir Putin and various other strongmen around the globe, I postulated that one of Trump’s end goals was to have the world divided into areas, each controlled by a dictator. President Xi would control much of Asia, including Taiwan. Putin would restore the old USSR and swallow up the Baltics and other parts of Europe. And Trump would get most of the Western Hemisphere although perhaps he would let a strongman from South America have that chunk since he is clearly not a fan of Hispanics.
NATO would become a relic of a bygone era and Trump would forge a new pact with Russia to counter the growing influence of China. Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania would be at the mercy of the three so-called super-powers, China, Russia, and the USA. It seems beyond imagination, but it is taking shape right before our eyes.
Officials from the US and Russia just met in Saudi Arabia to discuss a peace deal in Ukraine, without any participation from Ukraine or Europe. That should tell everyone all they need to know. These authoritarian leaders intend to try to carve up the world, take whatever resources they need (rare metals and wheat from Ukraine, for example), and use force to keep the various populations in check. I know that it sounds very dystopian, but I don’t see any other explanation. All authoritarian leaders are driven by two things, a lust for power and an unquenchable thirst for wealth. They might cloak these desires in terms that appeal to certain ideologies such as the Christian right in America, but that is just window dressing. Everything they strive for is driven by greed and power. It certainly appears this is the age we are now entering.
Every single aspiring authoritarian finds a group to demonize. For Hitler it was the Jews. Modi is demonizing the Muslims in India since it is primarily a Hindu country. Hundreds of years ago, the Catholics demonized the heretics who would not embrace the papacy. (And make no mistake about it, the Catholic Church was every bit as an authoritarian ruler as these others.). In my opinion, the purpose of this demonization is not really based upon a sound ideological foundation but rather seen as a way to control and motivate groups of people who will then facilitate the authoritarians rise to power. People are led to believe they are acting to further some lofty altruistic goals or in the name of some religion. The fact is, they are just tools being used by those they follow.
And has so often been proven true, once the authoritarian attains their lofty chair on the throne of power and the coffers of the kingdom are at their personal disposal, those who helped to put them there become expendable. I expect there are going to be many members of the Republican party who enabled and supported Trump and Musk who will end up under the proverbial bus. Trump’s wake is filled with so many people who have been cast aside that it just astounds me that there are people who somehow think they are immune from becoming Trump’s detritus when he no longer has a use for them.
We can take some solace in the fact that sooner or later, all these egomaniacs will stop plotting with each other and start plotting against each other. There is only room on one planet for a limited number of egomaniacal dictators. And the world is rapidly approaching that maximum. We can all also take heart in the fact that every single greedy despot throughout history sooner or later came to an ignominious end when their empires built on blocks of ego came tumbling down. The only question is,” How many innocent people will be destroyed along the way?”
