MY SAY: A “YUGE” RESEMBLANCE TO “YUGO”
I think comparing Trump’s antics and his cooing fans to Nazis or Stalin are wrong. Those mass killers are in a different and more vile league. He is more akin to Latin American tin pot dictators- those who were populists, promised great reforms, challenged the status quo, and corrupt governments, got elected by large margins and went on to ruin their nations’ hopes for change. I think of men like Venezuela’s late and unlamented Hugo Chavez.
In 1998, in a nation with a tanking economy in spite of one of the world’s great oil reserves, and a public distrust of government’s theft and repressions, Chavez began an unlikely quest for the presidency. His populist appeal resonated with a public distrustful of “inside politics” and corruption. By December 5, 1998 he won 56 percent of the votes.
As president he stacked his government with cronies, he abolished term limits, bypassed all existing restraints on presidential powers. He embarked on systematic appropriation of industry, communications, electric, and construction materials such as steel and cement. He nationalized all oil reserves and expropriated farms and woodland. He shut down opposition media and enacted laws making criticism or parody of his government a felony.
He also said outrageous things:
At the UN in March 2007 Chávez compared President Bush to the devil…in his own lofty words: “The devil came here yesterday. Right here … it smells of sulphur still today. It was almost mild compared to his insult on September 2006 when he told the American President : “You are a donkey, Mr. Danger.” On Septembr 12th 2006, he announced that it was very likely that the United States was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Nonetheless, he got a pass from the media and his deluded fans.
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted eleventh in the list of “Heroes of our time” and in 2006 he was Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.”
Trump is not a criminal like Chavez, but he is an unprincipled megalomaniac, whose insatiable lust for power will make him a ruinous president with catastrophic and irreversible consequences.
Steve Chapman the writer and columnist for the Chicago Tribune warned in a column “History Repeating as Farce” in 2007:
“A phony revolution may nonetheless be a durable one. If the Venezuelans who go to the polls give Chávez what he wants, they are likely to discover a paradox: They can bring about dictatorship through democracy, but not the reverse.
Now there’s a sobering thought forTrump’s deluded supporters…..rsk
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