Here's a bit of it:
This is not normal
A guide to what the next president will have to unwind
Experts in authoritarianism advise keeping a list of things changing, subtly, around you, so you’ll remember. Days after the 2016 presidential election, I started a list. Each week, I chronicle the ways Donald Trump has changed our country. This selection, adapted from more than 34,000 entries — or about 1 percent of the total — focuses on the norms he and his administration have broken. The List offers us a road map back to normalcy and democracy.
Week 1“Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory” is how Richard Spencer greets members of his “alt-right” movement gathered in Washington to celebrate Donald Trump’s victory; the group, mostly male white nationalists, responds with cheers and Nazi salutes.
Week 2Trump says he has no legal obligation to cut ties with his businesses: “The president can’t have a conflict of interest.”
Week 3Trump tweets that there were “millions of people who voted illegally”; aide Kellyanne Conway and other loyalists parrot the false claim.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says that in a phone call with the president-elect, Trump commended him on his handling of his country’s drug war, which includes extrajudicial killings about which Duterte brags.
Trump has the first known contact by a U.S. president or president-elect with a Taiwanese leader since diplomatic ties were cut in 1979.
Week 4Trump will continue in his role as executive producer of “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
The Republican National committee will hold its holiday party at a Trump Hotel.
Trump’s team asks for a list of climate scientists.
Week 5Asked why he has availed himself of only four of 31 intelligence briefings, Trump responds, “I’m, like, a smart person.”....
Trump declares his Inauguration Day to be a National Day of Patriotic Devotion.
As of the Sunday evening after being sworn in, Trump still hasn’t severed his ties to his businesses, as promised.
Trump tells lawmakers that 3 to 5 million illegal ballots cost him the popular vote. The next day, Spicer repeats the lie.
Trump prepares orders to cut billions in U.S. funding for the United Nations and other international organizations.
He calls for an investigation into unfounded claims of voter fraud, then delays signing the executive order.
Several Trump insiders, including Jared Kushner and Sean Spicer, are revealed to be registered to vote in two states.
The State Department’s entire senior administrative team resigns....
Trump refers to a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge who ruled against his travel ban as a “so-called judge.”
Week 13House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi calls on the FBI to probe Trump’s personal and financial ties to Russia.
Citing a petition signed by 1.5 million citizens, British officials announce that Trump will not be allowed to address Parliament during his upcoming visit.
The White House is still not open to the public; tours typically resume shortly after a new president takes office.
Trump tweets from both his personal account and the POTUS account that Nordstrom has treated his daughter unfairly; this is widely condemned by ethics experts as a clear violation of federal ethics rules; Kellyanne Conway says on Fox News, “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would say.”
Trump is not briefed before his phone call with Putin and has to ask aides about the New START treaty during the call.
Breaking seven decades of precedent, Trump says he will not include the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in his Cabinet.
Trump asserts voter fraud in a meeting with GOP senators, falsely claiming that busloads of people from Massachusetts voted in New Hampshire.
Days after Jeff Sessions is confirmed as attorney general, federal agents start mass immigration raids in at least six states.
Shortly after the Senate confirms Betsy DeVos as secretary of education,
the department removes a website of federal legal protections for disabled students....
Week 51Trump has nominated at least five people who are members of his clubs to senior roles in his administration.
After George Papadopoulos’s emails show that top Trump campaign officials agreed to a pre-election meeting with representatives of Putin, Trump says he was a “low level volunteer.”
Trump expresses frustration that he isn’t able to direct the Justice Department to investigate Hillary Clinton for her emails and the Steele dossier....
Week 128Asked if he was troubled that staffers appeared not to follow his instructions, as recounted in the Mueller report, Trump responds, “Nobody disobeys my orders.” The Post notes 15 instances in the report of staffers disobeying him.
Week 129Reuters reports that the State Department allowed seven foreign governments to rent condominiums in New York’s Trump World Tower in 2017 without approval from Congress.
The Post reports that Mueller sent a letter to the DOJ three days after Barr released his summary, saying it “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells reporters that Barr lied to Congress, adding: “Nobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States, and not the attorney general.”...
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AND SO MUCH MORE.
This is how Authoritarianism happens.
Bit by bit.
It takes years. But then you realize that you're living in fear in a police state w/a government by of and for the powerful.
WAKE THE F#($* UP AMERICA.
www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/07/how-democracies-slide-into-authoritarianism/foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/27/top-10-signs-of-creeping-authoritarianism-revisited/www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/20/authoritarianism-trump-resistance-defeat
