When large numbers of people send me the same article, I know that it has struck a chord. This article, by David Frum, describes the fears that many people share about Trump’s lack of respect for the norms of democracy. Frum is a conservative: he was a speechwriter for George W. Bush. He is now a senior editor at The Atlantic. He did not vote for Trump because he sensed that Trump was neither a Republican nor a conservative. He is an authoritarian.
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/513872/?client=safari
It is a long read but worth it.
Here some selections:
“If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled.”
“Yet the American system is also perforated by vulnerabilities no less dangerous for being so familiar. Supreme among those vulnerabilities is reliance on the personal qualities of the man or woman who wields the awesome powers of the presidency. A British prime minister can lose power in minutes if he or she forfeits the confidence of the majority in Parliament. The president of the United States, on the other hand, is restrained first and foremost by his own ethics and public spirit. What happens if somebody comes to the high office lacking those qualities?”
“Trump has scant interest in congressional Republicans’ ideas, does not share their ideology, and cares little for their fate. He can—and would—break faith with them in an instant to further his own interests. Yet here they are, on the verge of achieving everything they have hoped to achieve for years, if not decades.”
“A scandal involving the president could likewise wreck everything that Republican congressional leaders have waited years to accomplish. However deftly they manage everything else, they cannot prevent such a scandal. But there is one thing they can do: their utmost not to find out about it.”
“Do you have any concerns about Steve Bannon being in the White House?,” CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Ryan in November. “I don’t know Steve Bannon, so I have no concerns,” answered the speaker. “I trust Donald’s judgment.”
“Asked on 60 Minutes whether he believed Donald Trump’s claim that “millions” of illegal votes had been cast, Ryan answered: “I don’t know. I’m not really focused on these things.”
“What about Trump’s conflicts of interest? “This is not what I’m concerned about in Congress,” Ryan said on CNBC. Trump should handle his conflicts “however he wants to.”
“As Ryan’s cherished plans move closer and closer to presidential signature, Congress’s subservience to the president will likely intensify. Whether it’s allegations of Russian hacks of Democratic Party internal communications, or allegations of self-enrichment by the Trump family, or favorable treatment of Trump business associates, the Republican caucus in Congress will likely find itself conscripted into serving as Donald Trump’s ethical bodyguard.”
“Donald trump will not set out to build an authoritarian state. His immediate priority seems likely to be to use the presidency to enrich himself. But as he does so, he will need to protect himself from legal risk. Being Trump, he will also inevitably wish to inflict payback on his critics. Construction of an apparatus of impunity and revenge will begin haphazardly and opportunistically. But it will accelerate. It will have to.”
“The United States may be a nation of laws, but the proper functioning of the law depends upon the competence and integrity of those charged with executing it. A president determined to thwart the law in order to protect himself and those in his circle has many means to do so.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Many of you may have seen this. If not, well worth reading.
Below is a sign posted in the U. S. Holocaust Museum
It has been shared more than 145,000 times less than one day after posting.
Early Warning signs of Fascism
Powerful and continuing nationalism
Disdain for human rights
Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
Supremacy of the military
Rampant sexism
Controlled mass media
Obsession with national security
Religion and government intertwined
Corporate power protected
Labor power suppressed
Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
Obsession with crime and punishment
Rampant cronyism and corruption
Fraudulent elections.
If this was left wing anarchists it plays into Trumps hands . I suspect Reich is right and there may be something more disturbing going on.
To move along with Diane, here is a wonderful article, long but worth the time.
CAPITALS ARE MINE, as I cannot important passages.
Never Normalize: Why Trump’s Presidency Is Illegitimate and How to Respond | Portside
http://portside.org/2016-12-31/never-normalize-why-trump’s-presidency-illegitimate-and-how-respond
Trump’s legal authority will give him the power to issue executive orders and repeal existing ones.
If he signs bills passed by Congress, those enactments ― however stupid or destructive they may be – will be the law of the land, unless the courts find them unconstitutional. Similarly, Trump will be the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, because the Constitution confers that power on the holder of the office. As a result, as long as Trump’s actions are consistent with law, opponents can and should publicize the costs and hazards of those actions, but will lose if they mount legal challenges.
Though Trump has legal legitimacy, he totally lacks political legitimacy.
He seized power through a cumulative set of actions that thoroughly undermine the integrity of the election outcome. These illegitimate actions include voter suppression engineered by the Republican Party; highly inappropriate and outrageous interventions in the election by the Director of the FBI; persistent demonizing and intimidation of a free press; and, most egregious, a deliberate attempt (openly encouraged by Trump himself) by a hostile foreign government to influence the election in his favor. Taken together, these actions fatally undercut the political legitimacy of Trump’s presidency.
He also lacks the moral authority normally associated with the Presidency.
Trump’s deficiencies of character undercut any notion that he deserves moral or civic respect. His deep flaws have been on full exhibit before, during, and after the election campaign. These character failures are revealed in his blatant and persistent lies; the scapegoating of vulnerable groups; eight years as a birther; a disgusting history as a sexual predator and racist; and conflicts of financial interest so wide and deep that he will be impeachable on day one of his presidency.
How should Americans treat a president who has bare legal legitimacy but lacks both political legitimacy and moral authority?
Some say that all Americans should wait and see how he performs in the job, and that other leaders should work with him where common interests can be found. They argue that, for the good of the country, we should put the election behind us and treat Trump with political and moral respect – that is, that we should strive to normalize his presidency.
We respectfully but EMPHATICALLY DISAGREE: It would be a grave error to ignore his political illegitimacy and lack of moral authority. Other elected officials, the media, and the citizenry at large have no obligation to afford him the slightest political respect. Rather, the next four years should be a time of resistance and outright obstructionism. Opponents of Trump should be at least as aggressive in challenging the political legitimacy and moral authority of his presidency as Republicans were in disrespecting President Obama, whose political legitimacy and moral authority were beyond reproach.
In short, Democrats should LEARN THE LESSON THAT Republicans have taught them: Don’t bring boxing gloves to a knife fight.
What concrete presumptions flow from the political and moral illegitimacy of Trump’s presidency? Here are four:
Everything Trump speaks, writes, tweets, or otherwise expresses should be presumed false, unless there is reliable (to the listener) evidence that it is true. He has lied so often and so blatantly, and his followers have so persistently rejected the idea of objective truth, that no responsible citizen should believe a word he says unless it can be independently verified. The press will be acting irresponsibly unless it covers him according to this principle.
See these links to superb pieces on how the media MUST to deal with what he says!
https://theawl.com/in-his-own-words-917f670ccf59#.u44zwmuax
THIS IS A VIDEO.
https://thescene.com/watch/gq/the-closer-with-keith-olbermann-how-the-media-needs-to-respond-to-trump-now?save_video=true
Trump should never be presumed to be acting in the best interests of the United States. His actions with respect to his business interests and his family’s wealth suggest that his highest loyalties are to those personal concerns, and his loyalty to the nation is completely secondary. His encouragement of the Russian cyberattack on the election is just the most extreme example of his loyalty to himself over loyalty to his country. Every move he makes should therefore be presumed to represent a conflict of interest, unless he can demonstrate that no conflict exists.
The wealthy donors and others he appoints to office should be presumed incompetent and riddled with interest conflicts until proven otherwise.
His emphasis on a cult of personal loyalty, insensitivity to conflicts of interest, alliances with bigots, and willingness to appoint people wholly ignorant of, and indeed hostile to, the tasks associated with a particular office, mean that the burden of proof should always be on Trump to demonstrate the competence and honesty of his appointees. Unlike what routinely occurs in a normal presidency, Senators should give absolutely no deference to his choices. Indeed, nominees requiring confirmation should be questioned at length and scrutinized with care, in order to expose their flaws. Confirmation of nominees should be slowed down and blocked in every procedural way possible.
Trump’s substantive judgments should be presumed ignorant, and, at times, dangerous. His unwillingness to educate himself about crucial details of national security and domestic policy, or to surround himself with expert and trustworthy advisors, means that every substantive judgment he makes is highly likely to be flawed.
Democratic leaders should take every opportunity to act in accordance with these presumptions. Common inter-branch traditions and norms of civility should be laid aside for the duration of the Trump regime.
For example, Senate Democrats should never provide unanimous consent, including to allow Trump’s incompetent and financially conflicted nominees to be confirmed!
Democrats should force votes at every turn and use the filibuster aggressively, as Republicans did during the Obama years.
The goal should be to prevent the smooth flow of Senate action in order to stall Trump’s illegitimate agenda as much as possible.
Beautiful. Well said.
Thank you. I thought it was ,too.
Excellent posts , Warren just gave an address to the progressive caucus really good, the best, bigly
Very worth it. THIS is just one of the many reasons I check this blog all the time. Thanks.
I keep learning more than I want to know, but need to know. This is certainly a need to know.
Frum is right…”liberty is actually threatened in a modern bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing process of corruption and deceit.” The goal is to wear us out…and is seems to be working. Sleight of hand, using immigrant bashing to deflect from killing Dodd Frank…continued deception where “checks and balance is a metaphor, not a system”…and all is lost.
And here is some FREE SPEECH in action, from The Hill.
“Hundreds have responded to a Facebook “Chicago moons Trump Tower” event, during which protesters plan to drop their trousers in front of Trump Tower Chicago.
According to the Facebook page for the event titled “Operation “Kiss Our Asses, Release Your Taxes,” the goal of the protest is to get President Trump to release his tax returns.
“In 2006, a Maryland state circuit court determined that mooning is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment as a form of speech,” the event page says. “Donald Trump doesn’t think the American people want to see his tax returns, so let’s show him that we do in the classiest way possible!”
Protestors will meet at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12 at Trump Tower Chicago, and plan to moon the building for 10 seconds starting at 4 p.m. in what event organizers call “a powerful message to Washington elites.”
More than 1,000 people on the event page say they’re interested in going. Just about 400 have RSVP’d saying they would attend the protest.
The event is organized by a comedy group titled “S#!TSHOW.”
Trump shattered decades of precedent during the 2016 campaign by refusing to release his personal tax returns. At a news conference earlier this month, the president said that he had no intention of ever doing so, and argued that journalists were the only ones that wanted him to release the documents.
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway reaffirmed that the president would not release the returns, saying the “people didn’t care.”
“The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” she said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care. They voted for him.”
Following Trump’s election, a petition was launched on WhiteHouse.gov demanding Trump release his personal income tax returns. The petition has since broke the website’s record with hundreds of thousands of signatures.”
.
If your colleague Reich is correct. I would not count on not seeing violence. If those anarchists were a false flag operation, the possibilities are endless. They certainly did as he said look paramilitary. What an excuse for repression. Come to think of it we never needed much of an excuse even very recently.
From the article: “Construction of an apparatus of impunity and revenge will begin haphazardly and opportunistically. But it will accelerate. It will have to.” It will have to because he cannot lose–he must win to maintain his consolidation of power. This is coupled with Trump’s taking an oath to uphold the Constitution while, at the same time, demonstrating a complete disregard, even contempt for it.
Also, though I do not share Republican “values” especially of late, I used to have a modicum of respect for Paul Ryan. No more.
I believe the “Christian’ evangelicals have lost the true meaning of Jesus’s teachings. Here is a quote from Mother Teresa: “At the end of our lives, we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by “I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in.”
This means that we care for all of humanity. This means not excluding believers of different faiths: Muslim, Hindu as being inferior and therefore can be hated, discriminating against different life styles (transgender identity), or different economic status (the poor are lazy and deserve nothing).
All of the above seem to be the Republican mantra. It is exacerbated by the extreme rulings of emperor Trump. His Congressional sheep follow.
May ANY of the sheep find his/her conscience while hiding there amongst the flock.