Letter: Beware of Trump’s admiration of autocrats
Ever wonder why Trump is so chummy with the world’s dictators? Anne Applebaum, in her book, “Autocracy Inc., The Dictators Who Want to Run the World” (Random House, 2024) explains how and why Trump wants to be a player in the worldwide autocracy movement (it’s real). Motivated by greed for power and wealth, the world’s current reigning autocrats (Putin, Kim Jong-un, Victor Orban, Xi, etc.) are precisely the people that Trump admires most. And how can we forget his statement in the White House, that, “Hitler did some good things!”
Make no mistake, Trump is already well versed in the techniques of autocracy, including the continual lying, gaslighting, blaming “others” (in his case, immigrants, not Jews) for all the country’s problems, and the ongoing promise that he will “fix it,” because of course, he is the “only one” who can!
Retired Four-Star General John Kelly (one of Donald Trump’s White House chiefs of staff), said it plainly when he recently told The New York Times, “Donald Trump will rule like a fascist if reelected.” Wake up, Trump voters! Is that the kind of leadership our founding fathers had in mind for American democracy?
Don Gardner
Ogden