Will Trump Actually Go To Prison?

 

Most people say they would rather see Trump in prison that dead or in exile. Personally, I like the prison option too. There have, of course, been heads of state who have been executed, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette come to mind, as do Charles I of England, Mary Queen of Scots, Nicholas II of Russia, Mussolini, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania. Ion Antonescu pf Romania, Haile Selassie, Saddam Hussein, Vidkun Quisling of Norway. Philippe Pétain (although his death sentence was commuted to life in prison). There were dozens of heads of state that were imprisoned, Trump's pals Silvio Berlusconi and Hosni Mubarak being two. Crooked right wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Prime Minister, François Fillon, ran France from 2007 until 2012 and were both arrested in 2017. I think Sarkozy got off but Fillon may still in prison. Panamanian President Manuel Noriega was kidnapped and thrown into an American prison until he died.

Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, was imprisoned for treason for a couple years, then went into exile and was quickly pardoned by Andrew Johnson. I guess that would be the closest we come to Señor Trumpanzee.

Yesterday Forward reporter PJ Grisor asked Could Trump become the first president to flee America since Lindbergh? Obviously he was referring to Phil Roth's novel, The Plot Against America in which the fascist who beat FDR, Charles Lindbergh, flew his own plane from Louisville to DC but disappeared enroute.

While the HBO adaptation of Roth’s novel indicates that Lindbergh actually crashed-- his radar jammed by British intelligence and a group of American-Jewish patriots-- show creators David Simon and Ed Burns preserved an alternative view of what became of the 33rd president. As in the book, the revelation comes courtesy of the character of Evelyn (Winona Ryder).

Evelyn is the wife of a Lindbergh administration insider, and evidently someone capable of believing the QAnon theory that JFK Jr. faked his death by plane crash. She tells her sister, Bess that Lindbergh didn’t actually die. Rather, Hitler’s people kidnapped the beloved airmail pilot’s son, Charles, Jr., a year before the Nazis came to power and raised him as a member of the Hitler Youth.

Using the son as leverage, the Reich then dictated Lindbergh’s actions as an isolationist president-- including his hostile policies towards American Jewry.

Berlin wasn’t pleased with Lindbergh’s first-term job, and so ordered him to stage his disappearance so his vice president, Burton K. Wheeler, a more committed antisemite, could take control and implement the plans von Ribbentrop laid out for persecuting Jews. While it’s never explicitly said where Lindbergh ended up, given the Nazi blackmail plot, we can only assume he was recalled to Berlin.

With rumors swirling about a Trump resignation, speculation that the president’s foreign policy is dictated by kompromat and the QAnon conceit that Trump and a parade of notable people-- some of whom are dead-- are out to save children from a Democratic blood-youth pedophile cabal, the Roth scenario, crazy as it is, now certainly sounds more plausible.

The fear that Trump might skip town, leaving Pence in charge of a well-oiled oppressive state-- if one that’s more Handmaid’s Tale than Man in the High Castle-- also follows a certain trend of left-wing alarmism that matches what goes on in Plot.

But we probably shouldn’t worry too much about Trump’s threat, given the undesired diplomatic consequences any host country would endure as a result of his indefinite stay there as a man on the lam. It’s also tough to imagine Trump surviving in a country where English isn’t the dominant language or where his preferred McDonald’s menu items might be adulterated with flavors more exotic than trans fats and ketchup.

More concerning-- and imminently more likely-- is the warning present in the finale of HBO’s Plot adaptation. In the closing moments, set during an unprecedented election, we see voter intimidation, names of people of color missing from the rolls and men in suits carting off ballots and burning them en masse.

Some conspiracy theories have a bit more merit to them.

Jon Schwarz noted at The Intercept that Losing Could Expose Trump To Prosecution For Any Number Of Crimes. "Former presidents," he wrote, "normally don't go to jail, but few have committed so many obvious crimes unrelated to their duties in office." BUT "no former U.S. president has ever seen the inside of a cell-- and not because all presidents have faithfully followed the law. Presidents accumulate huge favors owed, favors that they cash in, figuratively and literally, when they become former presidents... [E]x-presidents receive political protection from their allies, as when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for anything whatsoever he’d done in office. And beyond anything concrete that a president does for the factions that back him, those factions also strenuously oppose any consequences for their president’s actions for reasons of basic class solidarity. If an ex-president can face consequences, that would suggest that people one step down the power ladder could too. And the people at the top of U.S. society see consequences like Leona Helmsley saw taxes: They’re for the little people."

Trump is more vulnerable to prosecution than other presidents because he’s engaged in so many potential nontraditional presidential crimes. With the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush committed what the Nuremberg trials referred to as “the supreme international crime” of initiating a war of aggression. But there was never any chance that he’d be punished for this, because the entire U.S. power structure agrees that American presidents have the right to do it. Same for conducting thousands of drone strikes or torturing people around the globe. By contrast, Trump has engaged in many comparatively small, shabby, possible criminal activities outside of his presidential duties.

Right now, Trump is protected from indictment under all federal laws because he’s president. For decades, the Justice Department has held that it cannot prosecute sitting presidents; former special counsel Robert Mueller agreed and explained that he never had the option to charge Trump because it would be unconstitutional. And, whether or not this perspective is correct, Attorney General William Barr is a loyal hatchet man who would never take action against his patron.

It does seem, according to a recent Supreme Court ruling, that Trump could theoretically be indicted for violating state laws while in office. In practice, however, that is extremely unlikely.

But if Trump is defeated and extracted from the Oval Office, much of his presidential shield will disintegrate. He could try to pardon himself on the way out the door for all crimes he’s ever committed. But no one knows whether presidents can do this, since none have ever tried; in any case, it would only apply to violations of the federal code.

So let’s assume that Trump loses, he doesn’t pardon himself, and the state and federal justice systems suddenly become enthused like never before about treating the ultra-powerful like the powerless. Trump would then become vulnerable to prosecution in the below ways we already know about-- plus, in all likelihood, many, many others we don’t know about yet.

The crimes? Tax fraud, bank and insurance fraud, campaign finance violations, bribery, negligent homicide (in terms of the pandemic), and obstruction of justice. Schwarz reminds his readers that "After Mueller’s report was released, over 1,000 former federal prosecutors stated that if Trump were not president, his conduct as described by Mueller would 'result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.' It’s hard to imagine a Biden administration deciding to prosecute a former president. But, on the other hand, Kamala Harris said in 2019 that if she were elected president, 'I believe that [the Justice Department] would have no choice and that they should' pursue obstruction of justice charges against Trump." No mention of treason?

It certainly would have happened if Bernie were elected president but it's pretty much unimaginable it will happen under Biden/Pelosi/Schumer. It didn't take me long to figure out who to ask for a second opinion. I don't know that many people with brilliant legal minds. So I asked Alan Grayson, who possesses one. "I doubt that the next Attorney General will have the backbone to investigate any of his Presidential crimes," he told me, "but all of his run-of-the-mill tax fraud, banking fraud, etc., will work its way through the system. He probably will try to pardon himself from federal crimes before he leaves office, but that won’t even slow down any New York prosecutions, and New York has a very sophisticated financial crimes operation."

Herd Immunity by Chip Proser

Would Trump Stoke A Civil War To Hold Onto Power? Of Course He Would

Trump-- with help from the Koch network and rich cronies like Betsy DeVos-- has been fomenting resistance to shutdowns in states with Democratic governors. Teams of Washington Post and New York Times reporters wrote that the grotesque orange blob "amplified his call to reopen the country, suggesting citizens should 'liberate' themselves even as governors and local officials in areas he said were ready to return to normal expressed concern about moving too soon." That was Team Post. Team Times began by explaining how the blob "openly encouraged right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in states with stay-at-home orders, a day after announcing guidelines for how the nation’s governors should carry out an orderly reopening of their communities on their own timetables... His stark departure from the more bipartisan tone of his announcement on Thursday night suggested Mr. Trump was ceding any semblance of national leadership on the pandemic, and choosing instead to divide the country by playing to his political base. Echoed across the internet and on cable television by conservative pundits and ultraright conspiracy theorists, his tweets were a remarkable example of a president egging on demonstrators and helping to stoke an angry fervor that in its anti-government rhetoric was eerily reminiscent of the birth of the Tea Party movement a decade ago."

Speaking Friday evening at the White House, the president expressed sympathy for the protesters for having to endure what he called “too tough” social distancing orders in their states, and he dismissed concerns that they could spread the virus by holding demonstrations.

“They seem to be very responsible people to me,” he said.

By embracing the backlash to the coronavirus restrictions, Mr. Trump is tapping into a powerful well of political energy as he seeks re-election this year. The president is also trying to deflect anger about his response to the virus away from him and toward Democratic governors, who he hopes will shoulder the blame for keeping the restrictions in place and for any deaths that occur after states reopen.

The pressure to reopen the economy comes amid skyrocketing joblessness claims and an unemployment rate that is approaching 17 percent, higher than any mark since the Great Depression. On Friday, several governors began responding to that pressure by taking their first, tentative steps toward loosening the rules about work, school and socializing.

Back to Team Post: "Trump on Friday took aim at Democratic-led states, tweeting about a need to 'LIBERATE' places such as Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia while seeming to side with protesters there who are rebelling against restrictions that match the Trump administration’s own social-distancing recommendations. Conservative groups have bolstered the protests, lending support and guidance in an effort to create a nationwide movement in favor of restarting economic activity on a broad basis despite the health concerns. The effort by Trump and some of his allies to portray a country split between a few hard-hit hot spots and a much larger expanse of America ready to quickly get back to work is at odds with hesitancy among state and local leaders about lifting the restrictions before the coronavirus crisis is more firmly under control."

Jason Wilson, writing for The Guardian noted the synchronized nature of Trump's far right rebellion, writing that "a wave of planned anti-lockdown demonstrations that have broken out around the country to protest against the efforts of state governments to combat the coronavirus pandemic with business closures and stay-at-home orders have included far-right groups as well as more mainstream Republicans. While protesters in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, many are also supported by street-fighting rightwing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right.

On Wednesday in Lansing, Michigan, a protest put together by two Republican-connected not-for-profits was explicitly devised to cause gridlock in the city, and for a time blocked the entrance to a local hospital.

It was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which Michigan state corporate filings show has also operated under the name of Michigan Trump Republicans. It was also heavily promoted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to the Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos.

But the protest also attracted far-right protest groups who have been present at pro-Trump and gun rights rallies in Michigan throughout the Trump presidency.

Placards identified the Michigan Proud Boys as participants in the vehicle convoy. Near the state house, local radio interviewed a man who identified himself as “Phil Odinson.”

In fact the man is Phil Robinson, the prime mover in a group called the Michigan Liberty Militia, whose Facebook page features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front.

The pattern of rightwing not-for-profits promoting public protests while still more radical groups use lockdown resistance as a platform for extreme rightwing causes looks set to continue in events advertised in other states over coming days.

In Idaho on Friday, protesters plan to gather at the capitol building in Boise to protest anti-virus restrictions put in place by the Republican governor, Brad Little.

The protest has been heavily promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), which counts among its donors “dark money” funds linked to the Koch brothers such as Donors Capital Fund, and Castle Rock, a foundation seeded with part of the fortune of Adolph Coors, the rightwing beer magnate.

IFF have added their slogan for the event, “Disobey Idaho,” to stickers which they plan to distribute among the crowd. The event is also being promoted on a website dedicated to attacking Little for his response to Covid-19. That website was set up by the Idaho businessman, pastor and one-time Republican state senate candidate, Diego Rodriguez.

Rodriguez launched the website at an Easter service held in defiance of the governor’s orders on Easter Sunday, which was also addressed by Ammon Bundy, the leader of the militia occupation of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016 that become a rallying point for the anti-government right in the US.

Bundy has been holding similar gatherings for weeks in Emmett, Idaho, where he now lives. On Sunday, he repeated his opposition to the Idaho orders, writing on Facebook: “We all have a duty to defend what is right and to make sure, that what God has given, man does not take away. Especially that great gift of agency, YES freedom!”

Ada county, Idaho, where the capital, Boise, is located, has so far suffered 541 cases of Covid-19 and nine deaths, in a state which has a far worse outbreak than neighboring Oregon, which is 2.4 times more populous.

Nevertheless, the ad for the rally on Rodriguez’s website advises, “We feel that wearing face masks and gloves is counterproductive to the movement, and should be avoided.”

This is the ugly face of American fascism; looks a lot like the face of today's Republican Party. Have you been watching HBO's new series, The Plot Against America, based on Philip Roth alternative history novel? It's really good-- especially with an authoritarian like Trump in the White House.





In New York Magazine, Andrew Sullivan, claims that Trump is too lazy to be a tyrant. He's a good writing and a smart guy and, I'm afraid, wrong about this. During the campaign, Sullivan wrote that he "worried that the temptation to seize total power in [a crisis] would overwhelm [Trump] and that, in such a situation, the masses might rally behind a new Caesar. And I was almost right. In the midst of an emergency, Trump did indeed claim powers that belong more to kings and emperors than to presidents. He went even further than his previous assertions that his Article II powers give him the power 'to do anything I want'; or that he has personal control of the entire system of justice and can intervene in any case at any time, or that he has every right to blackmail other countries into helping him win a domestic election, or that he is exempt from any congressional scrutiny and can defy any and all subpoenas. He described his presidential powers for the first time as 'total.'"

He quotes Trump saying "When somebody’s the president of the U.S., the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s gotta be," and Sullivan warns that that "is a literal claim of totalitarianism. It is, in letter and spirit, the polar opposite of American constitutionalism. It is what we fought a revolution and two world wars to defeat... Trump claims the powers of a tyrant, behaves like one, talks like one, struts like one, has broken every norm a liberal democracy requires, and set dangerous precedents that could enable a serious collapse in constitutional norms in the future."

Sullivan's dubious point, though, is that Trump "doesn’t actually want to be a tyrant. It’s way too much work. It requires real management skills-- and Trump has none. He wants to be treated like a king, regarded as a king, and fawned on like a king, but that’s about it. He seems only attached to power insofar as power is attached to fame, and fame without criticism helps assuage his acute and disordered psychic needs.

This, in Bill Kristol’s rather brilliant phrase, is “performative authoritarianism.” It has a real cost-- it delegitimizes liberal democracy by mocking it and corrodes democratic institutions by undermining them. But it is not the cost of finding ourselves run by an American Viktor Orbán. Orbán saw the coronavirus emergency the way most wannabe strongmen would and the way I feared Trump might: as an opportunity to further neuter any constitutional checks on him and rule by decree. Trump saw it purely as an obstacle to his reelection message about a booming economy, a blot on his self-image, an unfair spoiling of his term. Instead of exploiting it, he whined about it. He is incapable of empathy and so simply cannot channel the nation’s grief into a plan of action. So he rambles and digresses and divides and inflames. He has managed in this crisis to tell us both that he is all-powerful and that he takes no responsibility for anything.

And I suspect that this creepy vaudeville act, in a worried and tense country, is beginning to wear real thin. A man who claims total power but only exercises it to protect his personal interests, a man who vaunts his own authority but tolerates no accountability for it, is impressing no one. While governors are acting, Trump is chattering. While people are dying, Trump is bragging about his own ratings, signing his name on stimulus checks, pushing quack remedies, and abetting conspiracy theories about Chinese laboratories. And although there is a rump group of supporters who will follow Trump anywhere and may launch tea party–style protests against social distancing on his behalf, I suspect this fundamental unseriousness after responding to the virus so late is finally taking its toll.

The emergency I feared Trump could leverage to untrammeled power may, in fact, be the single clearest demonstration of his incompetence and irrelevance. Combine this with a calamitous depression and I’m beginning to wonder if it matters that Biden is the Abraham Simpson of American politics. Maybe Biden doesn’t need to win this thing. Maybe Trump could lose it all by himself.

I agree that Trump will in all likelihood lose in November, even against the worst Democratic nominee if my lifetime. Biden, a worthless husk of a corporate shill running on nothing but TrumpBad, can't possibly win but Trump can certainly lose it all on his own. Most polls indicate he already has. But I disagree with Sullivan's premise that Trump is anything less than a two-bit authoritarian and would-be fascist, whether he's a good manager, lazy, crazy or anything else. Trump is an extreme narcissist and utterly incapable of seeing anything outside his own perceived self-interest. If he thinks he's going to lose, he'll unleash the dogs of war. And, in case you forgot, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman is a Republican, in fact a Republican who served in George W. Bush's cabinet.

Trump Continues Making Every Wrong Decision At Every Juncture

It's no secret that Kushner's crooked father blatantly bought him a Harvard acceptance. But Trump-- whose family bought him an acceptance to Wharton-- still treated him like "a Harvard genius." But Kushner is a moron and has given Trump bad advice on everything he's touched-- including the pandemic. This week Gabe Sherman reported for Vanity Fair that Señor Trumpanzee is "regretting that Kushner swooped into the coronavirus response last week. Kushner, according to sources, encouraged Trump to treat the emergency as a P.R. problem when Fauci and others were calling for aggressive action.'This was Jared saying the world needs me to solve another problem,' a former White House official said. One source briefed on the internal conversations told me that Kushner advised Trump not to call a national emergency during his Oval Office address on March 11 because 'it would tank the markets.' The markets cratered anyway, and Trump announced the national emergency on Friday. 'They had to clean that up on Friday,' another former West Wing official said. Trump was also said to be angry that Kushner oversold Google’s coronavirus testing website when in fact the tech giant had a fledgling effort. Trump got slammed in the press for promoting the phantom Google product. 'Jared told Trump that Google was doing an entire website that would be up in 72 hours and had 1,100 people working on it 24/7. That’s just a lie,' the source briefed on the internal conversations told me."

Late last night Peter Baker and Eillen Sullivan reported for the NY Times that the Trumpist government is finally taking this horror seriously and has put together a 100 page plan of action to combat COVID-19. It warns that the "pandemic 'will last 18 months or longer' and could include 'multiple waves,' resulting in widespread shortages that would strain consumers and the nation’s health care system." Instead of calling it a Democratic hoax and persuading his feeble-minded followers to ignore all warnings, Trump could have had the government preparing for this since January instead of now-- when it is basically too late to stop the worst of it. The plan notes that "The spread and severity of COVID-19 will be difficult to forecast and characterize" and warns of "significant shortages for government, private sector, and individual U.S. consumers."

Here we are in mid-March and the Trumpist regime is finally talking about "production of critical equipment and supplies such as ventilators, respirators and protective gear for health care workers." They've been lying to the public, saying "masks do no good" and in the next sentence saying how the masks are needed by health care professionals so don't buy them. Trump supporters are too dumb to see the contradiction there. Until a week ago when I was going into my local grocery store looking like this, no one else was wearing a mask and everyone edged away from me. Now almost half the customers are wearing masks and no one looks at me funny.

The Trump plan continues that "Shortages of products may occur, impacting health care, emergency services, and other elements of critical infrastructure. This includes potentially critical shortages of diagnostics, medical supplies (including PPE (personal protective equipment) and pharmaceuticals and staffing in some locations... State and local governments, as well as critical infrastructure and communications channels, will be stressed and potentially less reliable. These stresses may also increase the challenges of getting updated messages and coordinating guidance to these jurisdictions directly."

Andy Levin helped push the Trumpists to finally get off the stick with a letter several dozens members of Congress co-signed that pointed out that "During World War II, our country adapted to the demands of the time to produce mass quantities of bombers, tanks, and many smaller items needed to save democracy and freedom in the world. We know what the demands of this time are, and we must act now to meet these demands."

Yesterday, the Imbecile-in-Chief said he will not invoke the Defense Production Act, telling reporters that "We’re able to do that if we have to. Right now, we haven’t had to, but it’s certainly ready. If I want it, we can do it very quickly. We’ve studied it very closely over two weeks ago, actually. We’ll make that decision pretty quickly if we need it. We hope we don’t need it. It’s a big step." [UPDATE: Under pressure, he finally did it this afternoon.] He only acts when the horse is out of the barn. It's like pulling teeth to get him to take any of the steps necessary to begin the process of getting this under control. Trump is the worst possible leader for a crisis like this when we need someone to get ahead of the oncoming disaster, not to wait until it's already devastated everything in its wake. He should do what Singapore and Taiwan did to protect its citizens, not what Italy and Spain didn't do to allow the pandemic to get out of control. But Trump has made every wrong decision at every juncture on the pandemic.

Yesterday Trump was bragging how West Virginia needed no help because there isn't a single case in the state. Today Trump-friendly Democrat Joe Manchin announced West Virginia's first confirmed case and announced that he "was hoping the president would not go down that road and make it seem like we’re doing something special. What they did: They didn’t test… Up until a couple days ago we only had 40 tests done, now I think we’re at a 130 or so. But with that being said we have no testing, we’re not prepared, people think we’re immune from this." That basically describes all the counties in America where Trump won big victories in 2016, not just in West Virginia, but in states like Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Wyoming, Missouri... all the states that have refused to do anything about fighting the spread of the disease, the ones that should be walled off if they don't get moving immediately.

Iran let this get out-of-hand, exactly the way states like Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Indiana, Texas and Wyoming are today. This week state television warned that If people cooperate fully now, Iran will see 120,000 infections and 12,000 deaths before the outbreak is over; if they offer medium cooperation, there will be 300,000 cases and 110,000 deaths. But if people fail to follow any guidance, it could collapse Iran’s already-strained medical system. If the "medical facilities are not sufficient, there will be 4 million cases, and 3.5 million people will die."





Further, Trump's emergency plan now includes "an emergency stimulus package that could send two $1,000 checks to many Americans and also devote $300 billion towards helping small businesses avoid mass layoffs... No final decisions have been made and talks with Republican leaders remain fluid."

The White House’s evolving spending plan could be unprecedented in its size and velocity, dwarfing the stimulus bill passed during the Obama administration and the Troubled Asset Relief Program passed during the Bush administration.

The current $1 trillion Trump plan would seek to spend $500 billion towards the cash payments to individual Americans, though some people wouldn’t qualify if their income is over a certain level. The Treasury Department outline says the funds would be paid out in two equal amounts, beginning on April 6 and then again on May 18.

“Payment amounts would be fixed and tiered based on income level and family size,” the Treasury letter said.

The White House discussions with Republicans would aim to spend another $50 billion to help rescue the airline industry and $150 billion to prop up other sectors, which could include hotels, among others. Some Democrats have raised concerns about how these funds might be used and have called for putting restrictions on firms that receive emergency assistance to assure that employees aren’t laid off while executives pocket large bonuses.

One of the goals of the White House’s decision to seek $300 billion for small businesses in the plan would be to help firms continue paying employees, as there has already been a wave of layoffs, particularly at restaurants and other companies where business was suddenly halted as millions of Americans began staying at home under government warnings about contagion.

...The package doesn’t, at this point, include some of the big tax cuts that President Trump had sought only a few days ago. White House officials pivoted away from the tax cuts after Democrats and Republicans largely panned the idea, and Trump expressed concern that it would take too long for these benefits to filter through to the economy.

By the way, did you read The Plot Against America, an alternative history novel by Phil Roth? I read it in 2004 and loved it-- and was certain it would be a movie one day. And... now it is. There was no political Donald Trump in 2004, at least not that most of us knew of. But the feelings of the movie really do seem to be all about Trump, even though you may have to imagine "the Jews" as "the immigrants." It premiered on HBO on Monday.

Is Donald J Trump Nothing More Than Steve Bannon's And Robert Mercer's Plot Against America?

When push comes stop shove, McCain, Graham and Rubio won't be standing up to Trumpism. If you ever thought otherwise, you were delusional-- maybe more so in Rubio's case, but Republicans are going to be pushed a lot further before they join any kind of resistance. I hope they've all read Phil Roth's 2004 novel, The Plot Against America. (In fact, I hope everyone has-- and in pursuit of that hope, I've added it to the DWT Book Shoppe, as you'll see by hitting the title link in the last sentence.) Anyway, Roth's book can be categorized as alternative history, prescient alternative history. Set in the 1940s, instead of Trump, the fascist in charge is Charles Lindberg, who has defeated FDR when he tried for an unprecedented third term.

In the new issue of the New Yorker Judith Thurman asks the same question everyone who ever read The Plot Against America is asking, has it happened here? Already? "The historical Lindbergh," she writes, "was an isolationist who espoused a catchphrase that Donald Trump borrowed for his Presidential campaign, and for his Inaugural Address: 'America First.' The fictional Lindbergh, like the actual Trump, expressed admiration for a murderous European dictator, and his election emboldened xenophobes. In Roth’s novel, a foreign power-- Nazi Germany-- meddles in an American election, leading to a theory that the President is being blackmailed. In real life, U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating Trump’s ties to Vladimir Putin and the possibility that a dossier of secret information-- kompromat-- gives Russia leverage with his regime.

Last week, Roth was asked, via e-mail, if it has happened here. He responded, “It is easier to comprehend the election of an imaginary President like Charles Lindbergh than an actual President like Donald Trump. Lindbergh, despite his Nazi sympathies and racist proclivities, was a great aviation hero who had displayed tremendous physical courage and aeronautical genius in crossing the Atlantic in 1927. He had character and he had substance and, along with Henry Ford, was, worldwide, the most famous American of his day. Trump is just a con artist. The relevant book about Trump’s American forebear is Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, the darkly pessimistic, daringly inventive novel-- Melville’s last-- that could just as well have been called The Art of the Scam.”

Art by William Wegman

American reality, the “American berserk,” Roth has noted, makes it harder to write fiction. Does Donald Trump outstrip the novelist’s imagination?

Roth replied, “It isn’t Trump as a character, a human type-- the real-estate type, the callow and callous killer capitalist-- that outstrips the imagination. It is Trump as President of the United States.

“I was born in 1933,” he continued, “the year that F.D.R. was inaugurated. He was President until I was twelve years old. I’ve been a Roosevelt Democrat ever since. I found much that was alarming about being a citizen during the tenures of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. But, whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English.”

Roth retired from writing at seventy-seven, but, given Trump’s threats to muzzle journalism that is critical of him, what role does he see for American writers of today?

“Unlike writers in Eastern Europe in the nineteen-seventies, American writers haven’t had their driver’s licenses confiscated and their children forbidden to matriculate in academic schools. Writers here don’t live enslaved in a totalitarian police state, and it would be unwise to act as if we did, unless-- or until-- there is a genuine assault on our rights and the country is drowning in Trump’s river of lies. In the meantime, I imagine writers will continue robustly to exploit the enormous American freedom that exists to write what they please, to speak out about the political situation, or to organize as they see fit.”

Many passages in The Plot Against America echo feelings voiced today by vulnerable Americans-- immigrants and minorities as alarmed by Trump’s election as the Jews of Newark are frightened by Lindbergh’s. The book also chronicles their impulse of denial. Lindbergh’s election makes clear to the seven-year-old “Philip Roth” that “the unfolding of the unforeseen was everything. Turned wrong way around, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as ‘History,’ a harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.”

Asked if this warning has come to pass, Roth e-mailed, “My novel wasn’t written as a warning. I was just trying to imagine what it would have been like for a Jewish family like mine, in a Jewish community like Newark, had something even faintly like Nazi anti-Semitism befallen us in 1940, at the end of the most pointedly anti-Semitic decade in world history. I wanted to imagine how we would have fared, which meant I had first to invent an ominous American government that threatened us. As for how Trump threatens us, I would say that, like the anxious and fear-ridden families in my book, what is most terrifying is that he makes any and everything possible, including, of course, the nuclear catastrophe.”

Like I hope everyone realizes, it's not going to be McCain, Graham, Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Adam Kinzinger, Susan Collins, Rand Paul, let alone Little Marco, who will ever lead the resistance to Trumpism. Nor can be expect much more than hollow verbiage from Schumer. If you want to see real leadership against Trumpism, it's going to come from grassroots leaders like ⁨Linda Sarsour and proven and courageous progressive office-holders, real ones like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal, Luis Gutierrez, Raúl Grijalva, and Jamie Raskin. Blue America is determined to continue aggressively recruiting men and women for the 2018 congressional elections who will stand up to Trumpism and stop him and his lackeys in their tracks. Right now we have two committed candidates already running. Please consider helping them both by tapping on the thermometer on the right.

After the election, distinguished Yale-based historian Timothy Snyder-- an expert on the dangers of fascism-- took to his Facebook page to compile 20 lessons Americans should learned about combatting the rise of Trumpism or fascism or whatever you want to call it, in light of the European experience of the 20th Century.

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.

4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of "terrorism" and "extremism." Be alive to the fatal notions of "exception" and "emergency." Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it.

6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don't use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.

7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

Art by Tim O'Brien

9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.

15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)

19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.

20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.