So it turns out Trump doesn't need a Reichstag fire at all. [View all]

[thucythucy]

For two years--ever since the KGOP seized the executive branch--I've worried that some crisis or event along the lines of 9-11 would give Trump an excuse to declare a "national emergency" and begin the wholesale destruction of our constitutional democracy as it's been understood to exist for the past two centuries. I even thought Trump was capable of fomenting such a crisis himself, much as the Nazis set fire to their own Parliament building to provide an excuse for the Enabling Act that gave Hitler absolute power in Germany.

But Trump and his minions (or perhaps I should say his Russian handlers) didn't even bother. They pointed to the Reichstag, standing there intact for all to see--and simply declared it to be on fire. And his cult shouts "Oh my God! Look at the flames! Dear Leader, protect us!"

A bogus national emergency will set us on a course to become an absolutely bogus constitutional democracy.

Bear in mind that until German democracy was destroyed, Hitler and the Nazis never received more than 38% of the popular vote. His support was actually declining when he was appointed Chancellor. But being a minority didn't stop the Nazis from wresting absolute control of the government, and we all know what followed from that.

I have never been more frightened for the future of this nation--and the world--than I am this morning.