The Captain of the Mother Ship:
"MAYBE CHANGING PRESIDENTS SO OFTEN IS WHAT CAUSES OUR WEAK, CONFUSED REACTIONS TO MOST THINGS….
MAYBE WE NEED A DICTATOR !!
SOMEONE WHO MAKES DECISIONS AND STICKS TO THEM AND THE WORLD KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE."
The Mother Ship's captain is a HUGE fan of authoritarians/dictators:
"I happen to be a huge fan of Salvador’s President Bukele and she is, too! She’s very proud of him and all he’s doing there. (Remember Kamala went to Central America to figure out what makes the illegals come from those countries? She never visited El Salvador to see what Bukele is doing to KEEP his people, of course….creating jobs, arresting gangs, etc…) I told her we need a president Bukele here in America, too! She beamed!"
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So the Captain of the Mother Ship, who often claims how much she loves America, is a great admirer of Bukele, an anti-democratic authoritarian?
Yes, he's gone after the gangs and eliminated most of their thuggery, but at what cost? He is moving toward being a dictator.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." --B. Franklin
"Bukele's legislative allies removed and replaced members of the Supreme Court, stacking the court with loyalists. That move made it possible for Bukele to run for an immediate second term, even though El Salvador's Constitution forbids it, because the court reinterpreted that section of the Constitution in 2021.
In 2023, in what opponents said was another effort to consolidate power, Bukele and Nuevas Ideas pushed through a law to downsize the legislature from 84 seats to 60. Nuevas Ideas could go from a two-thirds majority to occupying nearly every seat.
'We're moving towards a one-party state with only the semblance of democratic legitimacy,' says Jorge Cuéllar, a professor of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies at Dartmouth who has written about El Salvador. 'And I think that's basically already happened.'
'People have a sense of security now and safety that they hadn't felt in quite a long time. So we can't discount that,' says Cuéllar.
But thousands of people with no gang connection have also been swept up in the arrests, human rights advocates say.
Verónica Reyna, who researches human rights for the Salvadoran group Passionist Social Services, says prisons are overcrowded and prisoners face unsanitary conditions, limits on food and water, and other mistreatment. An aid group recorded at least 223 deaths in prisons so far during the state of emergency, 'some of these with clear signs of having suffered torture,' she told NPR in an email.
Reyna says journalists, trade unionists and informal vendors have also been intimidated by the police and threatened with arrest. 'In some way,' she adds, the state of emergency 'is a permanent threat to anyone who may be inconvenient to the president's interests, and could be applied to anyone at any time.'
"Trump has vowed to 'root out … the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.'
Trump’s own words have made increasingly clear how fixated he is on revenge and targeting his perceived enemies if he wins a second term in the White House next November.
The former president has openly mused in recent days that his own indictment has 'released the genie out of the box' and would allow him to weaponize the government against his opponents."
'His policies are not centered around improving the lives of his supporters or Americans in general, it’s centered around consolidating power for Trump, and that way he can wield it to enact that revenge on anyone he deems as an enemy,' said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House and campaign press aide who resigned over the Jan. 6 riots."
"I went to the Schnecksville rally today to talk with Trump voters, because our biggest story isn't a wannabe dictator but the 74 million who want to live under one. I met people trapped inside a hopeless doom loop of disinformation."
"Stewart listed everything from Trump claiming the New York Times leaker should be arrested (a violation of freedom of the press) to former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper’s claims that Trump asked about shooting protestors (a violation of freedom of assembly). He also included Trump’s now-famous remark that he wants to be dictator for “one day.”
“Just so you know, that is how it starts,” Stewart said. “‘I’m not saying anybody has to do the arm salute! Let’s just start with a few people doing the arm salute, and we’ll see if the arm salute catches on.’”
Robert Kagan:
" Among other things, Mr. Kagan cited Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn an election that he had lost, disregarding the will of the voters. And he noted Mr. Trump’s overt discussion of prosecuting opponents and sending the military into the streets to quell protests.
'In just a few years, we have gone from being relatively secure in our democracy to being a few short steps, and a matter of months, away from the possibility of dictatorship,' Mr. Kagan wrote."
