Why Trump is NOT “The Most Dangerous President”

Choose your poison?

He is a racist, a sexist, a misogynist and a xenophobe. He has sexually harassed and assaulted women. He is corrupt and has used his position in Government for financial gain. And on top of it all, he is demented and seems to be suffering from cognitive decline.

Yes, you may say, Joe Biden is not the perfect candidate, but Donald Trump is all of those things AND MORE.

Indeed, Bernie Sanders never misses a chance to tell us that Trump is “the most dangerous President in modern history.”

But is that really true, objectively?

Democrats and left-leaning media luminaries are quick to condemn Trump as uniquely dangerous, historically evil and corrupt. Yet these same people will also tell you that Barack Obama saved the economy, helped the US working class recover from a global financial crisis, promoted civil liberties and social justice and led the “most transparent Administration in history.”

Any progressive observer will tell you, however, that all those claims about Obama are patently false, and that Obama screwed the working class, saved Wall Street instead of Main Street, conducted a war against whistle-blowers, jailed more journalists and deported more undocumented people than all other Presidents combined.

So when these Obama apologists tell you that Trump is uniquely malignant, you would do well to take their judgment with more than a grain of salt.

In 2016 I posted an article entitled The Progressive Case for Donald Trump. In this post I predicted 3 things:

1. As a result of Trump’s election, the GOP would lose the House in 2018.
2. Trump would be less hawkish than Clinton and would refuse to get involved in new wars in the Middle East.
3. Trump in the White House would galvanize the Left and allow the formation of a broad coalition to demand real Progressive policies like Bernie Sanders proposed in 2016.

As you may know, all three of these predictions came to pass. Democrats won the House in 2018; Trump has successfully resisted starting new military adventures (which would have been the hallmark of a Clinton Presidency) and the Bernie Sanders revolution has changed the national political debate to the point where Medicare For All, free public college, cancelling student debt and a Green New Deal are all mainstream polices to which every Democratic candidate must pay at least lip service.

Now, in 2020, I find I must again break with the received wisdom of the Left to make the case as to why Donald Trump is not the uniquely malevolent President that Bernie would have us believe.

Trump the Pacifist?

Barack Obama inherited two wars from George Bush and promptly expanded them to SEVEN. Moreover, Obama was able to make “endless war” the new normal.

“The whole concept of war has changed under Obama,” said Jon Alterman, Middle East specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit think tank in Washington.

As I have written elsewhere, Hillary Clinton would have been much more warlike than Trump has proven to be. Indeed, she would have carried on the Obama tradition of opening up new conflicts in order to keep the Military Industrial Complex happy. This new Democratic tradition of endless war was on full display at the recent Democratic National Convention.

Clinton and the Democrats have been itching for a confrontation with Russia, and had Trump not been elected, it seems a pretty safe bet that today we would be in direct conflict with Russia on the ground in Syria and/or Ukraine. Trump has resisted the urging of the Democrats and their Media minions to go to war, and it should be noted that Trump is the first President since Jimmy Carter NOT to have started any new wars while in office.

Trump’s withdrawal from Syria outraged the neocon/Democrat imperial interventionists.

Indeed, Trump is trying to adhere to his campaign promise of pacifism, but the Democrats and their Media minions – as well as the #NeverTrump Neocons like Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin – are opposing him at every turn. Bob Woodward, in his book about the Trump Administration, told the story of how Gary Cohn stole a document off Trump’s desk that would announce the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea. The Media and the Democrats hammered Trump for his attempts to strike a deal with Kim Jong Un – it seems they are opposed to peace breaking out on the Korean peninsula. When Trump hesitated to launch cruise missiles into Syria, the Democrats howled; when he did strike, they howled again – literally because he didn’t do enough damage. Trump’s later withdrawal of US troops from Syria was condemned by those same groups.

It is self-evident: Democrats would have had us fighting wars in Syria and probably Ukraine had Hillary won in 2016, and you can bet your bottom dollar that a Biden Administration would lose not time in launching a regime change war in Syria. In fact, Joe Biden has already stated that he wants a “military solution” in Syria.

The Democrats LOVE Trump’s military

Who would jail more journalists?

If the past is any indicator, a Biden Administration would be much more hostile in real terms towards the press than Trump. The Obama-Biden Administration broke all records in harassing and even spying on journalists, as well as having journalists imprisoned, especially those that were exposing Obama’s war crimes in Yemen.

As Leonard Downie, Jr. of the Committee to Protect Journalists said:

“The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate. The 30 experienced Washington journalists at a variety of news organizations whom I interviewed for this report could not remember any precedent.”

Obama-Biden invoked the Espionage Act more times than all other Administrations combined.

There is no reason to expect that a Biden Administration would not be equally as secretive and equally hostile towards the press.

Who would prosecute more whistle-blowers?

Again, Biden is much more likely to go after whistle-blowers and than Trump. Every study so far shows that despite Trump’s public complaints about leakers, he has done relatively little to go after them compared to Obama. The Obama-Biden Administration famously invoked the 1917 Espionage Act eight (8) times to go after whistle-blowers and the journalists they spoke to – more than all other Presidents combined!

It should be noted that Trump has not yet invoked the Espionage Act like Obama did – not even once.

So, when it comes to the treatment of the press and of whistle-blowers, Trump is by no means the most dangerous – that dubious honor would have to go to the Obama Administration, and it would certainly hold true for a Biden Administration as well.

Who would be worse towards immigrants and the undocumented?

The Obama Biden Administration tear gassed migrants on a regular basis. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

I think most progressives by now have heard that Obama was the “Deporter-in-Chief” and that his Administration greatly increased the number of deportations over previous administrations. Indeed, this is another area, like journalist and whistle-blower prosecutions, where Obama and Biden “outperformed” all other Administrations before or since. Yes, the Obama Administration deported on average 383,000 people per year, whereas Trump is averaging only 313,000. But aside from the deportation statistics, the Biden-Obama Administration was guilty of more ugliness, it can be argued, than the Trump Administration:

1. The cages in which children are kept at the border were actually built under the Obama Biden Administration, not Trump.
2. Taking children from their mothers was a standard practice under Obama, and Hillary Clinton famously – and callously – said in 2014 that unaccompanied children from Central America should be “sent back” in order to “send a message” to others.
3. While Trump was strongly condemned for using tear gas against a “migrant caravan” in 2018, the use of tear gas on the border was introduced by the Obama-Biden Administration in 2010 and used on a regular basis every month thereafter.

The Biden-Obama record against immigrants is well known among the Latino population. And yet, whenever Joe Biden was questioned about his Administration’s record, he became aggressive, combative and dismissive, telling more than one Latino voter asking about his record on deportations to “go vote for Trump.”

Against the Deep State

Perhaps one of the most positive aspects of the Trump Presidency for me is his willingness to take on the Deep State . This network of professional government technocrats are also known as the Security State, the Permanent State. It is comprised of mid- and even upper-level managers in the so-called Intelligence Community, the State Department, the Department of Justice and other arms of the Executive who do their work and pursue their own priorities regardless of who may be in the Oval Office. Administrations come and go, but the Deep State remains.

James Comey (FBI), James Clapper (DNI) and John Brennan (CIA) – all Deep State actors, all guilty of lying to Congress, and all three would be restored to power under Biden.

It was the Deep State, in the personae of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey who engineered the RussiaGate hoax in order to assist the Democrats and to curry favor with what they thought would be the incoming Clinton Administration in 2016. The story of Russian hacking of the DNC emails was, according to the legendary journalist Seymour Hersh, a “Brennan operation from the very beginning” in order to draw attention away from the scandal of the DNC having rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders. thanks to Brennan, the Democrats and the Clinton campaign were able And as the campaign wore on, the story was repurposed to become a made-up reason as to why Hillary Clinton lost:

Hersh also questioned the timing of the U.S. intelligence briefing of Trump on the Russia hack findings. “They’re taking it to a guy that’s going to be president in a couple of days, they’re giving him this kind of stuff, and they think this is somehow going to make the world better? It’s going to make him go nuts — would make me go nuts. Maybe it isn’t that hard to make him go nuts.” Hersh said if he had been covering the story, “I would have made [John] Brennan into a buffoon. A yapping buffoon in the last few days. Instead, everything is reported seriously.”

And Trump did go nuts. He declared war on that unholy cabal. And now he is getting closer to finding the link between the Democratic Russia-hawks like Schiff and Nadler and their Deep State operatives who have been pushing these Russia conspiracy theories. A DOJ investigation is underway by Connecticut state attorney, John Durham, who was originally expected to present his report in late spring, early summer but may be postponed due to the Coronavirus emergency.

Why you should care about this

Why do I care about this? Very simple. This Deep State is opposed to Trump, but left unchecked they would be an even greater threat to a future progressive President such as Bernie Sanders. We don’t even need to imagine how they would go after such a President: we have already seen how they attacked Bernie during the primary, when in February 2020, just as the Primary was in full swing, a story was floated about how Putin was actively working to aid the Sanders campaign.

The disclosure came a day before the Nevada caucuses, where Mr. Sanders is a favorite, and followed revelations a day earlier that Moscow was interfering on President Trump’s behalf this year, as it did in 2016.

The breaking news story was buttressed with a reprise of the story from 2016 in which Russia was accused of helping the Sanders campaign in order to weaken the Clinton campaign. The two narratives thus served to reinforce each other in a way to discredit the Bernie2020 campaign and make Sanders look even more “risky”, dangerous and un-electable.

Therefore, going forward I would prefer to have a President who is going to dismantle or at least de-fang the Deep State so that when we do finally get a progressive President, perhaps one that is opposed to endless war and the military industrial complex, they will not be able to bring him down so easily.

Obviously, if Biden is elected, the opposite will occur. We will see the Deep State strengthened; we will most likely see John Brennan, James Clapper and Jim Comey back at the helm of their various agencies, and progressive movements and politicians will be at their mercy.

That is what I believe, and if you have ever heard of COINTELPRO you know that this is a real threat.

Obama’s Fascist Repression of Peaceful Protest: Occupy Wall Street

Remember Occupy Wall Street? The movement that first coined the “We are the 99%” rhetorical framing. The protest that started as a result of the 2008 crisis and Obama ’s horrible handling of such. What started in NY spread throughout the country; there were Occupy protests in many cities in every state. Then Obama decided he’d had enough, he dusted off some of the fascist tools Bush had set up and used his DOJ, FBI and DHS to coordinate a brutal strike to crush what even the FBI admitted was a 100% peaceful protest.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund… shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

There was even an FBI plan to ASSASSINATE Occupy leaders “if necessary.”

And to think that Biden (Mr. Law and Order, Lock’em Up, author of the 1994 Crime Bill) would not be equally calculating, organized and vicious in crushing peaceful protests would be sheer lunacy. He would, if anything, be even more merciless than Obama in stifling dissent, and certainly much more brutal and coordinated than the incompetent Trump, who cannot get out of his own way.

Militarized police, coordinated through the FBI Anti-Terrorism force, prepare to attack peaceful protesters in Occupy Oakland.

Indeed, Obama’s coordinated use of Federal anti-terror forces to break up peaceful protests nationwide was PRAISED by Trump when he first had his call with the Governors:

Whereas Obama martialed the full force of the Federal government to simultaneously attack Occupy protests in 50 cities nationwide, Trump has so far only stuck his Federal nose into 1 or 2 cities, and does not appear to want to go further.

Still, should Trump decide to use Federal force to wipe out the BLM protests in every major city, he will have a blueprint for doing so created by his predecessor, “no drama Obama.”

But the DSAC, created by George W. Bush in 2005, is what is really scary. It is described as a “public-private partnership” between the FBI and over 200 of the largest American companies. Remember, fascism was defined by Mussolini as the “marriage between state and corporate power.”

Obama’s use of the DSAC to spy on and then destroy the Occupy Movement represents a level of fascism FAR beyond anything Trump has done.  

Obama’s Fascist Repression of Peaceful Protest: Letting DAPL “play out”

Remember DAPL? Obama was the greatest friend to domestic dirty oil and fracking producers that the oil industry has ever had. In 2015 he lifted the export ban that had prevented domestic oil producers from exporting their product outside of the US, which set off an orgy of pipeline building across North America.

Obama even bragged about this:

“Under my administration … we’ve added enough oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some.” —PresidentObama, remarks on oil and gas subsidies, March 29, 2012

No wonder then, that Obama refused to come to the aid of Native American water protectors opposed to DAPL and stood by as protesters were brutalized by militarized Federal and local police.

Militarized police shot water cannons in freezing weather and used rubber bullets and tear gas on peaceful protesters. Obama did nothing.

IN SUMMATION

Below is a table listing some metrics about the Administrations of Bush, Obama and Trump. I know that Trump is still only in his first term, but I do feel that the numbers are relevant when determining who is the “most dangerous President in modern history.”

While Trump has said and done many egregious things, we should evaluate Presidents not for what they say, but what they do. Yes, I know that tone is important; messaging is important. But if Obama had acted the way he spoke and communicated, then the country would have been much better off and Trump would not be in office today.

Yes, Trump is the opposite of Obama. Trump’s speeches, his public persona and his messaging are horrible, despicable and damnable. But beyond all the bluster, he has, in many ways, been far less destructive than Obama. And while Trump has increased the number of drone strikes compared to Obama, his civilian death tally is still nowhere near that of George Bush (200,000).

THE POINT of this article is to say that while Trump may be a despicable psychopath, he is not the uniquely dangerous person that Bernie Sanders makes him out to be. Indeed, George Bush was far more dangerous in terms of the human lives he destroyed while in office, and Barack Obama was actually far more dangerous in the way he savagely repressed peaceful protests that called out his coddling of the rich and Wall Street.

We survived 8 years of Bush (Iraq, Patriot Act); we survived 8 years of Obama (Drone wars, Occupy, DAPL) – we can survive 8 years of Trump.

Euroyankee

EuroYankee is a dual citizen, US-EU. He travels around Europe, writing on politics, culture and such. He pays his US taxes so he gets to weigh in on what is happening in the States.