Our president-elect has been busy on many fronts. Propaganda never rests. As you read these “moves” consider the Hitler-parallel. (“antics”: means foolish, outlandish or amusing behavior)
- Recently, Trump summoned Mark Zuckerberg to Mar-A-Lago. On leaving, Mark agreed that fact checking would no longer be part of his Facebook platform. Now Trump can lie about any aspect of his choosing and know that Facebook, X and soon-to-be TikTok, will never question the truth of his comments. (Hitler did the same thing in the 1930’s Germany media.)
- To save money (for whatever purpose) Trump threatens to abandon both NATO and the Paris Climate Accord. This is a typical move for him. He uses a semi-legitimate basis for doing a thoroughly inappropriate action. The money saved is a pittance and it aligns with what the majority of Americans feel is useful. NATO and the Paris Accord justify their cost many times over but he wants to isolate European nations so Russia can bring them into the fold. And he gets money from the oil companies and OPEC so he calls climate change a “hoax”. (Hitler withdrew from strategic alliances that were formed after World War I.)
- Trump has recently announced he may eliminate income taxes and replace them with a “consumption tax”. In theory, such a tax change would provide more disposable income and allow people to determine their own level of taxation based on the items they buy. There are many problems with this change but dealing outside the realm of common sense has never impacted his words. The experts have spent little time on this musing but they have said that such a tax change–if enacted–would favor the wealthy because they would have more discretionary disposable income and therefore would be able to live better. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer? (Hitler seduced the German people with promises of economic gain and prosperity before becoming a de facto dictator.)
- TikTok, the ping-pong ball that Trump and Musk salivate over. Biden started the inquiry into whether the Chinese company, ByteDance, was using TikTok to gather personal info on Americans for future use. Now Trump has his corrupt Supreme Court poised to squeeze the platform and put pressure on it to sell to an American company. And, wouldn’t you know it…who shows up but Elon Musk. Now picture Musk owning X and TikTok, Trump squeezing Gannett and other written and spoken media with “retribution”. Now add Artificial Intelligence to the scene. Are we really expecting any truth from this crew?
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