What?  Pinocchio a Demagogue?

By Effey

Lately I have gotten a lot of help from Carl Bernstein who together with Bob Woodward in 1972 exposed the Republican's break-in into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate Hotel complex.  The subsequent scandal led to the resignation of the Republican President at the time Richard M. Nixon, who initially kept on denying that he ordered the break-in because he was seeking re-election. 

Bernstein's and Woodward's exposure of the break-in was deemed "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time" by Gene Roberts, the former National Editor of The New York Times and Professor of Journalism at Philip Merrill College of Journalism, at the University of Maryland.

In the past I have warned that Donald Trump is a fascist and has all the makings of a dictator.  Bernstein is slightly kinder to Trump and just calls Trump a Demagogue.

But let's look at the dictionary definition of a Demagogue.  Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines a demagogue as: “a leader, who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises, in order to gain power”,

I have even gone one step further and accused Trump of having all the characteristics of a dictator.  So again, let me use the same dictionary and its definition of a dictator: “A person granted absolute power…holding complete autocratic control and often oppressively”.

What then is the difference between the two?  Not much.  Essentially being a demagogue is the forerunner of becoming a dictator.  Trump makes all kinds of promises, without giving any details on how he will do what he promises.  Because so much of what he promises is really pie in the sky, they are just empty promises, nothing else!  He doesn't have any specific plans such as detailed workable plans.  He keeps telling you “Trust me.  I can do it".

Study the patterns which brought Mussolini and Hitler into power!  They appealed to the unemployed blue collar classes, never offering specific plans, just exhorting the masses to just trust them.  And guess what happened!  Both of them actually delivered the jobs, but at a huge price!

I have studied quite extensively the patterns which make a leader into a dictator for a book I am finishing and which will be published next year.  Not just Mussolini and Hitler.  Other dictators, too, like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Juan Peron, Mao-Tze Dong, Marshall Tito, Joseph Stalin and Muammar Qaddafi.  Generally these dictators meant well for the people.  Actually they delivered jobs by creating more infrastructures just to provide jobs.  But somebody had to pay for all their projects.  So they resorted to genocides, wars, and slave labor or all of the above.  But the end never turned out good and in the end they left their countries in ruins. 

Is this what we want or what we need?  I don't think so!  True, we live in difficult times and there are tons of people unemployed and some of the things Pinocchio says may be true.  But the solutions to these problems are not as simple as Pinocchio makes them sound.  He will promise you the world but all he will deliver is skyscrapers or hi-risers from which only he will profit!  Look at the promises he made to contractors, investors and students!  Look at how he fooled them all!  They lost their monies and he profited from them immensely.

God save us from Donald Trump, snake oil salesman, par excellence!

Red beans and ricely yours,

Effey.