Trump’s Wannabe Despot Checklist
✓Call press “enemy of the people”
✓Scapegoat minorities
✓Call to jail political opponents
✓Pardon political allies
✓Lie constantly to erode public sense of objective truth
✓Appoint unqualified family members as top advisers
✓Fire investigators *because* they are investigating you
✓Try to impose financial costs on the owners of newspapers that criticize you (Bezos)
✓Demand loyalty pledges
✓Lie about ongoing investigations to confuse public opinion
✓Attack your Attorney General for properly recusing himself from an investigation
✓”Joke” about making yourself “president for life”
✓Eliminate the word “democracy” from the State Department mission statement
✓Try to organize a military parade to boost cult of personality
✓Fixate on “ratings” and “crowd size”
✓Retweet fake anti-Muslim videos from neo-fascists (“Britain First”)
✓Call those who march with neo-Nazis “very fine people”
✓Attack individual judges who rule against you but in accordance with rule of law
✓Spread conspiracy theories
✓Claim your political opponents are “treasonous” for not clapping enough during your speech
✓Hire an unregistered foreign agent who also got paid by the Kremlin as National Security Adviser
✓Call to ban an entire religion from entering the country
✓Threaten to revoke media licenses from outlets that criticize you
✓Threaten to “open up” libel laws to chill legitimate criticism
✓Discuss pardons with the lawyers for witnesses in an ongoing investigation into you & your campaign
✓Tweet a video of yourself beating up the likeness of a critical media outlet
✓Fabricate claims of voter fraud
✓Grant interviews almost exclusively to sycophantic press outlets (Fox News)
✓Advocate for forced displays of patriotism (NFL, for example)
This is only a partial list. Democracy is under threat from a wannabe despot.