I've been nonstop reading since the firing went down. This short piece tells it exactly as it is, IMHO. Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to see with utmost clarity what is happening while it is happening. No one should really ask "well, how did they not resist at the time?" It's because, for far too many, the recognition just is not there. And bad things can happen, real bad things, when people sleepwalk through their own time and place.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/stasi-americans-wake-trump-fires-comey-article-1.3153030
Americans know it when we see it. Unless it's happening to us.
We know it when we see the leader of a third world country go from populist leader to strongman dictator. We can see how the uneducated and oppressed put their fate into the hands of a leader who plays fast and loose with their constitution and their laws.
We see it — unless it's happening to us.
We've watched people on the news in other countries being rounded up, the opposition being fired, jailed or "disappeared." We've watched, shocked, as citizens allow their laws to be violated, upended and changed to satisfy their leader's whim, personal needs, vendettas or ego.
We see it —unless it's happening to us.
We have seen those leaders make unholy alliances with other brutal leaders and we've seen the people passively stand by as it happens to them like the cowards they are.
We see it — unless it's happening to us.
The President just fired the FBI director who was investigating him. This is like being allowed to fire the cop who arrests you before he gets the handcuffs on.
We are now becoming those cowards we have scoffed at. We are the frighteningly naive, apathetic souls, so blindly devoted to the cult of personality of one man, that we are not just witnessing, but allowing Donald Trump to become our anointed dictator.
And we've allowed it since Inauguration Day.
We laughed when he flat-out lied to us about President Obama wiretapping him. Dishonesty isn't funny, it's disgraceful.
Many Americans — Americans! — cheered when he signed an executive order that begins to wipe out separation of church and state in the name of "religious freedom." If our President cared one whit about religious freedom he wouldn't have attempted to ban Muslims from entering this country.
Attempting to change one of our most important safeguards isn't worth cheering about. It's worth fighting against.
When President Trump called the press the enemy, the right wing approved. Defaming the First Amendment doesn't warrant approval, it demands outrage.
And now the President of the United States has committed the most blatant act of all. Trump has fired Comey, who was leading the investigation into whether his campaign advisers colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election.
Possible? No — probable. Even the Syrian airstrikes seemed more a diversion than a humanitarian act. He got the press to write about his power play against the Russians for days instead of concentrating on possible Russian interference in his presidential win. Meantime, if he had meant it, the White House would not have told the Russians about the coming strike.
Too bad the White House didn't tell us before landing a strike against Comey. The President's alt-speak version of events is that Comey got the boot for mishandling the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server. Seriously? Will he get away with this? Probably.
Sure President Bill Clinton also fired an FBI director, William Sessions (that name again). But Sessions was ultimately fired because the Justice Department found he was a tax skimmer and federal scammer.
Comey — whether you like him or not — was fired by the President he was investigating. And it's not amusing. It's alarming.
This is not a reality show, it's our new reality and it's happening to us.