Joe Biden is a Democratic leader and the President of the United States. In my opinion he’s a good leader, so far. On the anniversary of the Trump coup attempt of January 6th, Joe Biden gave the speech in this video. People described it as “fiery” and I agree, it was more passionate than his regular speeches. Maybe because he realized it’s time to get angry about the coup attempt of a year ago, by some of the most cynical and anti-democratic low-lifes in our country. For this speech alone, Biden has my admiration. I hope it means he will be tougher on both anti-democratic Republicans and the two intransigent Democrats he has to deal with.
Many people believe Donald Trump is a fascist. I personally think it’s clear he is at least someone who admires authoritarian leaders, and wants to be an autocrat or a plutocrat (or one of the crats) but it’s a little harder to tell if he’s a real fascist. I believe he is, but an argument could be made that he’s just a massively greedy man, ignorant, with no ethics or morals, who would do anything to stay in power, even kill. If he is a fascist, or ever becomes an authoritarian leader after his next coup attempt, it’s likely he would end up meeting a fate similar to that of Mussolini.
Consider the terrible ending of a fascist as presented below and imagine applying it to Donald Trump. It’s not really such a sad story when you imagine him the subject of this particular “ending”, if you’re like a lot of people and just can’t stand him at all. I think Trump is a horrible human being, evil even. So I would not shed any tears thinking that this type of fate might befall him some day. So let’s pretend.
“… There’s no uncertainty, however, about what happened to Mussolini’s body in the hours after his execution. In the pre-dawn hours of April 29 the corpses of Mussolini, Petacci and 14 fellow fascists were placed in a truck and dumped like garbage in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto, a deeply symbolic public square for the anti-fascist forces. There, eight months earlier, fascists acting under orders from Hitler’s SS publicly displayed the bodies of 15 executed partisans.
After Mussolini’s arrest in July 1943, jubilant crowds mutilated images of the dictator. Now, as the sun rose on the “Square of the Fifteen Martyrs,” residents of Milan had the chance to do the same thing, only this time for real. They hurled invectives and vegetables at the dictator’s corpse before kicking, beating and spitting upon it. One woman, deciding Mussolini wasn’t dead enough for her, emptied a pistol into the dictator’s body and shouted, “Five shots for my five assassinated sons!” The crowd then strung the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci and other fascists by their feet from the girders of a gasoline station in a corner of the square.”
“In early afternoon, American troops ordered the bodies to be taken down and Mussolini’s bullet-ridden corpse transported to the city morgue. By this point, Mussolini’s badly beaten body was barely recognizable, but a U.S. Army photographer still staged the bodies of the former dictator and his mistress in each other’s arms in a macabre pose.
As the Soviets closed in on Berlin, Hitler received news of Mussolini’s death. Determined not to give his enemies the satisfaction of killing him or defiling his body, Hitler committed suicide on April 30 and had his corpse subsequently burned.
Just about brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? I noticed too how the cowardice of Hitler himself matches that of Trump in so many ways.
The problem with authoritarian “populist” leaders is that they are more often than not, reviled. Even if they start out being kind of beloved, they often end up being hated. If Trump continues with his political endeavors, it is likely going to happen to him. The public who once adored him will turn on him. As the lawsuits and criminal accusations pile up against him, he will be seen for who he really is. And god forbid he ever gets in power again, but if he does, he will be doubly hated by most of America.
