Pirate's Cove

Democrats love throwing around the word “authoritarian” in the Age Of Trump, just like they enjoy throwing around the words racist and racism. They love calling him an authoritarian, because Trump is utterly involving himself in their lives, right? And it means every Republican is an authoritarian, per Esquire’s Charles Pierce

The Authoritarian Rot That Produced This President* Is Present in the Republican Party at All Levels

I guess we should start this week’s tour in Kentucky, where the Republican majority in the state legislature is making all kinds of noises about how, as far as they’re all concerned, the wrong person got elected governor on Tuesday. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

Stivers’ comments came shortly after Gov. Matt Bevin refused to concede to Attorney General Andy Beshear, who led by roughly 5,100 votes when all the precincts were counted. “There’s less than one-half of 1%, as I understand, separating the governor and the attorney general,” Stivers said. “We will follow the letter of the law and what various processes determine.” Stivers, R-Manchester, said based on his staff’s research, the decision could come before the Republican-controlled state legislature. Under state law, Bevin has 30 days to formally contest the outcome once it is certified by the State Board of Elections. Candidates typically ask for a re-canvass of voting machines and a recount first. The last contested governor’s race was the 1899 election of Democrat William Goebel.

(It should be noted here that things didn’t work out that well for Goebel back in the day. He lost by somewhere around 2,200 votes to William Taylor after a chaotic Democratic nominating process. Whereupon, the assembly ratfcked Taylor out of his victory and, the day after Goebel was declared the winner, somebody shot him to death, but he lingered long enough to be sworn in. He’s still the only sitting state governor to be assassinated. Meanwhile, the ringleader of the plot to kill Goebel did a little time and, upon release, got elected to Congress four times, because, you know, America.)

Suffice it to say, this would be ratfcking of the highest parliamentary order, but it also is yet another indication that the authoritarian rot that produced the current president* is present in the Republican Party at all levels. Democratic success in elections, unless it is achieved by overwhelming margins, is in the eyes of Republicans prima facie illegitimate. It started with Bill Clinton and it’s gotten worse ever since.

So, hey, does this make Stacy Abrams an authoritarian, because she whined incessantly and wanted recounts, as have many Democrats. Pierce mentions two other issues, one being the Republican general assembly canning the Secretary of Agriculture in Wisconsin, and

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Saloon Pianist Friedman of the Plains brings us the saga of something I fear we’re all going to have to deal with when this great scourge of an administration* finally is no more. From KTUL News:

Two Republican state senators have written a bill to rename a portion of the world-renowned Route 66 highway in northeastern Oklahoma the President Donald J. Trump Highway. Sens. Nathan Dahm of Broken Arrow and Marty Quinn of Claremore announced Tuesday their plans to introduce the bill. The bill would rename a roughly 13-mile stretch of Route 66 from the town of Miami extending north and east through the town of Commerce to Industrial Parkway in Ottawa County.

You just know that he’s going to be bribing people to name stuff after him until two weeks after he’s dead. Hell, his only real skill in business was getting people to name stuff after him. Your grandchildren one day may go to Donald J. Trump High School. This is the nightmare we have chosen.

Anyone want to tell him about Barack Obama and Robert “Sheets” Byrd?

Anyone want to tell him the definition of authoritarian?

Authoritarianism, principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action. In government, authoritarianism denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people. Authoritarian leaders often exercise power arbitrarily and without regard to existing bodies of law, and they usually cannot be replaced by citizens choosing freely among various competitors in elections. The freedom to create opposition political parties or other alternative political groupings with which to compete for power with the ruling group is either limited or nonexistent in authoritarian regimes.

If you look in dictionaries and political science 101 books, you’ll find similar definitions. How is contesting an election authoritarian? Naming part of a road after a president authoritarian? How about attempting to reduce the number of federal rules that affect citizen’s lives? Pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the Waters of the U.S., and so much more, all of which had given the federal government wide control over citizens? I’ve asked time and again, and Democrats cannot really name anything that Trump is doing that demands submission to authority, to government.