Friedman NYT "What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?" (a GOTV op ed)

Your vote in the midterms matters, because Republicans in Congress won’t restrain the president’s excesses.

By Thomas L. Friedman

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/opinion/trump-midterms-shoot-fifth-avenue.html

(starts with a hypothetical having Trump shoot someone - go to the link to read it)

My biggest challenge in writing all of the above? Worrying that readers wouldn’t realize it was made up.



That’s because we all now know that Trump was right when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would stick with him. We’ve seen him get away with too much by now. No restraint on Trump will ever come from his party or his base — especially after the passing of John McCain. So save your breath. Trump will be restrained only if his party loses the House or the Senate. That’s what is at stake in the midterm elections — so vote accordingly.

And for those Republican moderates, independents and suburban white women who voted for Trump in 2016 and are considering voting against G.O.P. House and Senate candidates in November to put some limits on the president and show their disapproval at G.O.P. lawmakers’ failure to act as an independent branch of government, let me describe the stakes in another way:

America, we all know, won the Cold War. Our values and economic system proved superior to Russia’s. But what is at stake in the 2018 midterms is who is going to win the post-Cold War.

Yes, that question is back on the table. Because what we are seeing in the behavior of Trump and his toadies in the G.O.P. is the beginnings of the Russification of American politics. Vladimir Putin could still win the post-Cold War.


snip


ends

There are other parallels between Trumpism and Putinism: the glorification of oil, gas and mining over science and technology; the elevation of white, Christian, nationalist values; and the neutering of the legislative branch — today’s G.O.P.-dominated Congress behaves just like the rubber-stamp Russian Duma. Worse, this Russification of politics is also spreading — to the Philippines, Turkey, Hungary, Poland and maybe soon to Brazil.

A few more years of this Russification of America and the rot will be everywhere. Russia will have won the post-Cold War, and the fictional story at the top of this column will become nonfiction — just like that. Remember that when you vote in the midterms.