Posted on 03/01/2016 12:59:47 PM PST by MarvinStinson
The Washington Post is begging primary voters to reconsider their support for Republican front-runner Donald Trump, and warned this week that the businessman's political ascendency is not unlike that of other famous dictators, including Adolf Hitler.
"You don't have to go back to history's most famous example, Adolf Hitler, to understand that authoritarian rulers can achieve power through the ballot box," the Post's editorial board said Tuesday, explaining how it considers the casino tycoon's bid for the White House a "threat to democracy."
"In the world today, it has become almost commonplace for elected leaders to lock the door behind them once they achieve power. Vladi¬mir Putin in Russia, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey — all found ways once in power to restrict opposition, muzzle the media and erode checks and Presidential candidates from both parties are battling Tuesday in primary events in more than 10 states.
Political pundits and commentators are predicting Trump will win big in Tuesday evening's GOP races against Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson for the available 595 delegates. That has the Post terrified.
"Mr. Trump gives ample reason to fear that he would not respect traditional limits on executive authority. He promotes actions that would be illegal, such as torture. He intimates that he would use government to attack those who displease him," it wrote.
"He promises diktats — impose a tariff, build a wall — as if Congress is nothing but an inconvenience. His vow to round up and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, while perhaps not requiring congressional action, would necessitate a kind of intrusive police power this country has never seen," they added.
Though the Post holds out hope that Trump will fail either in the GOP primary or the general election, they warn that his campaign itself marks a dangerous turn in American politics.
"Politics is never free of rough-and-tumble accusations, wild exaggerations and unrealistic promises. But when Mr. Trump cheers the assault on one protester at his rally and says of another, 'I'd like to punch him in the face,' that is something new and different," it wrote.
"It is out of the ordinary when a candidate recycles demonstrably false Internet rumors ... and stands by them even when they are disproved," the paper added. "That he has difficulty repudiating the most odious white terrorist group in U.S. history; that he feels no need to explain, debate or defend his pie-in-the-sky proposals; that he degrades and disparages women, Mexicans, Jews, Muslims, people with disabilities — these are challenges to the core functioning of any democracy."
There's nothing wrong with worrying about border security, they added, and there's certainly nothing wrong with worrying about national security and terrorism.
"But Mr. Trump is pandering to those fears, not offering solutions. In so doing, he is insulting voters with genuine concerns. We continue to believe that Americans deserve better than that — and are better than that," it added.
Unfortunately so was Obama.
The Washington Post insults me by saying my concerns are not genuine.
God, the ignorance burns.
HITLER WAS NOT ELECTED!!!!
He was appointed, the Nazis were routed in the last free elections in Germany, but once Hitler was appointed Chancellor, he engineered a coup behind the scenes.
Yay. Democracy!
They convinced me. We need raping stealing lying degenerate oligarchs like the Clintons.
What worries me is the specter of Hitlery.
This is correct. His attempt to be democratically elected some years earlier failed.
So who is going to write the paper invoking Godwins Law?
As the old saying goes...he who first invokes Hitler loses.
The first person to compare the other to Hitler loses the argument. Them’s the rules.
He was appointed chancellor because no other party could maintain a stable government.
Yep, but facts have mot matter matters to the the Leftist agiprop machine pretending to be “Journalists” in the USA for at least 3 decades now.
Not to worry WaPo....the anti-semite Hitlery will be defeated : )
I’ll bet Sarah Palin is laughing her butt off over all these TDS stories.
Let’s see....Tax Fraud, David Duke, Secret Tape, Trump U, employed Illegal Immigrants, and Hitler.....What’s next???
Washington Post trumpets its irrelevance.
Drama Queens.
That’s what we said when Comrade Obama was “elected”.
“Hitler was elected, too”
Hitler was not elected to his office as Reich Chancellor. He was appointed by President Hindenburg after Hitler repeatedly lost the elections. Then Hitler overthrew the Weimar Republic and appointed himself as Fuhrer.
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