"I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ...Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." - Donald Trump (2005)
"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining...." - Donald Trump (2017)
"I have the absolute right to PARDON myself" - Donald Trump (2018)
"As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!" - Donald Trump (2019)
“I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." - Donald Trump (2019)
The "you" I refer to in the title is anyone who voted for this person despite the clear evidence - including his explicitly bragging about doing so - that he will abuse any power and authority within his reach. Be it claiming he's "allowed" to view young women undressing because he is the owner of a beauty pageant or that he can sexually assault women because "you can do anything" if you're a celebrity or claiming that being president gives him absolute rights to trample the rule of law. The common underlying theme is that he feels entitled to do these things.
Presidents do not have rights, they have powers - and they are not absolute; they are limited. Or at least they are on paper. What Trump claims for himself is more akin to the Divine Right of Kings, something this country was founded to end. Yet he claims the Constitution gives him the powers that the nation had rejected. I say had because Republican voters are apparently done with democracy. They favor something more in line with Führerprinzip, as they have no objection to Trump ignoring laws and governing directly by imperial decree or through late night diet soda fueled social media rants and all aspects of the federal government existing only to implement his will. He believes that he is accountable to no one, answerable to no one. And for some reason that I can not and never will understand, Republican voters are ok with that, despite Trump being absent of any regard for any person on the planet other than himself.
Not incidentally, the nation's founding generation were avid readers of "Cato's Letters." I have a particular affinity for #33 (1721)
There is no evil under the sun but what is to be dreaded from men, who may do what they please with impunity: They seldom or never stop at certain degrees of mischief when they have power to go farther; but hurry on from wickedness to wickedness, as far and as fast as human malice can prompt human power....
People are ruined by their ignorance of human nature; which ignorance leads them to credulity, and too great a confidence in particular men. They fondly imagine that he, who, possessing a great deal by their favour, owes them great gratitude, and all good offices, will therefore return their kindness: But, alas! how often are they mistaken in their favourites and trustees; who, the more they have given them, are often the more incited to take all, and to return destruction for generous usage. The common people generally think that great men have great minds, and scorn base actions; which judgment is so false, that the basest and worst of all actions have been done by great men: Perhaps they have not picked private pockets, but they have done worse; they have often disturbed, deceived, and pillaged the world: And he who is capable of the highest mischief, is capable of the meanest: He who plunders a country of a million of money, would in suitable circumstances steal a silver spoon; and a conqueror, who steals and pillages a kingdom, would, in an humbler fortune, rifle a portmanteau, or rob an orchard.
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