Trump’s “flatter me first” extortion/protection schemes are killing us.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-suggests-coronavirus-aid-to-governors-that-treat-us-well-2020-3

Every now and then, Trump lets the public in on his survival strategies, the way he’s managed to escape from ruin and jail time his entire adult life. Sometimes this is just a slip of the tongue. Other times, it’s done on purpose, to send a recurrent message: “If you want something from me, don’t even think about exposing my wrongdoing to the public; stop being critical in any way, shape or form; in fact, flatter me so more and more people think I’m truly amazing and can do no wrong.”

Long before he “won” the presidency, he was forever caught in a web of lies, criminal activities, coverups and countless scandals (of his own making), that also required countermeasures, world without end.

When he was just a businessman, this didn’t have widespread impact, and he lacked the actual power of life and death to make his extortion work as often as he wanted . . . though New Yorkers knew how often he acted as if he did, suggesting his mob ties would be used if he didn’t get his way. His endless lawsuits against would-be exposure was another frequent “tool.”

Now he does have that power, and he’s been using his extortion/protection strategies worldwide. We weren’t supposed to know about those efforts in Ukraine, but they came out. But he wanted us to know about his efforts in silencing would-be whistleblowers across the public sector, and made it very clear who would benefit and who would be punished, and how.

Now, we’re learning he’s doing this with regard to federal assistance in the face of this pandemic, coming out and explicitly saying that governors have to “be nice” to him or he will withhold desperately needed aid. We can only imagine the language he’s been using with them in direct talks we’ll never hear about.

As much as I despise both parties, and the system that owns them, Trump takes vileness to an entirely new level. He’s not just jostling for political favors, which has always been the norm. He’s actually extorting public officials all over the world to help him win reelection, remain silent about what they know, end all criticism, and go even further:

Flatter him endlessly.

For a time, in the early days of his administration, it appeared that many world leaders decided to go along with this. But most of that seems to have vanished after three years, and justifiably so. It doesn’t look like our own public officials (or the media) have done what needs to be done yet, with a few exceptions.

Our very lives depend upon exposing Trump, his party and all those complicit with this strategy. And we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can do that and continue to pound away at the system itself, which owns both parties and, of course, does far, far more harm than Trump can do on his own. Both/and, etc.