By Donald A. Collins | 22 December 2020
Church and State
The behavior of the departing President has jogged so many into raising the question of my title that I can not make claim to originality or accuracy to any speculations I may make in this piece.
You doubtless can recall that original 1962 movie The Manchurian Candidate with Frank Sinatra has a former prisoner of war being brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.
The behavior of our exiting executive so reminded the press of that movie that a myriad of pieces have appeared claiming his possible Russian perfidy.
One author of a book making that claim is a former FBI officer about which the Washington Post ran this column.
FBI pondered whether Trump was "a Manchurian candidate elected," former agent alleges in new book https://t.co/7840qhJHUg
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 5, 2020
Then on December 7th Foreign Affairs columnist Tony Burman for the Toronto Star was blunt with his headline, “Donald Trump is the Manchurian president” as he opens by writing,
What will Americans do when it is proven to them that their president has been compromised by their most dangerous foreign adversary in crucial ways for more than a decade — including the bailing out of his once-bankrupt business empire with illegal Russian money, his involvement in personal and business scandals kept secret from the U.S. public but known and encouraged by the Russian government and intelligence agencies, and the rigging of the narrowly won 2016 presidential election to favour his candidacy and sabotage his Democratic opponent, with the full knowledge and complicity of the candidate, his family and senior Republican campaign team?
You can read all of his excellent column here.
Of course the proof of his fealty for Putin and the Russians seems undoubted. So really what proof is needed beyond Trump’s behavior?
Burman and many others have put sadly disturbing facts before us only to have such suspicions be ignored by over 74 million American voters, but fortunately at least considered by 81 million Americans. Let me remind my readers of another piece I wrote on August 26, “Covid-19 May Save Our Democracy”.
I point out our luck in avoiding what would have doubtless been a disastrous 2nd Trump term, but of course based on a terrible price, the pandemic. In that regard, perhaps you will want to read my August 26, 2020 piece again.
Remember Michael Cohen’s expose on Trump, “Disloyal: A Memoir” came out on September 8th and Bob Woodward’s “Rage” on September 15th, both apparently ignored as important by so many. Sadly, Trump has also ended by packing the Supreme Court.
Keeping our democracy moving in the right direction will not be easy. It never has been, but now with world human numbers so large, it will be under more and more pressure. At my age I worry for my younger family members who have their work cut out for them.
As my August 26th OP ED concluded:
The world’s humans now number almost 8 billion, up from 2 billion at my birth in 1931 with many more people impacted more acutely than us around our overcrowded planet.
In case people think my earlier de-growth messages about our planet’s incapacity to handle that number peacefully and democratically are no longer urgently in need of recognition and action, the current climactic events worldwide should disabuse them of that illusion. I hear nothing from the Trump side except their bloated claims of how great he has made things in his tenure
Democracies are fragile and this Trump tenure offers more proof than ever before!
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
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