America has fallen

If you're a regular reader of this commentary you know that profanity isn't "my thing." I've nothing against it, used properly, meaning sparingly, it has its emphatic place. Yesterday its proper place was more than textual, and its headlined emphasis I wrote in contemporary dictatorial style: TRUMP'S "FUCK YOU" TO AMERICA.

My motivation was a little something that Trump posted on Truth Social at 11:53 a.m. I found it of interest and thought others might be interested as well. His one-sentence entry? It announced nothing less than the rule of law's assassination and his murder of America's Constitutional governance. Trump officially announced his dictatorship:

"He who saves his Country does not violate any law."

Any law. Unconditional. No limits. None.

Under Trump's freewheeling declaration, he can now rightfully — I won't say "lawfully," since for him this is no law — arrest and detain American citizens without a warrant; hold them indefinitely, no crime charged; order the assassination of political opponents, critics, any undesirables at all; and ... no, I'll stop here. There's not room enough to note every previously unlawful act recorded in the federal criminal code that Trump has excused himself from. In 10 words. "He who saves his Country does not violate any law."

Defining what might fall into the act of saving one's country is as freewheeling as the self-declared dictator's exemption from law is. Lucky for him, he gets to define it. Today he may decide that saving this country means ordering U.S. Marshalls to padlock the doors of The New York Times — though certainly not The Washington Post's, not as long as its billionaire jackbootlicker remains in obsequious position. Or, he may choose to go a bit whimsical with his exciting new power by instructing Kash to fly Nancy Pelosi to the Gaza Strip, stripped.

You do find the now-established fact of America's dictatorship a matter of some interest, no? Perhaps even of monumental yet not staggering interest; we pretty much all knew this was coming. What staggers me, though, is that America's paper of record, the Times, appears to be only casually interested in the end of American constitutionalism. This morning the story, so to speak, trailed three others on its front page, smaller font: "Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He's "Saving His Country.'" (Nowhere on WaPo's front page, naturally.)

Dear Executive Editor, NYT: Trump did not suggest he'll break no laws in the service of saving his country. Unmistakably, explicitly and precisely he wrote just that. Ten words, done — and if any staggering was left to be done I should think Trump did the doing, for neither does your paper today speak out editorially on yesterday's established dictatorship, courtesy Donald J. Trump.

Authoritarian regimes tend to shun old national habits like voting in regularly scheduled elections. Thus to the above I'll add that yesterday the Times wrote that "Trump, through his words and actions, has repeatedly suggested that surviving two assassination attempts is evidence that he has divine backing to enforce his will." Another "suggestion," this one used legitly.

On the other hand, Trump's unequivocally thundering one-sentence Authoritarian U.S.A. proclamation — again to the NYT, just my take, I can read English — would also seem to suggest that Trump's psychotic vision of his divinely blessed one-man rule foresees at least the potential of canceled elections. National emergency, you know. It takes time to save a country, especially when an ignorant hooligan is doing it, and this one greatly appreciates as little interference as possible. And, of course, your understanding.

I can't be alone in reading "He who saves his Country does not violate any law" as a declaration of what I needn't characterize beyond what's written. Or am I?