@gulfgal98

Patriotism is an attachment to a homeland. This attachment can be viewed in terms of different features relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects. It encompasses a set of concepts closely related to those of nationalism.

here at caucus99 described Trump as a patriot? This is a disturbing claim which hardly reflects the vast majority of what I read here. However, I am not on here 24/7 so perhaps I missed it.

We need to resist despotism, but to protest against Trump the person reeks of sour grapes. It does not go very far to say that I hate Trump and he is not my President. However, pointing out how the current administration is a dangerous one and why is certainly far more effective.

We must remember that people voted for Trump due to the failure of the Democrats to address the economic issues that have ravaged large areas in the Midwest. These people were desperate because the Democrats failed to listen or offer an solutions. And the Democrats are still not listening nor offering solutions.

@mimi

..., they would buck their depraved benefactors, come together as Americans and make Bernie the leader of the Senate and therefore 4th in line for the Presidency. Trump would be impeached as would Pence if he didn't resign. Paul Ryan would become President and would resign in favor of Bernie, allowing the healing of America to begin.

@HenryAWallace Agree with you on everything and mucho applause--one tiny nitpick: Kerry did have foreign policy experience--he was on the Senate Foreign Relations committee from the 80s on, chaired his own (rather important, I think) subcommittee, which uncovered the Iran/Contra drug connection; he continued to work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Committee_report

That was some of his best work ever, I think. He chaired that committee in 2009, until he became Sec State. I don't think he was unqualified for the post. But you're completely right about Tillerson being no less qualified than HRC.

First, message boards being what they are, a disclaimer seems semi-obligatory: I like Chris Hedges and his politics a heck of a lot more than I like President Not Hillary and his politics. However, this piece of Hedges exemplifies several of my pet peeves about people who write columns like this for a living. This is their day job. Yet, all any of them seem to be able to do is point out the existence of a problem, which most or all of their readers already know anyway. However, they are very short on suggesting solutions, to put it mildly. And, if they do suggest any course of action, it's something lame and utterly ineffective, like contacting your representatives. Yeah, right. That works.

I must stop Trump? Sure. I'll get on that at 9 a.m. tomorrow. But what will I do after lunch? /sarcasm It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Trump was not the best choice for President. But what does an ordinary citizen do about that?

Second, at least one statement from the article could not be more messed up factually, namely:

Trump has not only attacked the courts but has also begun purges of the judiciary with his mass firing of U.S. attorneys.

This is Henny Pennying at its worst. First, U.S. attorneys are part of the Department of Justice, which is part of the Executive Branch, not the Judicial Branch. Firing every last one of them--which Trump has not done and cannot do--would not "purge" the judiciary, or even remove or affect a single federal judge. Per the Constitution of the United States, federal judges serve for life. The only way to remove a federal judge involuntarily is impeachment and removal by the House and Senate, same as for removing a POTUS. And we know how difficult that is.

Finally, U.S. attorney slots are either civil service positions, which are very difficult to mess with, or political positions. U.S. attorneys filling political positions are routinely fired whenever the new occupant of the White House is of a different political party than the prior occupant. During the Bush years, the number of civil service positions were increased and the number of political positions correspondingly reduced because Bush wanted to leave, in effect, a poison pill of his religiously-screened hires. (Remember Monica Goodling getting immunity to testify about all this, including how many lawyers she hired came from unaccredited religious law schools and had failed the bar exam? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Goodling)

In any event, Republican Reagan fired the political appointees who were US attorneys when he took over from Democrat Carter. Republican Poppy Bush did not fire U.S. attorneys filling political slots because the White House had not changed political parties. Bill Clinton fired them en masse. Bush the Lesser fired them gradually and, as stated, increased the number who could not be fired easily. Good ole "post-partisan" rookie Obama did not do a dramatic firing, which, IMO, was a mistake. Nonetheless, a President's firings of U.S. attorneys holding political slots has been standard operating procedure for decades.

That someone who has commented on federal politics for years professionally seems totally oblivious to these basics astounds me.

As far as discrediting media, cool! I have been trying to do that in my small way for years. These are the people who have done things like helping Bush lie us into Iraq and conspiring against Sanders. https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/1/how_the_media_iced_out_bernie; https://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/12/11/abc-world-news-tonight-has-devo... https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/26/study-confirms-network-evening-... (mediamatters.org being headed by none other than Brock). They have abandoned the role that earned them the protection of the First Amendment. They have earned instead our contempt.

As far as hiring a Secretary of State without diplomatic experience, give me a break. Obama, to name just one, did the same thing. During the 2008 primary, he mocked Hillary for claiming her stint as First Lady had given her foreign policy cred, which led her to make up a fairy tale about Tuzla. Then, he appointed her Secretary of State! And look how well she did! /sarcasm When appointed, Tillerson probably had far more experience negotiating with heads of state and diplomats than Her did when she was appointed. And, at least Trump, unlike Obama, did not appoint someone whose qualifications for the job he himself had mocked only several months earlier. Was John Kerry an experienced diplomat when appointed? Was Colin Powell?

Yes, President Trump stinks--duh!--but what is an ordinary person to do about that? Hedges does not tell us. And, bear in mind that the alternative to Trump is not having someone climb down from Mount Rushmore to re-occupy the Oval Office, but inaugurating Vice President Pence. And, even in the unlikely event of simultaneous removals, we'd get President Ayn R Ryan or President Tillerson. http://caucus99percent.com/content/impeach-impeach-part-1; http://caucus99percent.com/content/impeach-impeach-part-2 Finally, And, we do have a government of checks and balances, both de jure and de facto. I described some of them in this essay. http://caucus99percent.com/content/america-get-grip-and-take-breath See also, http://caucus99percent.com/content/frigate-ship-happens

So, let's see: panicking readers more than necessary and without suggesting any plan of action or remedy; getting the facts and law incredibly wrong on the judiciary/US attorney bit, double standards as to Obama-Clinton vs. Trump-Tillerson. And to what end? To fill another column?

All that said, no, Trump is not a patriot, any more than members of the KKK are patriots, even if they wrap themselves in the flag. He is a xenophobic, religiously-bigoted nationalist, which is why courts, who typically cave defer to the CIC in the face of claims of national security, keep striking down his travel restrictions as unconstitutional.

@Big Al
gave Trump the benefit of the doubt.
Most people here saw him to be the con man he is.

benefit of the doubt Trump has been given by many on the left and libertarians. It started out with "trump is fighting the deep state, the neocons hate him, he's against NATO, against regime changes, against interventionism, he'll focus more at home", etc. Now it's primarily, "oh my God! He's the same as Obama and Bush! He's just continuing the wars and imperialism, even increasing them! How could that be? He lied!"

Heh, no one could have predicted. Anyone remember that? It's kind of like a rerun of Obama only different.

Trump and his regime and the republicans in majority are very dangerous, there's no doubt. The democratic party is controlled by the oligarchy so it's just as dangerous at this point. We need to resist our government and our political system, not just Trump. But he shouldn't be given an inch on anything.

@SnappleBC in response to my first comment which is also the first comment on this essay.

That seems like quite a stretch. I would guess the prevalent attitude here is that he's a slimy, lying, oligarch sucking at the piggy trough... no different than those who went before him.

Insofar as your slide into despotism, I agree although I don't have any particular focus on Trump. He's just the guy leading the parade right now and honestly, he may be doing it unknowingly whereas folks like Obama and Clinton know full well what they do.

The problem, of course, is that very few other people agree with me. Some folks are worried about Fascism under Trump but they seem to think it's a feature that he brought to the table or, perhaps, the Republican party brought to the table. People like that are, to my eyes, fighting a shadow war between some fictitious "left" and "right" that barely exists.

I'm not aware of very many people, outside of this site, who are worried about the problem in a serious fashion.

@The Liberal Badger of some length to rebut the fallacies included in your comment. First, which Trump are we talking about. He's changed parties several times in the last decade and his position on issues has changed even more often. He was once strongly pro choice.

If Trump drained the swamp it was by inviting the inhabitants into the White House. Look at his appointees. He attacked Hillary because she was going to appoint bankers in her administration. Play around on Google for a few minutes and you'll see how many people from Goldman Sachs have been hired by Trump. This is the man who was going to come down hard on Wall Street. He's cutting regulations.

Despots do not disarm the population if the most armed segment is made up of the despot's supporters. Remember Hitler's Brown Shirts? People living in rural parts of the former Soviet Union were and remain well-armed. It isn't a threat to government. The effectiveness of hunting rifles against helicopter gunships is highly overrated. Oh, in 2000 Trump was in favor of bans on assault weapons, waiting periods and background checks.

But it's OK. What he says now is what he REALLY means--until tomorrow's 3 AM tweet.

I am new here, only been reading for several weeks, and I think this is only my second comment, but I like that this site is more open than I found at DailyKos (over the last 4 or 5 months), which is important to me since I have conservative friends, schoolmates, and coworkers so I try to see both sides of political discussion. This leads me to want to respond to this "Patriot" question because I have had a number of lengthy discussions around this very question in school and at work. Let me say first that I am not happy about Trump’s environmental policies, so any criticisms of Trump regarding this I would probably wholeheartedly agree with, but Obama supported TPP and Keystone and DAPL, and so did Hillary and so did Obama’s EPA, so I am no fan of the current Democratic Party on this either, just to be clear. I obviously like Stein’s position. However, having said that, I would like to respond to few questions and comments with regards to the patriot question, as well as, Chris Hedges’ comments on despots, our courts, and Trump’s cabinet, especially his comment about Rex Tillerson. An ex of mine is a huge fan of Hedges, so I have read and listened to quite a bit of his rhetoric over the last year or two.

Let me start by answering the question, if I may:
“What the ‘patriot Trump’ is loyal to?”

Trump, as a patriot, is loyal to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights, and in particular, the 2nd Amendment, Right to Bear Arms. I would add further, that all true patriots are loyal to the U.S. Constitution, in my opinion. I think this should be obvious since every single person who serves, either in government or the military, swears an oath to the U.S. Constitution. To his credit, Trump proved that he was a man of his word with respect to this when he nominated Neil Gorsuch, who is widely respected by both democrats and republicans alike, and who is a known constitutional originalist. Furthermore, Trump stated during his campaign the list of Supreme Court Justices from which he would make his selection, and Neil Gorsuch was on that list.

Hedges: “Trump has not only attacked the courts but has also begun purges of the judiciary with his mass firing of U.S. attorneys”

I find this comment by Hedges to be intellectually dishonest and intentionally misleading, since every administration replaces the U.S. Attorneys with his own, as many in the media have noted. I also find it dishonest of Hedges characterize Trump’s “criticism” as an “attack,” since Trump’s comments are merely Trump exercising his own 1st Amendment Rights, as a citizen, as Trump himself has fairly noted in his own defense. Trump did not like the judicial opposition to his EO’s, and Trump criticized the rulings as being politically motivated and a violation of the constitutional powers, and from my understanding of the arguments, though I am no attorney, the legal language seems pretty straight forward, Trump is correct. And, as soon as Gorsuch is confirmed, and everyone knows he will be, those rulings will be sent up to the Supreme Court and they will be overturned and Trump’s entirely legal EO’s will be enforced.

Hedges: “Trump has continued to attempt to discredit the press ...”

Well, to be fair, the press has been pushing this bs “Russian Conspiracy” narrative for months, which everyone knows is the epitome of fake news, and entirely biased since they ignored Hillary’s corrupt connections to Russia, (and the press’ transparently doctored polls leading up to the election were also fake news), so again, Trump is merely exercising his 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Speech. Again, this is to me 100% Patriotic. I don’t see armed troops shutting down CNN or MSNBC or NY TIMES? Do you? So, characterizing comments on twitter as “attack” or “despot” seems intellectually dishonest and intentionally misleading. Hedges is clearly biased, which is fine, as long as one is honest and fair, which he is not.

Hedges: “Repression will become steadily more overt and severe. Dissent will be equated with terrorism.” ... “The victims cannot believe that the descent into barbarity is real..”

I find this comment to be especially egregious, almost hypocritical, since Hedges is a known communist and the only frightening despot-like barbarity that I see today that are being justifiably characterized as “terrorism” are these fascist militant mobs of Antifa Communist /Nazi thugs going around with masks dressed in black (i.e., they are the modern day “brown-shirts”) ----- with sticks, pepper spray, tazers, Molotov cocktails ---- starting violent riots, bashing heads, blowing up things, etc --- in short, the Antifa kids are doing everything that the brainwashed “Nazi Youth” fascists did --- claiming that they are “anti-fascist” or fighting fascism when it is THEY who are using the fascist militant tactics to terrorize people who express opposing viewpoints in order to deny conservatives of their 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Speech, and the Antifa kids are openly bragging about it at colleges all across the nation, and teachers are even supporting them, or worse, they are instigating, inciting or even participating in them. They openly want to silence opposing viewpoints, mislabeling conservative viewpoints as “hate-speech” when it is the Antifa thugs who are spewing violent hate and bashing heads... to silence. I have yet to see Hedges denounce these barbaric terrorist actions by the Antifa communist thugs, but if he has, please enlighten me.

In response to the barbaric Antifa terrorist mobs at Berkley, Trump did suggest that if U.C. Berkley is not going to support Freedom of Speech, that maybe the Federal government should stop funding U.C.Berkley, but this could hardly be called an “attack on Universities” ... rather, this is clearly a defense of the U.S. Constitutional 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Speech, i.e., “patriotic.”

Hedges: “But Trump will deal the coup de grâce to the diplomatic corps. Despots replace diplomats with sycophants with no diplomatic experience, such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who promise to impose the despot’s will on the rest of the world.”

I think that Hedges’ characterization of Tillerson as a “sycophant with no diplomatic experience,” is colored by Hedges’ communist bias. Tillerson clearly has extensive (what can only be described as) “diplomatic” experience dealing with foreign nations as the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, and to suggest otherwise is, yet again I believe, intellectually dishonest. I listened to the audio-recording of Tillerson’s recent interview regarding his diplomatic efforts in Asia, which is obviously a highly charged topic today, and I felt like his deliberative measured words sounded far more thoughtful and diplomatic than any I have heard from Kerry or Clinton as SoS. I know that Tillerson was widely criticized by the press because he did not take that huge plane and ferry around a press pool, but honestly, why should he? What diplomatic purpose does that serve? Why should tax payers foot the bill for Washington D.C. elite press to take trips overseas, especially when all of those media organizations have local offices in all of those regions? And further, why should the SoS make diplomatic statements on sensitive diplomatic issues via the press prior to meeting with foreign leaders? Tillerson has been making joint press announcements with foreign leaders, both before and after their meetings. Makes sense to me. This demonstrates to me far more diplomatic savvy than anyone in our state department has demonstrated in decades. I mean, seriously. And given how many of Obama’s ambassador appointments were clearly tied to donations, as was revealed by those wikileaks dumps 6 or 8 months ago, this is not something I have much respect for when comparing to the previous administration, especially when Hedges is characterizing Tillerson as a “sycophant.” The only “shared value” that I see echoed by Tillerson of Trump’s agenda, which was stated many times by Trump both during the election and post presidency, is the anti-globalist agenda, protecting United States’ national interests, but this hardly qualifies to me as Tillerson being a sycophant, this is nothing more than the singular agenda of Trump’s candidacy, which any and people whom Trump appoints should be aligned with. It is the job of each President to appoint people who will execute his agenda and for Hedges to characterize this “alignment” in a disparaging derogatory manner, calling Tillerson a “sycophant” is, yet even again, intellectually dishonest. In fact, I think this reveals rather glaringly that Hedges just doesn’t like Tillerson, maybe because Hedges is a communist and considers anyone who supports capitalism to be a “sycophant” ... maybe.

Lastly, I would like to respond to this characterization of Trump as a “despot” (a ruler or other person who holds absolute power, typically one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way) which I find to be rather ignorant of Hedges, since Trump supports the 2nd Amendment, and no despot would ever support and defend an individual’s right to bear arms, the two are mutually exclusive. The first thing that a despot must do is disarm the populace, and Trump obviously championed the 2nd Amendment in almost every one of his speeches during his candidacy, and as noted above, once President, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, someone who supports the 2nd Amendment, so, if anything, Trump is the antithesis of a “despot” and anyone (like Hedges or your German friends) who does not know this is ignorant of American history, ignorant of the American Revolution, ignorant of the U.S. Constitution – Bill of Rights, specifically, the 2nd Amendment, Right to Bear Arms. Additionally, Trump’s rather clear “States Rights” policies, i.e., the 10th Amendment, which he also stated numerous times during his candidacy, and which he followed through on as President, also invalidates any claim that Trump is a “despot” and therefore, either Hedges is ignorant or deceitful with these disparaging claims demonizing Trump in this manner, personally, I think it is both, given this article, as well as, given what I have seen and heard from Hedges in the past. I've never really been very impressed with him.

@The Liberal Badger but at c99 we like issues. You've raised some. We like reasoned opinions. You've given some. The point at issue in my mind is not what is "patriotism"? That's a very difficult question to answer as many prior commentators have discussed. Far leftists and right wingers may both call themselves patriots. They have quite different interpretations of the word. I am suspicious of using that word, as others have mentioned, when it is being used as an ideological cudgel to coerce in some fashion agreement with a particular point of view.

Therefore I would refrain from calling anyone a patriot. And it would suit you well to avoid name calling, such as communist. So what if he were a communist? What if he's merely a socialist? Or how about an oligarchic whore? Does the name calling justify OR undermine any of the argument. The bit about destroying the judiciary is definitely a mistake--hyperbole? unintended?

One of the things that separates c99 from GOS is the lack of name calling and presence of mutual respect for fellow community members. We also encourage independence of thought. Chris Hedges isn't a member of this community but he tries to make arguments, some of which succeed and some of which fail. He deserves the right to a point by point refutation (or agreement) such as you have proposed. Even Darnold Trump deserves a rational debate of ideas if he ever offers any. You saw that, did you? I engaged at name calling. But I did not do it to support an argument. Yes, we all have emotions here, which often rise to the surface, but self-control is the usual here.

I am not a moderator. But I invite you to contribute more. You can swear, be satirical, or sarcastic. But if you are to argue an ISSUE, please use facts as opposed to name-calling.

I am new here, only been reading for several weeks, and I think this is only my second comment, but I like that this site is more open than I found at DailyKos (over the last 4 or 5 months), which is important to me since I have conservative friends, schoolmates, and coworkers so I try to see both sides of political discussion. This leads me to want to respond to this "Patriot" question because I have had a number of lengthy discussions around this very question in school and at work. Let me say first that I am not happy about Trump’s environmental policies, so any criticisms of Trump regarding this I would probably wholeheartedly agree with, but Obama supported TPP and Keystone and DAPL, and so did Hillary and so did Obama’s EPA, so I am no fan of the current Democratic Party on this either, just to be clear. I obviously like Stein’s position. However, having said that, I would like to respond to few questions and comments with regards to the patriot question, as well as, Chris Hedges’ comments on despots, our courts, and Trump’s cabinet, especially his comment about Rex Tillerson. An ex of mine is a huge fan of Hedges, so I have read and listened to quite a bit of his rhetoric over the last year or two.

Let me start by answering the question, if I may:
“What the ‘patriot Trump’ is loyal to?”

Trump, as a patriot, is loyal to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights, and in particular, the 2nd Amendment, Right to Bear Arms. I would add further, that all true patriots are loyal to the U.S. Constitution, in my opinion. I think this should be obvious since every single person who serves, either in government or the military, swears an oath to the U.S. Constitution. To his credit, Trump proved that he was a man of his word with respect to this when he nominated Neil Gorsuch, who is widely respected by both democrats and republicans alike, and who is a known constitutional originalist. Furthermore, Trump stated during his campaign the list of Supreme Court Justices from which he would make his selection, and Neil Gorsuch was on that list.

Hedges: “Trump has not only attacked the courts but has also begun purges of the judiciary with his mass firing of U.S. attorneys”

I find this comment by Hedges to be intellectually dishonest and intentionally misleading, since every administration replaces the U.S. Attorneys with his own, as many in the media have noted. I also find it dishonest of Hedges characterize Trump’s “criticism” as an “attack,” since Trump’s comments are merely Trump exercising his own 1st Amendment Rights, as a citizen, as Trump himself has fairly noted in his own defense. Trump did not like the judicial opposition to his EO’s, and Trump criticized the rulings as being politically motivated and a violation of the constitutional powers, and from my understanding of the arguments, though I am no attorney, the legal language seems pretty straight forward, Trump is correct. And, as soon as Gorsuch is confirmed, and everyone knows he will be, those rulings will be sent up to the Supreme Court and they will be overturned and Trump’s entirely legal EO’s will be enforced.

Hedges: “Trump has continued to attempt to discredit the press ...”

Well, to be fair, the press has been pushing this bs “Russian Conspiracy” narrative for months, which everyone knows is the epitome of fake news, and entirely biased since they ignored Hillary’s corrupt connections to Russia, (and the press’ transparently doctored polls leading up to the election were also fake news), so again, Trump is merely exercising his 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Speech. Again, this is to me 100% Patriotic. I don’t see armed troops shutting down CNN or MSNBC or NY TIMES? Do you? So, characterizing comments on twitter as “attack” or “despot” seems intellectually dishonest and intentionally misleading. Hedges is clearly biased, which is fine, as long as one is honest and fair, which he is not.

Hedges: “Repression will become steadily more overt and severe. Dissent will be equated with terrorism.” ... “The victims cannot believe that the descent into barbarity is real..”

I find this comment to be especially egregious, almost hypocritical, since Hedges is a known communist and the only frightening despot-like barbarity that I see today that are being justifiably characterized as “terrorism” are these fascist militant mobs of Antifa Communist /Nazi thugs going around with masks dressed in black (i.e., they are the modern day “brown-shirts”) ----- with sticks, pepper spray, tazers, Molotov cocktails ---- starting violent riots, bashing heads, blowing up things, etc --- in short, the Antifa kids are doing everything that the brainwashed “Nazi Youth” fascists did --- claiming that they are “anti-fascist” or fighting fascism when it is THEY who are using the fascist militant tactics to terrorize people who express opposing viewpoints in order to deny conservatives of their 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Speech, and the Antifa kids are openly bragging about it at colleges all across the nation, and teachers are even supporting them, or worse, they are instigating, inciting or even participating in them. They openly want to silence opposing viewpoints, mislabeling conservative viewpoints as “hate-speech” when it is the Antifa thugs who are spewing violent hate and bashing heads... to silence. I have yet to see Hedges denounce these barbaric terrorist actions by the Antifa communist thugs, but if he has, please enlighten me.

In response to the barbaric Antifa terrorist mobs at Berkley, Trump did suggest that if U.C. Berkley is not going to support Freedom of Speech, that maybe the Federal government should stop funding U.C.Berkley, but this could hardly be called an “attack on Universities” ... rather, this is clearly a defense of the U.S. Constitutional 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Speech, i.e., “patriotic.”

Hedges: “But Trump will deal the coup de grâce to the diplomatic corps. Despots replace diplomats with sycophants with no diplomatic experience, such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who promise to impose the despot’s will on the rest of the world.”

I think that Hedges’ characterization of Tillerson as a “sycophant with no diplomatic experience,” is colored by Hedges’ communist bias. Tillerson clearly has extensive (what can only be described as) “diplomatic” experience dealing with foreign nations as the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, and to suggest otherwise is, yet again I believe, intellectually dishonest. I listened to the audio-recording of Tillerson’s recent interview regarding his diplomatic efforts in Asia, which is obviously a highly charged topic today, and I felt like his deliberative measured words sounded far more thoughtful and diplomatic than any I have heard from Kerry or Clinton as SoS. I know that Tillerson was widely criticized by the press because he did not take that huge plane and ferry around a press pool, but honestly, why should he? What diplomatic purpose does that serve? Why should tax payers foot the bill for Washington D.C. elite press to take trips overseas, especially when all of those media organizations have local offices in all of those regions? And further, why should the SoS make diplomatic statements on sensitive diplomatic issues via the press prior to meeting with foreign leaders? Tillerson has been making joint press announcements with foreign leaders, both before and after their meetings. Makes sense to me. This demonstrates to me far more diplomatic savvy than anyone in our state department has demonstrated in decades. I mean, seriously. And given how many of Obama’s ambassador appointments were clearly tied to donations, as was revealed by those wikileaks dumps 6 or 8 months ago, this is not something I have much respect for when comparing to the previous administration, especially when Hedges is characterizing Tillerson as a “sycophant.” The only “shared value” that I see echoed by Tillerson of Trump’s agenda, which was stated many times by Trump both during the election and post presidency, is the anti-globalist agenda, protecting United States’ national interests, but this hardly qualifies to me as Tillerson being a sycophant, this is nothing more than the singular agenda of Trump’s candidacy, which any and people whom Trump appoints should be aligned with. It is the job of each President to appoint people who will execute his agenda and for Hedges to characterize this “alignment” in a disparaging derogatory manner, calling Tillerson a “sycophant” is, yet even again, intellectually dishonest. In fact, I think this reveals rather glaringly that Hedges just doesn’t like Tillerson, maybe because Hedges is a communist and considers anyone who supports capitalism to be a “sycophant” ... maybe.

Lastly, I would like to respond to this characterization of Trump as a “despot” (a ruler or other person who holds absolute power, typically one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way) which I find to be rather ignorant of Hedges, since Trump supports the 2nd Amendment, and no despot would ever support and defend an individual’s right to bear arms, the two are mutually exclusive. The first thing that a despot must do is disarm the populace, and Trump obviously championed the 2nd Amendment in almost every one of his speeches during his candidacy, and as noted above, once President, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, someone who supports the 2nd Amendment, so, if anything, Trump is the antithesis of a “despot” and anyone (like Hedges or your German friends) who does not know this is ignorant of American history, ignorant of the American Revolution, ignorant of the U.S. Constitution – Bill of Rights, specifically, the 2nd Amendment, Right to Bear Arms. Additionally, Trump’s rather clear “States Rights” policies, i.e., the 10th Amendment, which he also stated numerous times during his candidacy, and which he followed through on as President, also invalidates any claim that Trump is a “despot” and therefore, either Hedges is ignorant or deceitful with these disparaging claims demonizing Trump in this manner, personally, I think it is both, given this article, as well as, given what I have seen and heard from Hedges in the past. I've never really been very impressed with him.