President Trump is responding to terrorism the way demagogues and dictators do
Source: Washington Post
President Trump is responding to terrorism the way demagogues and dictators do
After the attack in New York, he's playing to his most dangerous instincts.
By Terence Szuplat November 3 at 6:00 AM
The terrorists behind the attack, he said, need to be “rubbed out.” “Law and order” must be preserved. The courts are “against the country” and “the media should not have unlimited freedom.” “I will allow the military to try you,” the president warned terrorists, “and put you to death.”
You could be forgiven for thinking these were the words of President Trump reacting to Tuesday’s terrorist attack in New York City that killed eight and wounded 12. It’s all there: The familiar Trump bravado. The call for swift justice. The indictment of other institutions — the courts, the press — that are said to be too weak or unwilling to help safeguard the nation.
But each of the quotes above are from authoritarians who have exploited terrorist attacks to undermine rule of law in their own countries and for whom Trump has breathlessly professed admiration. And this week, he has also sought to emulate them.
It was Vladimir Putin, who as Russian prime minister in 1999, said terrorists who bombed apartment buildings in Moscow, killing hundreds, needed to be “rubbed out” — fueling Russia’s brutal second war on Chechnya and Putin’s rise to the presidency. As for Putin’s suffocation of Russian democracy since, and the killing of journalists, Trump once replied, “at least he’s a leader.”
It was President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi — the military dictator of Egypt — who signed a law this year banning nongovernmental organizations from work that undermines “law and order,” part of a crackdown that has jailed tens of thousands of political opponents and led to widespread torture and extrajudicial killings. “He’s a fantastic guy,” Trump said after welcoming Sissi to the Oval Office. “He’s done a good job.”
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/03/president-trump-is-responding-to-terrorism-the-way-demagogues-and-dictators-do/