“Lock Her Up!” Shades of Nuremberg on the campaign trail

A Democracy relies on norms of behavior to work. Everything can be spelled out in laws, so at some point laws are secondary to having people who instinctually know what is good for maintaining the democracy and what is bad for it.

These Trump campaign rallies are terrible for democracy, and Trump simply doesn’t give a shit. He doesn’t give a single fuck about democratic norms. That’s terrible. But what is worse is the Republican Party going along with it. That’s the bigger betrayal. There’s your treason. Trump is a reckless sociopath who should be home yelling at his TV. The GOP, allowing this, is a bunch of sycophants and craven cowards. The rabid throngs being hectored and cajoled into the cattle chute of fascism, they are simply pathetic.

“Democrats put illegal immigrants before they put American citizens. What the hell is going on?” asked Trump, prompting the crowd to chant “Build the wall!”

He even invoked his campaign kickoff speech, held three years ago this week, in which he declared that Mexico “wasn’t sending their best” in terms of migrants crossing into the U.S. That wasn’t the only throwback moment at the rally, featuring a packed arena festooned with American flags and approximately 8,000 people responding in chants to many of Trump’s cues.

He fumed over what he deemed “dishonest” coverage of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He raved about the economy and his tough new tariffs meant to create fair trade. And he erroneously suggested that a recent Justice Department watchdog report into the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe proved his innocence in the special counsel’s Russia investigation while covering up Clinton’s guilt.

“Have you been seeing this whole scam? Do you believe what you’re seeing — how that no matter what she did, no matter how many crimes she committed, which were numerous, they wanted her to be innocent,” Trump said. “But with me, nothing. No collusion, no nothing. They wanted to put us in trouble.”

The crowd responded with a “Lock her up!” chant. Trump simply shook his head.

Again attacking the special counsel probe as a “witch hunt,” Trump went on to blast the media for focusing on the recent immigration crisis at the expense of covering what he contends is bias against him at the FBI. He also accused the media of providing one-sided reports about his Singapore summit with Kim.

“We had a great meeting. We had great chemistry,” said Trump, who predicted that Kim “will turn that country into a great successful country.”

Energized by the roaring crowd in his first rally since the Singapore summit, Trump soaked in the applause and caustically dismissed a few protesters who tried to interrupt. He beamed as the crowd chanted “Space Force!” in response to his plan to create a new branch of the military to safeguard the cosmos. And he leaned hard into his self-appointed role as champion of the working class and defender of traditional American values, but also mocked the idea that his opponents — whether liberals or media executives — were always called “the elite.”

“The elite! Why are they elite?” Trump wondered. “I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president and they didn’t.”

Via TPM