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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKrugman, NYT: America Becomes a Stan
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/opinion/america-becomes-a-stan.htmlIn 2015 the city of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, was graced with a new public monument: a giant gold-plated sculpture portraying the countrys president on horseback. This may strike you as a bit excessive. But cults of personality are actually the norm in the stans, the Central Asian countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union, all of which are ruled by strongmen who surround themselves with tiny cliques of wealthy crony capitalists.
Americans used to find the antics of these regimes, with their tinpot dictators, funny. But whos laughing now?
We are, after all, about to hand over power to a man who has spent his whole adult life trying to build a cult of personality around himself; remember, his charitable foundation spent a lot of money buying a six-foot portrait of its founder. Meanwhile, one look at his Twitter account is enough to show that victory has done nothing to slake his thirst for ego gratification. So we can expect lots of self-aggrandizement once hes in office. I dont think it will go as far as gold-plated statues, but really, who knows?
Meanwhile, with only a couple of weeks until Inauguration Day, Donald Trump has done nothing substantive to reduce the unprecedented or, as he famously wrote on Twitter, unpresidented conflicts of interest created by his business empire. Pretty clearly, he never will in fact, hes already in effect using political office to enrich himself, with some of the most blatant examples involving foreign governments steering business to Trump hotels.
-snip-
The only question now is whether the rot has gone so deep that nothing can stop Americas transformation into Trumpistan. One thing is for sure: Its destructive as well as foolish to ignore the uncomfortable risk, and simply assume that it will all be O.K. It wont.
Americans used to find the antics of these regimes, with their tinpot dictators, funny. But whos laughing now?
We are, after all, about to hand over power to a man who has spent his whole adult life trying to build a cult of personality around himself; remember, his charitable foundation spent a lot of money buying a six-foot portrait of its founder. Meanwhile, one look at his Twitter account is enough to show that victory has done nothing to slake his thirst for ego gratification. So we can expect lots of self-aggrandizement once hes in office. I dont think it will go as far as gold-plated statues, but really, who knows?
Meanwhile, with only a couple of weeks until Inauguration Day, Donald Trump has done nothing substantive to reduce the unprecedented or, as he famously wrote on Twitter, unpresidented conflicts of interest created by his business empire. Pretty clearly, he never will in fact, hes already in effect using political office to enrich himself, with some of the most blatant examples involving foreign governments steering business to Trump hotels.
-snip-
The only question now is whether the rot has gone so deep that nothing can stop Americas transformation into Trumpistan. One thing is for sure: Its destructive as well as foolish to ignore the uncomfortable risk, and simply assume that it will all be O.K. It wont.
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Krugman, NYT: America Becomes a Stan (Original Post)
highplainsdem
Jan 2017
OP
Ameristan, with an UN-President appointing a regime dedicated to sucking every penny from
suffragette
Jan 2017
#7
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)1. Trump has killed the myth of "American Exceptionalism".
The US is just like any other banana-republic.
Wounded Bear
(58,673 posts)2. A dark, but accurate, assessment...nt
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)3. Here's one guy who won't be getting invites
to the King's court, keep telling it like it is Paul.
Buns_of_Fire
(17,183 posts)4. A gold-plated statue of himself? Nah.
He'll charge gold prices, but it'll REALLY just be a couple cans of RustOleum Metallic Gold. It'll fool enough of the people enough of the time.
Pootie-Poot isn't gonna spring for REAL gold.
highplainsdem
(49,006 posts)5. Like the fake "marble" elephants at the Trump Taj Mahal:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/david-cay-johnston-trump-atlantic-city-debacle-article-1.2821933
Trump the master salesman, a modern P.T. Barnum, called the Taj the eighth wonder of the world and claimed it had white elephants out front carved from marble. On opening day in 1990, one of the fiberglass pachyderms had a broken tusk that hung in the wind for months.
The Taj was so cheap and tacky, even for a casino, that when it opened in 1990 my front page Philadelphia Inquirer story began with this: What hath gaud wrought?
The Taj was so cheap and tacky, even for a casino, that when it opened in 1990 my front page Philadelphia Inquirer story began with this: What hath gaud wrought?
2naSalit
(86,667 posts)6. My mind's image of it all from wayt out west...
?w=300&h=210
suffragette
(12,232 posts)7. Ameristan, with an UN-President appointing a regime dedicated to sucking every penny from
our established social and educational systems and the environment that they can.