Authoritarian Leaders Attacked, A Week of DDT

Leaders of two Russia-supporting countries are facing disasters. Slovakian prime minister Robert Rico is finally out of danger although still in serious condition after being shot multiple times last week in the first assassination attempt of a European political leader in over 20 years. Fico was elected for the fourth term after promising peace between Russia and Ukraine. He also followed through on his guarantee to stop military aid to Ukraine. The Slovakian government blames the country’s polarization on the media and wants to take control of it.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is missing in the country’s mountainous East Azerbaijan province with his Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other officials after their helicopter had a “hard landing” (aka crash). Rain and fog are delaying the search mission with 40 teams. The event comes slightly over a month after Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles following Israel’s deadly bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria. The president’s death would transfer power to the first vice president, the conservative Mohammad Mokhber, and an election would be called within six months. A protégé to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Raisi was a potential successor for his position within the country’s Shiite theocracy.

The Iranian government has made no official statement as of late Sunday, but state TV reported “no sign of life” at the site and the helicopter carrying the president complete burned. Rescuers haven’t yet reached the site. Last week, U.S. and Iranian officials reportedly met indirectly in Oman about ways to contain Israel’s war in Gaza. Israel has not yet made any response to the accident.

DDT for the Past Week:

The first presidential debate between President Joe Biden and Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) is under six weeks away—if DDT actually appears—and DDT’s speech at the NRA conference indicates he has new mental struggles. After keeping the crowd waiting for two hours past the scheduled time to begin, he appeared to freeze for 33 seconds an hour into his speech, similar to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) freezing at a press conference last summer. DDT was praising Texas, the conference location, when he became silent, shaking his head and then looking to one side. MAGA excuses were just “listening,” no teleprompter, and even an “effect.” In another part of the speech, DDT stopped to swat at a fly.

The U.S. mainstream press reporting of the speech kept to DDT’s comments about preserving the Second Amendment, omitting his other topics such as calling for Biden’s execution and DDT’s proposal that he might run for a third term in violation of the U.S. Constitution. At a fundraiser in Minnesota, DDT leaned on the lectern and almost fell down before ranting about his event workers being “crappy.” He also started gearing himself up to lie about election fraud in 2024 by telling his audience that he won the state in 2020 when he lost it by 20,000 votes.

The most bizarre discussion about DDT this past week is about his being “sex god” after Fox’s “comedian” brought up the topic. After Stormy Daniels said she blacked out during intercourse, Fox “comedian” Greg Guttman said that DDT “screwed the brains out of her—that makes him a sex god.” With no evidence, conservatives admire his sexual prowess. Samuel Perry, author of books on conservative Christianity called his “masculinity … so masculine that his sexual appetites cannot be contained. That’s almost a good sign.” He compared DDT to Old Testament warriors who are not chaste: (DDT, the sex god in 2006 when he had a one-night stand with Daniels.)

 “In my research, I found that evangelicals tend to see sexual temptation as just a normal part of being a Christian man—that God gave men tremendous sexual appetites because he wanted them to be leaders and initiators and people who take charge.”

(Left: DDT, the sex god in 2006 when he had a one-night stand with Daniels.)

Perry points out that evangelicals want men to sexually assault women but women are supposed to be the responders, not initiators. Women willingly participate in sex are perhaps “lying just to get some godly person in trouble [or] to get the cops in trouble, to get a pastor in trouble.” They aren’t victims. 

The MAGA folk also admire John F. Kennedy Jr. for his pictures without a shirt and whose brain was partially eaten by a worm. Worried about the competition, DDT declared that JFK isn’t the dedicated anti-vaxxer despite the evidence for JFK’s beliefs. DDT now tries to convince his followers that “Junior,” as he calls JFK, belongs to the “radical left.” Rex Huppke declares that the situation makes him “want to pilot a rocket ship into the sun, as it’s clear humanity’s time is up.” Or “high-level satire.” (Some people might want to disagree with the descriptor “high-level.”)

While DDT stands outside the courtroom preening for the press, he tends to make stupid comments. Thursday’s admission was that his NDA with Stormy Daniels is illegal, as DA Alvin Bragg had alleged as part of the prosecution.

Meanwhile, DDT spent almost as much money in the first 2024 quarter as he’s took in for that time, his collection of PACs spending about $217 million compared to $220 in contributions. Almost one-third of that money, $70 million, was spent trying to get more money with an equivalent, $69.3 million, going to legal fees. Only $65.5 million, 31 percent of the contributions, remained for campaigning. Politico’s Jessica Piper compared DDT’s situation to that of his opponent:

“Biden raised more money, spent less of it on fundraising and none on legal costs, saved more, and has more waiting to hit his campaign bank account than Trump did.”

Biden’s three groups, half of DDT’s political committees, raised $365 million and spent $138 million. They transferred $79 million to the DNC and state parties.

DDT also received bad news in a 243-page letter from the Federal Communications Commission (FEC) about his donations exceeding the law of $3,300 per individual to a candidate per election. One example was tiny but repeated donations from one person such as Gail Lopez, self-identified as a retiree from Lacombe (LA) who made1,450 separate contributions in under 17 months, 116 of them for one penny and another 228 for under a nickel. The total was $4,272, exceeding the limit. Another self-identified donor, Karen Anjoorian from Suffolk (VA), made 12 contributions for nine cents, two of them on the same day with other contributions for 18 cents, 23 cents, and 32 cents. The total rose to $3,523.49. The FEC listed over 100 other people who violated election law.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), once a vociferous critic of DDT, is now meeting what might be a new litmus test for VP—worship of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is the only leading VP candidate to provide a full-throated support for Russia to defeat Ukraine.

Except for DDT’s New York criminal trial, all the legal cases against DDT are static at this time as decisions are waiting for an appeals court in the case of the Florida RICO case and for the Supreme Court decision about DDT’s absolute immunity in the case of DDT’s overturning the election in Washington, D.C. Florida’s classified documents case in Florida is always on hiatus while Judge Aileen Cannon spends her time trying to figure out how to get DDT off the hook. Daily reports of the New York case about DDT’s alleged election interference through his attempted coverup of his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Historian/author Federico Finchelstein’s new book, The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy, relates the world’s authoritarian movements to DDT’s MAGA movement. The author gives reasons for the danger from DDT and the other autocrats, identifying four “primary characteristics” of fascism: xenophobia, propaganda, political violence, and dictatorship. DDT has succeeded with the first three and hopes to create his dictatorship if he is elected. Without it, Finchelstein writes, “He is, as Finchelstein writes, a ‘populist aspirant to fascism’—or…. a ‘wannabe fascist.'” Casey Michel has a detailed commentary on the book.

Robert Reich gave the five steps for DDT to make the U.S. a fascist state:

Use threats of violence to gain power.

Consolidate power.

Establish a police state.

Jail the opposition.

Undermine the free press.

These steps are in DDT’s Project 2025, which he plans to implement if he is elected.

As a “wannabe Fascist leader,” DDT also possesses the personality traits of cult leaders whose power compels possibly rational people to commit horrific actions in following DDT:  magnetic charisma, coercive authoritarian control blocking personal preferences, intolerance to being wrong by blaming others, malignant sociopathic narcissism with no empathy for pain they inflict, insatiable neediness, unpredictable (such as DDT demanding chaos), insecure attachment issues in early years, delusional beliefs, sense of grandiosity of a higher purpose, and exploitation.