Week 6

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.

1. Trump will keep his private security force while in office. This is unprecedented, and potentially dangerous.
2. Upon winning the Electoral College, Trump’s first official statement was a lie (electoral landslide).
3. The FBI search warrant used to gain access to Huma Abedin’s computer was made public. Most legal experts agreed, no probable cause. Nate Silver released additional data showing major moves in final days in swing states to Trump, around the time of the Comey letter. Almost no media follow up on this story. No politicians either.
4. A Politico article claims Trump was browbeating fellow Republicans into silence, by targeting those who speak out via Breitbart and his tweets.
5. On air, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said, “The left wants power taken away from white establishment….”
6. A Jewish family in Lancaster, PA was targeted by Breitbart and Fox with a false claim that they were behind the cancellation of an elementary school Christmas play.
7. Teen Vogue reported Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, met with the head of Austria’s neo-Nazi party.
8. Not a single A-list celebrity is willing to perform at Trump’s inauguration (at which he tweeted his anger). Several Rockettes, being made to perform, spoke out in protest.
9. Newt Gingrich suggested Trump should pardon his advisers who break the law.
10. Gingrich, after saying Trump wouldn’t actually drain the swamp, was forced by Trump to publicly apologize, and say Trump would.
11. The Embassy of Kuwait cancelled their longstanding reservation to host their National Day celebration at Four Seasons, citing political pressure, and changed it to Trump’s Hotel in DC.
12. Trump met the CEOs of Lockheed and Boeing, after tweeting false/negative information that caused more their stocks to crater.
13. A senior executive at Oracle resigned over that company’s CEO participation on Trump’s transition team.
14. Eric and Donald Jr. offered a $1 million hunting trip, which included access to their dad, via a foundation they created. Upon calls of conflict of interest, and investigation into the foundation, the offer was cancelled.
15. Trump’s team instructed the State Department to turn over a list of “gender-related staffing, programming, and funding.”
16. Trump tweeted a planned build up of our nuclear arms, reversing three decades of disarmament.
17. Days later, he and Putin shared admiring letters exchanges. Putin publicly castigated Hillary as a “sore loser,” and Trump agreed via a tweet. No US elected officials responded to either.

Copyright Amy Siskind, December 24, 2016