So don’t be a sucker.

“Don’t Be a Sucker” was designed to warn pre-internet moviegoers about the dangers of being taken in by a populist demagogue. It’s seventy five years old, so it barely predates Don the Con. It also perfectly encapsulates a what he is, and always has been, a dyed-in-the-wool conman.

However, the fact that he is a Russian-backed conman puts him in another category. He and his family are not just in it for their personal gain (in the form of Russian hotels, and even possibly huge shares of Rosneft. 

Go down this incomplete list of pro-Russia actions Don the Con has taken in direct contravention to American commitments and interests:

1. Exiting the Iran deal. Oil price rises, American influence declines.
   
2. Praising strongmen: Duterte, Erdogan, Kim, Orban have all been praised by Trump, making Putin’s mob-run government seem legitimate and normal. American style democratic norms have been criticized as dumb and weak. How is it in our best interests to criticize the form of government we use and promote while praising an adversarial system?
3. Attempting to lift Russia Sanctions for seizing Crimea: the sovereignty of a country is a primary tenet of the rule of law. Nevertheless, Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula doesn’t seem to be sanction-worthy for Trump. Our NATO allies depend on this precept for their survival! The negative impact on our NATO alliance is extreme and this rewards Russia’s aggression.
4. Korean military exercises: our armed forces and South Korea’s require regular cooperative exercises to maintain readiness. We have gained neither security nor specific commitments from North Korea. But Russia has gained a reduced military readiness stance by U.S. forced near its borders.

This man is not in office for you, people like you, or even people you like. His policies on trade directly harm his own narrow constituency. His  rhetoric has consistently targeted minorities and his slogan itself is dredged from the darkest parts of American history. He’s in office for himself and for Putin (to save himself). He came into office in violation of his oath of office on day one. His actions and the actions of a still rising number of convicted flunkies indicate he’s guilty, psychologically duplicitous and fully-compromised. This cannot end well, but it will end. Let your conscience be your guide and most of all …

Don’t be a sucker!

Diaspora*