Putin Badass Quotes

Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan become case studies on how the foundations of democracies are shaken to their roots by elected officials, who establish themselves as czars, emperors, and sultans masquerading as democratic presidents. Yes, they continue to reign over countries that are democracies in name only. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people is weaponized against those who dare challenge the ruling establishment. The rise of white Christianity during the second half of the twentieth century was purposely designed to be nondemocratic. Paul Weyrich, known as the “founding father of the conservative movement,” the architect of the Heritage Foundation, and a leader of the Moral Majority, made it perfectly clear he was against the democratic principle of one person, one vote. During his address at the seminal Religious Right gathering in Dallas during the fall of 1980 he said, “I don’t want everybody to vote…. As a matter of fact, our leverage in elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”34 In other words, when nonwhites vote, white Christians lose, so we do not want those people voting.

Dehumanizing opponents creates an atmosphere in which violence becomes acceptable and desirable in order to right perceived wrongs. The caudillo stance, which dismisses any tolerance of political dissent, helps us understand why Trump fawns over Putin, Orban, and Erdoğan,