Trump is staging a coup in the USA and the last four living presidents are doing nothing to save the country they served. Why is that? When will they act to save their country?
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Where are the presidents? By which I mean, where are Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden right now, when it comes to the crisis that is engulfing the USA?
Now, I know that there is a convention that says past presidents do not interfere in the current president's activities in the White House, but Trump has torn up every convention that exists in the USA and that's my entire point. He is literally staging a coup and there is a reason why the US gives past presidents the continuing title of President of the USA, and it continues to give them security briefings, and it continues to give them access to the workings of government so that they are fully briefed on what is going on.
They know what is happening. They know that everything in the States is going wrong because quite literally, the balance of power between the people, the Congress, the Senate, the judiciary, and the President is shifting entirely towards the role and function of the president alone.
An oligarchy, an autocracy, frankly, a dictatorship is being created by Trump, and they are silent.
I do not believe that this is a moment when Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden can be silent.
I believe that this is the moment when they have to speak out.
They have to speak out to protect the office that they once held, and for which reason they are still given privileges.
They have to speak out to protect the institutions of government, which they were once tasked with doing.
They have to speak out to protect the balance of power that is represented by the various organisations that, in combination, did create the balance that supposedly protected the US Constitution and its hatred of the role of a king, which is clearly what Trump is trying to reintroduce.
They have to speak out on behalf of the American people whose rights are being walked all over, but they're not saying a word.
I don't understand that.
We know that George W. Bush hates Trump.
We know that Barack Obama's wife, Michelle Obama, would not go to Trump's inauguration because she felt that Trump had threatened Barack Obama's life.
We know that Mike Pence's wife would not go to the inauguration for the same reason.
We know that there is, of course, no love lost between Joe Biden and Trump, or between the Clintons and Trump, and yet not a word is said.
I think that we've reached the point in time with regard to the Trump administration where silence is not an option.
These men have influence. They still have some power. They could literally use that to say what is going on is wrong.
Of course, there is massive risk for them. In doing so, Michelle Obama was right. Trump did, I have no doubt, threaten Barack Obama's life and Mike Pence's wife is right in exactly the same way. It was clear that Trump was utterly indifferent to Mike Pence's life on 6 January, 2021, as he was indifferent to the lives of those who literally lost them as a consequence of the actions on that day.
But this is not the moment for weak-hearted standing back and taking the easy life. This is a moment where, if these men had any conviction in the office that they once held, then they would speak out and say what is happening in the USA right now is wrong.
I am looking to these presidents to speak with one voice. I stress cross party. Unity is important here because the country would notice if they said Trump is staging a coup.
The world would notice if they said Trump is staging a coup.
The world would realize that we are facing a fascist. The world would realize that we are facing a fascist threat if they said so.
So, I'm calling on the four presidents - the last four remaining presidents who are alive before Trump - to stand together and say Trump is threatening everything that the USA is by literally staging a coup that threatens the very existence of that country as a functioning entity.
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Perhaps they are frightened?
Perhaps they hope that at some point in the future “normal service will be resumed”. ? (oooh lets keep quiet it should be over soon).
They are all of them 100% culpable for the rise and emergence of Mango.
As such, they were unfit to be presidents then and their silence demonstrates this now.
Dumbya was just stupid, but Clinton – he is 100% responsible for the 2007/2008 crash & Obama for saving Wall St not main St.
Aren’t the last four US Presidents the reason why America has Trump ?
Don’t get me started on The Democrats , with Trump’s first term as President in the middle , the Democrats won 3 out of the last 4 US elections and did exactly what with those years in power ? .
The last election had them spending the most dollars during the election campaign and every high profile celebrity backing them publicly and they were still trounced .
The biggest problem Trump critics have over here and I dare say in Europe too is that they only look at New York , Washington and the East coast plus California and perhaps only ever visit those areas in the US , I’m talking mainly journalists or business people .
To see the real America and understand why Trump got elected they need to go out to Arkansas , Pennsylvania , Idaho , Indiana , Kentucky and Michigan etc etc .
The last four US Presidents certainly didn’t care too much about these states .
Trump is the proof of the pudding .
The Democrats only controlled both House and Senate for the first part of Obama’s first term. The Tea Party with their austerity agenda took that away at the first mid term elections.
Trump got the lowest majority in the popular vote since 2000. Not exactly trounced.
The Republicans made much of the plight of the American working class in the election. They don’t really care. The problem is that both parties are neo-liberal. Until that changes, I see little improvement
The American people are the reason why those 4 presidents were elected. This is just another way of saying that it is the voters fault. The institutional checks and balances do not have the power that they had in the Obama era. US media has signed a peace deal with Trump. The media boses are not going to give air time to former presidents to make them look like fools. Their survival instincts are kicking in and they will grovel to the republican party which is now fully maga. US investigative journalism has been in decline for some time. They only cover interests of high power and have to make deals with it to gain media access.
As an add on to your video I’d encourage everyone to watch these two segments of last night’s Chris Hayes show on MSNBC. Start with the second from the top which includes a longer version of the dreadful interview/ambush of Zelensky but then moves into a very serious and compelling analysis of where this leaves the US and western democracies. As Hayes notes, the post WW2 order has been irreparably destroyed.
https://www.msnbc.com/all
I agree, it has been
The former Presidents don’t tend to interfere out of respect for the Office of President (not due to any respect for the present incumbent). They only speak out about the candidates in the run-up to elections.
Additionally, Trump would remove their protection detail in a heartbeat leaving them – and their families – open to attack by every anti-American terrorist group in the world.
I agree with Mike and what is also suggested by your post.
The former presidents are all quite well off and less likely to be hurt by Trump – there has got to be a culture of contentment there that thinks that Trump will be a passing phase. If he makes moves on them, it would go to court as well. They’re not poor people.
Maybe you know, it’s all about cynicism – a cynicism that comes from going around in circles because each president has contributed stupidly and almost innocently to Trumps success because there are no new ideas and what there is in America is Tim Snyder’s ‘eternity politics’because that’s how the rich in the U.S. want it – they want to be Kings or Gods.
Do you know what? I bet neither of them have a clue as to what they’ve actually done? I bet they are mystified. Clueless, rendered dumb by campaign contributions and ‘political advisors’. These ‘leaders of the free world’ who are simply prisoners of dogma and lifestyle :
and nothing else.
I was ready Snyder’s ‘On Tyranny’ (2017) written after Trump’s first term of 2016, an it opens with this quote Leszek Kolakowski:
‘In politics, being deceived is not an excuse’.
This reads as an indictment to all of us to me, from leaders downwards. As society marches towards doom, we are all accountable, we all share the burden whether we know it or not.
It comes with desiring life – or should do…………………….
I’d leave Biden out, for a number of reasons. He’s the target of MAGA’s bile; he’s weak; he lost so it’ll be called sour grapes, and imho he’d undermine any efforts by previous Presidents.
As far as not speaking out as a mark of respect for the Office of President, it is actually the Office of President which the Orange-utang is destroying. Even more reason for them to speak out. And with one voice.
Richard wrote “It was clear that Trump was utterly indifferent to Mike Pence’s life on 6 January, 2021, as he was indifferent to the lives of those who literally lost them as a consequence of the actions on that day”.
You are 100% right: Trump already has blood on his hands for inciting the 6th January riot in the Capitol. People died that day, while others, including Pence, escaped death by the skin of their teeth. It needed hundreds, maybe thousands, of the Capitol Police and the National Guard to restore order. Trump is clearly indifferent to the safety of others and behaves like a gangster, not a politician, and yet he has never been brought to trial for any of his multiple, serious crimes. It is incomprehensible to most of the world that he can then be re-elected to the highest office in the USA and can (in his view) dictate what other countries can and cannot do in their own lands. The lunatics are now running the asylum for sure.
As for his UK State Visit, one thing for sure is that the people of Scotland will not be inclined to welcome him, or indeed, King Charles to our nation. Janey Godley’s famed placard will be seen everywhere! Scottish Police will be stretched to its limits to provide the necessary security for the visit and there can be little doubt that all costs will be met out of the Scottish Government budget. At no point were our our people or our parliament consulted and once more the “Independence Overton Window” gets a nudge towards self-determination.
Much to agree with
Their silence speaks volumes.
Sometimes in history the darkest of secrets is only exposed to open view: ‘when you’ve eliminated the impossible (and) whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’. Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four (1890)/(2025?)
Indeed….
Ever since the “Citizens United” decision allowed unlimited money into US elections the quality of the leadership has deteriorated. Now the US seems to be run by the obscenely rich with little regard to “average Americans”. David Brooks a familiar political commentator in the US called yesterdays attack on Zelensky another example of “gangster politics” that is becoming familiar in the US as it throws its weight around against allies/ enemies indiscriminately, and supports those violating national and international law. I doubt whether the former presidents will step up. All we can hope for is the rising awareness leading to growing opposition to this power crazed incoherent man and his low life appointees.
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I agree with what you are saying.
Prof Robert Reich a very good comentator on US politics and inquality refuses to ther the term “Trump Administration” prefering “Trump Regime”. That sums it up very well.
Agreed