This is the Tom Hartman program.

And greetings by friends,

Patriots, lovers of Democracy, Truth and Justice, Believers in Peace, Freedom, and the American way.

Tom Harbin here with you.

I want to start the program today by asking the simple question, will enough Americans

show up this fall, that we can push through all

the various forms of voter suppression, including messing with the males and disinformation that Donald

Trump is promoting well enough Americans show up to stop Trump from

using the dictator's playbook. This is really an important point and it's a

point that Rachel Maddow made on her show and it was the first time I'd heard it in the national press.

I just finished writing this book about oligarchy and tyranny and it's front and center there, but I had not not seen I'd be kind of waiting for but I

had not seen anybody in the corporate press talk about this and now one show has

we'll see if others do but here it, the single most consistent defining characteristic of an emerging

dictatorship in a country that started as a democracy is that the dictator actually holds elections and typically wins them.

In fact always wins them that's why he's the dictator and I'm using the word he

because I don't know of any female dictators who have done this and the way

that he does this is by seizing control of the instruments of government that

can help him win the election.

Not because people love him, but because basically they end up having no choice.

I mean, Donald Trump has done this now with the Justice Department, the

post office, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and

Human Services, the Federal Reserve, and our intelligence agencies.

...