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Dear Empyreans
*Theglobal Trump effect* seems to me a well chosen phrase because it’s easy
toforget that governments are made up of groups of people, not just one person,
evenin truly authoritarian regimes or dictatorships. So global obviously means
botharound the world, *international*, as well as *overall* in the sense of
thewhole administration around the figure of the presidency. I can’t sense
fullythe day to day experiences in the USof things like attacks on religious
temples, on people because of their faiths,on gender or sexual orientations,
because I live in Barcelona. I mean, yes, things like thathappen here and all
over the world, but I personally can’t feel them happeningas they’re happening
anywhere else. But I keep up as I can through thepress—that same press Donald
Trump rails against—and I’ve tried to act againstsuch attacks since my
undergrad years in the 60s. Last month I posted a shortassessment of *global
Trump* on my personal weblog, link below. Today I thinkthe press both onpaper
and online is responding courageously to the dangers ofTrumpism. And people in
public demonstrations as well—against arms sales, forone thing. In the 70s I
read a short press piece by Eduardo Galeano about a manin a South American
country who had been detained for political reasons.Galeano says the man had
been lined up against a chain link fence along withthe other people. The armed
police had told them to stand there with theirhands on the fence. He found
himself so frightened that his hands were tremblingand rattling the metal
links. Ashamed to appear so cowardly he took his handsoff the fence, disobeying
the orders of the soldiers. And the fence went righton rattling. As to analysis
of *the global Trump effect* (and democracy ingeneral—government in general) I
think it is a question of common sense--maybe common e-sense. Thanksto Empyre-l
for the ongoing forum. Best regards, William (link to 21 February blogpost >>>
http://tinyurl.com/pkemmhk
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