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Wonderful take on President Donald Trump from a man who’s lived through banana dictator leadership

Is Donald Trump really dangerous to the United States?

I clipped this response, written by a man from Buenos Aires, for my own personal collection.  After reading it a few times, I realized it offered wonderful insight into a political system most Americans are not familiar with.  Below is Luis M. Gonzalez’s answer to the question, “Why do some liberals vehemently loathe Donald Trump?”

Why do some liberals vehemently loathe Trump?

Luis M. Gonzalez, lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Written Feb 8

I don’t know if I should answer this question because:

I’m not a liberal (whatever it means to you),
I’m not American,
I don’t live in the U.S.

But I do loathe the guy, and I’ll tell you why. I do it simply because I can smell a crook at ten thousand miles. I can do it even if I don’t speak his language fluently, just by observing him for a few seconds.

I live in a country that was ranked 6th amongst the wealthiest countries in the world at the beginning of the 20th century and is now on its knees with poverty levels of roughly 40%. And it happened because of a long string of populist, demagogic criminals who took over the country in the 30s and never stopped looting it.

When I look at Trump, I see exactly the same kind of narcissistic-psychopathic-liar-egomaniac-megalomaniac that have been destroying the society where I live for decades. I don’t need to listen to all that he says to know exactly what he will end up saying. He is predictable. Every single word that comes out his mouth is either a lie or complete bullshit to seduce his crowd.

He builds up his power base by targeting to a very vocal, active and angry portion of his country’s demographics. He manages to build it and keep it by gaining their loyalty, and by insulting and menacing all the others. This kind of divisive leadership is the trademark of all the Latin American banana dictators I’ve seen throughout my 47 years of life.

Great leaders unite their people. Destructive leaders divide them.

Trump is the second type of leader. At most, he will manage to make his tribe happy, perpetuating the virtual reality he aims to create by targeting free media and harassing any critical voice out there. Anything that opposes his Tweeted reality is a lie.

He will create enemies here and there. Critical media will be “the opposition,” “the liars,” and ultimately the “anti-patriots” who hate America. Being a patriot would be being with him. Being a traitor would be being against him. He has already created what in my country is known as “the crack”; a huge trench that divides society in two halves.

Longtime friendships will get broken. Families will get divided. Brothers will stop talking to each other. Marriages will end because of the pure, constant hatred generated by Trump’s reign of lies and bullying.

EDIT: Judging by the comments below so far, it seems that most Americans look at this as a right-wing vs left-wing confrontation. I don’t. I see in Trump many of the traits typically seen in leftist Latin American leaders: protectionism, intolerance of free media, prepotency, nepotism and corruption.

In today’s world, when the Chinese Communist Party is the new leader of free markets while the U.S Republicans build walls, we should probably redefine our political tags.

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