Perhaps the No Kings protests should be called "No Hitler" instead. By Hal M. Brown

Above is a photo my loving and patient partner, inspiration, Substack proof reader and editor took of a bleary eyed me this morning with the sign (which we covered with plastic wrap for the rain) for our regular Friday protest that we have along the road next to the senior commuity where we live. Two of the homemade signs say “Don’t Mess With Grandma” and “Hands Off Our Social Security.” Of course the “No Kings” sign goes with the title and the subject which I will get to in this Substack.

Below are comments from Sabrina Haake’s Substack about the long term consequnces of Trump’s enforcers, I call them his Gestapo, using excessive force:

This Substack led, so far, to 45 comments all of which you can read here.

I am going to share those that I wrote along with the replies to what I said.

Let’s not forget that the man who is doing this thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. We will see the blowback today and in coming days from his NOT getting it. Further, think of the message sent by the Nobel winner Maria Corina Machado. “She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” More info: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2025/press-release/ Here’s a story about how Norway was preparing for Trump being bypassed: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-norway/Here’s a story about the MAGA reaction: “’What an absolute joke!’ MAGA melts down after Nobel Peace Prize Trump snub” https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2674172203/ The US has become worse than a Superman Bizarro World, it is a Bizzaro World run by a leader and a group of cohorts and enablers, who revel in inflicting pain on people and terrorizing everyone who stands against them, and then makes the claim that they are peacemakers. Call this Beyond Bizzaro!

This is Sabrina’s reply:

agreed. excellent substack btw. it’s truly bizarre that trump, who has bombed people on the high seas, encouraged ICE to use excessive force, and wants to imprison his critics thinks he deserves a prize for peace. does he not understand that extralegal violence is diametrically opposed to peace? is it ego? retardation? dementia? delusion?

Here’s my reply to this:

Thanks. These are good questions: “does he not understand that extralegal violence is diametrically opposed to peace? is it ego? retardation? dementia? delusion?” On the first, he doesn’t care. On the others, for certain ego is part of it, and he’s not developmentally disabled but not as smart IQ wise as he thinks he is, true dementia is an open question, as is whether he is clinically delusional.

This prompted indpendent journalist David A. Brothers whose Substack is “The Conscious American” to reply:

I’m no mental health professional, but I would think clinical delusion is a highly likely possibility, and I’m beginning to wonder about schizophrenia. On the other hand, there’s no way to identify the mental incapacity of a congress that will allow a madman of any variety to destroy every good thing his country stands for. And speaking of delusions, how about that religious right? I’m willing to bet that some of their most fervent bloviators deliberately embrace Trump’s evil so they can see the rapture in their lifetimes. I spoke with an elderly Christian woman during T1 who said, “I’ll admit, he’s not the savior I thought he would be.” “Savior? Really, savior?” I replied. “Savior of whom, and from what?” Nothing else was said. We just stared each other off. She looked away first. I was determined to lock that down til doomsday if I had to.

I answered him as follows:

There are conditions that don’t fully meet the listed characteristics to make the diagnosis. Some shrinks call this sub-clinical. For example, in the DSM it says to make the diagnosis you need, for example, 5 out of 8, but someone could meet 3 and still be pretty dysfunctional.

He wrote back simply “Thanks, Hal. Very enlightening clarification.” I went on to elaborate as follows:

You’re welcome. One of the diagnoses applied to Trump and his Gestapo is anti-social personality, better known as psychopathy. This article is quite technical but note that there is an issue re. it needing to be improved. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6817378/ You might want to look it over to see how some of these brutal people have psychopathic traits but don’t meet the full diagnosis. Look at meanness, callousness, boldness, disinhibition, and being cold-hearted, for example.

As part of a long thread of comments and replies I wrote:

One of the diagnoses applied to Trump and his Gestapo is anti-social personality, better known as psychopathy. This article is quite technical but note that there is an issue re. it needing to be improved. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6817378/ You might want to look it over to see how some of these brutal people have psychopathic traits but don’t meet the full diagnosis. Look at meanness, callousness, boldness, disinhibition, and being cold-hearted, for example.

Chris Perez, whose Substack is CP’s Words, replied to that:

I appreciate your historical example of what America is currently facing. We need a lot of that to understand why we should keep Trump from dumbing down the populace, especially our children. If you’ve seen the movie before, you know the ending.

My reply to him became the impetus for writing my Substack today.

I am 81 and grew up hearing about the Nazis and Holocaust from my parents. My father was in the Army and a corpsman serving on troop ships. My sister and I heard about World War II growing up. But younger generations learned about the horrors of the war from movies, books, and in school. The saying “never forget” was something people always heard. Nowadays people don’t hear it said very often and it should be a constant reminder. Now we approach another “No Kings” day of demonstrations. Nobody is alive who remembers when we had a king. Perhaps these protests should be named “No Hitler” demonstrations. I wonder if it was considered and rejected as being too hyperbolic. Considering the brutality shown by Trump’s Gestapo between the first “No King”s and the coming one, I don’t think it is.

The signs could look like the one below which I based on this “No Fascism” royalty free sign from Vector Stock.

Added Oct. 13:

I haven’t read that this was spelled out in Project 2025. I don’t think there’s a chapter on the use of systematic sadistic terror as a major tactic in their overrall strategy. What has been transpiring with the use of Hitlerian brutality as major modus operandi to instill obediance through fear has led me to do my own rebranding for No Kings day. I hate to throw shade on the original intention and coining of the label, but King George II was not Adolph Hitler.

Trump is not Hitler either, but he is much closer in his actions and personality than he is to King George. See: Comparing Trump and Hitler.

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