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Crackpot congressman claims Trump’s second term would look like Putin’s Russia

November 13, 2023 | | Print Article

A Democrat congressman sparked criticism and mockery over his warnings that a re-elected Donald Trump would look “a lot like” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin made his crackpot comparison during an interview with MSNBC host Jen Psaki, who had some of her own uninformed Trump takes during her monologue on “Inside with Jen Psaki” on Sunday.

With a potential rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden looming for the 2024 election, Democrats are in a panic and drumming up fears of what a second Trump term would mean for the nation, aghast at the threat to “democracy” America’s 45th president would pose with another shot in the White House.

In setting up her questions, Psaki noted that Raskin has “thought a lot about Donald Trump and you’ve studied him a lot,” evidently not finding that to be odd behavior for a U.S. congressman.

She then asked what the Democrat thought of recent comments by Trump and that his “authoritarian impulses” seem to be “getting worse.”

“Well, the role of the government, in his view, is to advance his political fortunes and destroy his political enemies,” the lawmaker responded.

“So what would a second term look like? It would look a lot like Vladimir Putin and Russia,” he asserted, going on to make his inane comparisons by bringing up the “illiberal democracy” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Raskin, who was part of the now-defunct House select committee investigating January 6, explained this meant “democracy without rights, or liberties, or respect for the due process, the system, the rule of law.”

“In fact, there’s not much democracy left to it because their position is they don’t accept the integrity of any election where they lose,” Raskin continued. “That is the hallmark of an authoritarian party.”

“They don’t accept elections. They don’t go their ways. They refuse to disavow political violence. They embrace political violence as an instrument for obtaining power,” he continued in his so-serious tone.

“And then everything flows from the will of a charismatic politician, and that is Donald Trump in their book,” he added. “So we are clearly headed into a completely different form of government than any of us would recognize as continuous with the past right-wing authoritarian government in league with Putin, Xi, Orban, Bolsonaro, you name it.”

Raskin’s rhetoric echoed that of Psaki who set off flares during her monologue about the dangers to the very fabric of the nation if Trump is reelected.

“This is some truly scary, authoritarian, banana republic-type stuff, and we should hear it that way,” the former Biden press secretary warned after citing recent comments Trump had made in interviews and on Truth Social.

Raskin’s ridiculous assertion that the former President is on the level of a Putin or other dictator was met with truckloads of backlash on social media.

Frieda Powers
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