As the media once again gets set aflame by our future Troll-in-Chief, our news feeds are lit up by every possible variation of condemnation regarding Donald Trump‘s latest call for fascism, and rightly so.
Trump’s disturbing post-election Twitter binge took a notably dark turn Tuesday morning, when he called for people who burn the flag as a form of protest to either spend a year in jail and lose their citizenship.
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2016
Aside from the obvious constitutional violations this proposes, it also exudes a blatant hypocrisy in light of the rhetoric emanating from the Trump camp and his supporters in the wake of Fidel Castro‘s recent death. In one of the Facebook comment threads I’ve been following on the subject, a friend of mine pointed out that Trump’s statement somewhat mirrors one of the numerous human rights violations that are existent in Cuban law.
As Human Rights Watch’s website points out in their section “Impediments to Human Rights in Cuban Law,” Cubans who express themselves by desecrating the Cuban flag face similar consequences as to the one Trump proposed:
Cuba also punishes someone who “insults or with other acts shows disrespect to the Flag, the [National] Anthem, or the National Seal,” (escudo) with three months to one year of imprisonment.
Trump releases statement on death of Fidel Castro pic.twitter.com/BAYG2g1WIY
— Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) November 26, 2016
Plain and simple, Trump’s call for U.S. citizens to be thrown in jail for disobeying his nationalistic orthodoxy is classic authoritarianism.
[H/T Ken Shepherd] Featured image via YouTube
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