Blog#205- 6/21/24
THE FEAR OF REVENGE
By Richard Davis
The fear of revenge is already having repercussions throughout the world. The credible threat by the American would-be lunatic dictator is being taken seriously and that means that free speech and freedom of expression are under siege. Make no mistake about it. Even though the election is not until November, the fear of a Trump win is making some people act as if he has already won and they don’t want to be on his enemies list.
A case in point has been made clear by New York Times columnist Michelle Golberg in the June 16 Times in her piece titled “The Trump Movie You May Never See”. The movie “The Apprentice” has been recently released. It focuses on the relationship between a young Donald Trump and Roy Cohn. Cohn was a notorious New York “fixer” and a hero worshipped by Trump. Some describe Cohn as Trump’s primary mentor. You only need to look at a picture of Cohn to get a creepy feeling of how evil he was.
Cohn was legal council for McCarthy during the anti-communist hearings. He was also Trump’s lawyer in the early formative years of the young Donald. Cohn’s Wikipedia entry says it all. “In 1986, he was disbarred by the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court for unethical conduct after attempting to defraud a dying client by forcing the client to sign a will amendment leaving him his fortune. He died five weeks later from AIDS-related complications, having vehemently denied that he had HIV.”
The movie had a premier at Cannes last month and according to Goldberg it clearly describes Trump and his relationship to a Machiavellian fixer. The film sounds like an honest portrayal of the makings of a new kind of fixer in the persona of Trump. Roy Cohn lives on.
One of the film’s investors told Goldberg,” “Trump attacked the film and, unfortunately, it appears that Hollywood right now doesn’t have the stomach to release this film and take him on.” That means that the fear of being sued by the man who sues everybody is so real that even though a large amount of time and money was put into this movie, Americans may never see it unless Trump loses. By then it will have lost any major impact.
Goldberg has hit the nail on the head stating, “Should “The Apprentice” end up widely available globally but not, for political reasons, in the United States, it will be a sign of democratic decay, as well as an augur of greater self-censorship to come. After all, if anxiety about enraging Trump is already shaping what you can and cannot watch, it’s probably bound to get even worse if he actually returns to power.”
Trump is being allowed to run roughshod over the entire world and the fear of revenge that he is spreading has become a global epidemic. We can’t wear masks and develop a vaccine to protect ourselves from this menace, but those who anger Trump should not be backing down. They have the means to fight him and if they don’t do it no one will.
Trump has already channeled Roy Cohn and he is using fear effectively because of the army of MAGA madmen and madwomen ready to take up arms against Trump’s enemies. Even if Trump doesn’t win the election he will have done irreparable damage to the freedom of those who believe in free speech and human dignity.
