Glenn Greenwald: Trump will have vast powers. He can thank Democrats for them.

This is exactly correct. Supposed “liberals” and “progressives” (at least many of them) sold out the last vestiges of “liberalism” with President Obama. In many ways “liberals” and “progressives” within the Democratic Party just devolved into authoritarians. They allowed Obama to run roughshod over the Constitution and to expand the power of the Executive Branch because, well, Obama was your guy.

You were hoodwinked. And the thing is many of you (but not all) were willfully hoodwinked.

(From The Washington Post)

Yet, beginning in his first month in office and continuing through today, Obama not only continued many of the most extreme executive-power policies he once condemned, but in many cases strengthened and extended them. His administration detained terrorism suspects without due process, proposed new frameworks to keep them locked up without trial, targeted thousands of individuals (including a U.S. citizen) for execution by drone, invoked secrecy doctrines to shield torture and eavesdropping programs from judicial review, and covertly expanded the nation’s mass electronic surveillance.

Blinded by the belief that Obama was too benevolent and benign to abuse his office, and drowning in partisan loyalties at the expense of political principles, Democrats consecrated this framework with their acquiescence and, often, their explicit approval. This is the unrestrained set of powers Trump will inherit. The president-elect frightens them, so they are now alarmed. But if they want to know whom to blame, they should look in the mirror.

Click here for the article.

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/