A Trump Quisling by Any Other Name Is Just as Heinous
Whether through greed, fear, anger or ignorance, 21st century quislings are aiding the enemy and make no mistake, trump is the enemy and he is taking the country down.
Trump is doing his best Götterdämmerung but he wouldn’t be able to conduct his own personal blitzkrieg against the Constitution without the help of quislings, large and small, and too many and counting.
Also known as traitors, lapdogs and cronies, a quisling is a person who collaborates with an enemy occupying force for personal gain. As far as is known, trump’s traitors don’t sell state secrets or act as agents for a foreign government. Instead, they betray the constitution while they genuflect and vow complete loyalty to trump and his illegal demands.
Following the Nazi invasion of Norway in 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the nation and warned about Quisling traitors. It could have been a morality tale for 84 years later.
“A vile race of Quislings — to use a new word which will carry the scorn of mankind down the centuries — is hired to fawn upon the conqueror, to collaborate in his designs, and to enforce his rule upon their fellow countrymen, while groveling low themselves. Such is the plight of once-glorious Europe, and such are the atrocities against which we are in arms,” said Churchill.
The quislings of trump have sold their souls. In the time of Adolf Hitler, quislings were quickly tortured and murdered if they dare tried to redeem themselves or disobeyed the Fuhrer’s dictates.
Trump does not have his quislings killed yet but he has destroyed the political careers of those who stopped fawning over him. Few quislings have taken the honorable route.
Among some of the more notorious quislings who bought their way to influence by massive campaign contributions to trump are top tech leaders and CEOs including Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and right-wing personalities including Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck and Charlie Kirk.
Within the administration, the quislings include the likes of trump loyalists Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., FBI director, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Ambassador to the United Nations Elise Stefanik and FBI Director Kash Patel.
The latest on the list is Dan Bongino, a name familiar to many in the far-right world of misinformation and deceit. Trump has named Bongino to be the new deputy to the new FBI director, Patel. Both posts are expected to be non-political, and trump has vowed to take the politics out of the FBI. He said that is why he named Patel, who penned a book listing trump’s top enemy and Bongino who has been banned for life from YouTube for posting lies and who has never acknowledged that trump lost the 2020 presidential election.
All FBI executives and special agents in charge report to the director through the deputy. The deputy director oversees all FBI domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities.
In recent years, the FBI has focused on investigating far right violence because the far-right wing has been responsible for most of the acts of political violence.
Trump showed his support for the largest collection of the violent right wing when he pardoned all of those charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol by trump supporters. It is unlikely that Bongino or Patel, acting under the orders of trump, will pursue right wing violence but will more likely turn toward the much lower threat by the far-left wing.
Most FBI directors are not former special agents, but the deputy director is traditionally a career agent responsible for the bureau’s daily law enforcement operations. Neither Patel nor Bongino have past FBI experience, making them the least experienced director and deputy director in FBI history.
Bongino, 50, is a former U.S. Secret Service agent who has become a hugely popular conservative commentator known for his unswerving support of trump.
Bongino hosts The Dan Bongino Show, a syndicated radio show and daily podcast that was ranked the 7th most-popular podcast in the U.S. in January. Bongino has agreed to give up his show to be the second in command at the FBI, according to trump.
Bongino joined the N.Y. Police Department in 1995 and the U.S. Secret Service in1999. He ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland in 2012, winning the Republican primary but losing in the general election. He also lost races for congressional seats in 2014 and 2016 in Maryland and Florida, after relocating there with his family.
He started a podcast in 2016, gaining steam during trump’s first term as Bongino heaped incessant praise on trump. Bongino later landed a post with Fox.
“My entire life right now is about owning the libs,” he said in one segment, helping popularize the Republican catchphrase
Bongino has used his platform to spread conspiracy theories and lies, including about the Mueller investigation, the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump’s 2020 election loss. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue cited Bongino as one of the key right-wing figures pushing false claims of voter fraud leading up to the 2020 election.
Other quislings include practically every member of Congress who has cowered and not spoken out against trump, as trump and Musk drag the nation through a coup to dismantle the democratic process. To a person, lawmakers fear trump’s well-known desire for revenge against any who challenge him. That revenge can be a trump-led primary campaign to oust uncooperative congressmen or withholding federal aid to districts represented by congressmen who refuse to play ball.
It would take too long to name every trump enabler but here’s a sampling of the latest comments from sycophant lawmakers.
· Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., filed measures to impeach Paul Engelmayer, a district court judge from New York who blocked DOGE from accessing sensitive Treasury Department data. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was created by trump and billionaire trump backer and Tesla owner, Elon Musk. Neither DOGE nor Trump have constitutional authority to cut spending, but they have chopped billions of dollars from multiple government agencies.
· Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., is also working on articles of impeachment against John J. McConnell Jr., a Rhode Island district court judge who blocked the administration’s attempt to freeze federal spending.
· Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., openly suggested that colleagues opposing trump may not belong in the Senate.
· House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., responded to questions about legal challenges to trump’s illegal seizure of funds already approved by Congress. “The courts should take a step back. What we’re doing is good and right for the American people,” said Johnson, claiming that trump has “been using his executive authority, I think, in an appropriate manner. He got a mandate from the American people. Let’s not forget he ran on restoring common sense and fiscal sanity and ensuring that the government would be more efficient. It was a major theme of the campaign.”
· Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., equivocated to the max when he expressed how he felt about trump abusing his power. Tillis said that Democratic presidents have also tried to “push the limits” of their power. “They’re going to see how far they can go,” Tillis said of the trump administration. “I don’t begrudge them for doing it.”
· Amid the chaos of trump’s first days of a second term, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., praised trump and his followers. “He’s feeling pretty good in terms of the enthusiasm around him. He feels differently this time, honestly. I think he feels more universally accepted,” said Capito. Compared with the initial days of the first term, she added, “it’s much more organized, much more informative, much more collaborative.”
· Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., did the Congressional two-step when asked about trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 defendants. “The President has the constitutional authority to do so. It’s not something he asks our advice on,” said Rounds. On the question of whether the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants have a right to citizenship, as guaranteed in the Constitution, Rounds offered, “I think that’s what the Constitution says.” And about trump’s plan to put 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, Rounds offered the congressional waffle, saying, “I’ll wait and see… So far, he’s gotten a lot done just by suggesting it.”
· Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chair of the House Appropriations Committee, was ebullient over trump when asked how the first 48 hours of the new administration felt. “I love it. I mean, just the contrast of energy — the blizzard of executive orders, the innumerable speeches and inaugural events, the press availability, the openness,” Cole said. “I think people are hungry for it.”
· Asked whether trump could unilaterally dismantle USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) without congressional action, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., dodged, weaved and double-talked, saying, “I think it’s a lot more about finding out how the dollars are being spent, where they’re going and whether or not they’re consistent with the administration and our country’s priorities when it comes to our national interests.”
When the fascist trump regime falls, and it will eventually fall, the quislings will have to answer for their silence in the face of a full blown assault on American values. In due time, the traitors may have to silently accept guilt or many may find themselves charged with crimes.
Vidkun Quisling’s name has become synonymous with treachery and collaboration with the enemy. He was a Nazi collaborator who led Norway during Hitler’s occupation. He was tried in Oslo for treason and was executed in 1945.
Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling party (NS) lost by a large margin in the elections of the 1930s and Quisling began looking abroad for support. He began making contacts with Adolf Hitler and Germany and in an effort to win Nazi support, Quisling began talking of the superiority of the Nordic race and the threat from those he deemed lesser, particularly anyone associated with bolshevism or Judaism. He and his party were becoming known as the Norwegian Nazi affiliate.
After the Nazi invasion, German ambassador Curt Bräuer demanded that King Haakon VII return to Oslo and formally appoint Quisling as prime minister. Haakon said that he would abdicate rather than appoint a government headed by Quisling. Negotiations with the Germans collapsed, and the government unanimously advised Haakon not to appoint Quisling as prime minister. Quisling led a coup that failed, despite German support.
On September 25, 1940, German Reichskommissar Josef Terboven took control as the top civilian commander in Norway. That day, Terboven proclaimed the deposition of King Haakon VII, banning all political parties other than Nasjonal Samling.
In 1942, after two years of direct civilian administration by the Germans, Quisling was put in charge of a collaborationist government, which was officially proclaimed on February 1, 1942.
One of Quisling’s first actions was to reintroduce the prohibition of Jews entering Norway, which was a part of the nation’s former Constitution from 1814 to 1851. Quisling’s rule led to massive protests from parents, serious clashes with the teachers, and an escalating conflict with the Church of Norway. Schools were closed for one month, and in March 1942 around 1,100 teachers were arrested by the Norwegian police and sent to German prisons and concentration camps.
The Quisling government was officially created but it was a puppet regime with the real power resting with Josef Terboven who took orders directly from Hitler. Quisling’s regime ended in 1945, with the end of World War II in Europe. Norway was still under occupation in May 1945, but Quisling and most of his ministers surrendered one day after Germany’s surrender.