Remember seeing pictures of these?

They are photos from mid-20th-century Moscow, USSR, when larger-than-life statues and posters of Soviet leaders were everywhere.

You still see their equivalent in countries around the world ruled by autocrats and dictators. They are a constant reminder of the omnipotence of their leaders.

*. *. *

Now take a look at this:

No, you’re not seeing things. And it’s not an AI-created picture; it is an actual photograph of the U.S. Department of Labor Building in Washington, D.C., sporting a gigantic poster of Donald Trump bearing the legend, “American Workers First.” And on the other side of the big American flag is a similar portrait of the renowned trust-busting President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, with the same legend.

The difference — well, one of the thousand or so differences —- between the two men is that Roosevelt actually did place the interests of American workers at the forefront of his labor policies, whereas Trump has done nothing but force thousands of people out of work, slash their earned benefits, and demolish their social safety nets . . . all in the interest of lining his own and his billionaire friends’ pockets.

That — and plastering his face on buildings to remind the common people who is the boss — is the stuff of which dictators are made. Yet Trump somehow felt the need, two days in a row this week, to “reassure” the American people and his Cabinet that he is most assuredly not a dictator.

Methinks the old boy doth protest too much.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/27/25