When Your Standard Applies to Your Opponent — and Then to Your Own Side

Cheers!
Happy national Martin Luther King holiday!
Regardless what our petty POTUS desires, or how bigoted, the flaccidly inflated the ego of our Rumpelstiltskinesque ‘tiny prick’ is in such a petty, small-minded man, while such a big pain to us all.

Remember when people on the right said that if Barack Obama said, it would be dangerous personality-cult rhetoric?

“Democrats love it.
Democrats love what I’m doing.
Democrats love everything I do,”
he said, “Democrats are me.
Democrats love everything I do, and I love everything I do, too.”

Conservatives anywhere from the center to the hard right would have rejected that instantly as cultish — elevating a leader above the party, equating the movement with one person, and demanding uncritical devotion. Many still describe such rhetoric in authoritarian states, or in relation to historical fascist leaders. They would be right to do so — that would be cult-of-personality language if someone actually said it.

Although Obama was a decent man overall and never would have said that.

Because that particular quote never happened. It was made up for argument’s sake — and that’s why it was a useful rhetorical hook.

But here’s the twist:

Obama never said that.

Donald Trump actually said that.

On January 6, 2026, in a public statement reported by El País, President Trump said:

“MAGA loves it.
MAGA loves what I’m doing.
MAGA loves everything I do,” Trump said.
“MAGA is me.
MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too.”

That is not a paraphrase. That is not an embellishment. It is the captioned phrasing from a contemporary news report on his remarks about U.S. policy toward Venezuela.

Why this matters

The crucial rhetorical move in the example you remember — the one about Obama — is that you ask someone to apply a standard first before they know it’s a setup. MaGA is not "Making America Great Again", but diminishing America overall. Trump sees everything in a sense of profit, or more often, profit for HIM. But everything is NOT about profit. See Fareed Zakaria's take from Sunday, January 11, 2026.

The standard invoked by many conservative commentators in the past was, in essence:

“If a leader equates themselves with the movement and claims that the movement loves everything they do, that is cult-like rhetoric.”

That standard makes sense if we value:

• loyalty to institutions over individuals,

• accountability over personal elevation,

• party as a coalition of ideas rather than a personality.

But here’s the twist: when you let someone apply that standard first — thinking they are condemning the other side — they end up condemning a real contemporary example from the current president they support.

That’s the point. Once someone agrees that language like this is inappropriate or dangerous when it is framed as coming from the opposing side, they have implicitly committed to a rule. The next step is revealing that the actual quote comes not from the opposing side, but from their own preferred leader. At that point, the argument is not about policy or party; it is about coherence and standards.

This tactic — getting someone to articulate their own principle first before attaching it to an actual case — does not belittle identity. Instead, it engages the identity in a moment of self-judgment. If someone enthusiastically condemns the made-up Obama quote as cultish and then resists calling the Trump quote the same, they are forced into one of two uncomfortable positions:

1. They abandon their previously stated principle, which exposes inconsistency.

2. They apply their principle consistently, which undercuts the emotional or identity investment in the leader.

The tactic works precisely because it leverages a person’s own stated standards against an actual real-world example.

What counts as cult-of-personality rhetoric?

Language of the sort Trump used — equating the base not just with support for policies but with him personally — intersects with political-science concepts of personalist power structures and cults of personality. 

One element scholars look for is identity fusion: when supporters and a leader are described as if they are inseparable, loyalty becomes less about ideas and more about personal attachment. Another is unconditional devotion: the idea that the movement loves everything a leader does, without qualification. Both traits are present in that quote.

This does not mean every supporter is irrational or brainwashed. People can support a movement for many reasons — economic interests, identity politics, policy preferences — without being part of a psychological cult. But when a leader explicitly frames the movement as them and claims total devotion, that moves the rhetoric well outside the norms of conventional party politics.

MaGA functions as a cult-like political movement — more precisely, a personalist, cult-of-personality political formation — even though not every individual MaGA voter behaves like a cult member.

The longer, precise answer matters, so here it is without rhetoric or hype.

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What MaGA is not

MaGA is not:

• a conventional ideological movement

• a normal party faction

• a policy-driven coalition

• a persuasion-responsive electorate

Those models assume shared reality, institutional loyalty, and conditional support. MaGA violates all three.

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What MaGA is (analytically)

MaGA fits the political-science model of a cult of personality embedded inside a mass movement.

That has specific, recognizable features:

1. Identity fusion

Supporters do not merely support Trump; they merge personal identity with him.

Trump explicitly reinforces this:

• “MAGA is me.”

• “I alone can fix it.”

• Attacks on Trump are framed as attacks on them.

This is the single strongest cult indicator.

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2. Leader supremacy over reality

Facts, law, courts, elections, and even conservative principles are accepted only if they affirm Trump.

When they don’t:

• they are dismissed as fake, rigged, corrupt, or illegitimate

• contradiction does not weaken loyalty

• failure increases devotion

That is cult logic, not political reasoning.

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3. Moral inversion

Actions are judged by who does them, not by what they are.

The exact same behavior:

• is tyrannical if a Democrat does it

• is justified if Trump does it

• is denied if Trump does it badly

This is why your Obama→Trump inversion tactic works: it exposes moral relativism anchored to identity.

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4. Unconditional loyalty demand

Trump does not tolerate neutral supporters or internal dissent.

• Critics are “traitors,” “RINOs,” “enemies”

• Loyalty to Trump outweighs loyalty to party, Constitution, or country

• Institutions exist to serve him, not constrain him

That is classic personalist authoritarian structure.

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5. Institutional capture without legitimacy

MaGA does not seek legitimacy through institutions.
It seeks control of institutions to remove legitimacy constraints.

That is why:

• impeachments fail

• jurisprudence is evaded

• norms collapse without backlash

• accountability becomes impossible

Cults do not argue their way into power. They outlast and absorb.

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So is MaGA “a cult”?

Yes — in the political sense, not the clinical sense.

More precisely:

• MaGA is a mass political cult of personality

• Trump is the central identity object

• The movement is post-ideological, post-institutional, and loyalty-driven

This is why treating MaGA as “misinformed voters” or “angry conservatives” keeps failing.

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The crucial distinction

This does not mean:

• every MaGA voter is irrational

• every supporter is equally cult-embedded

• cult dynamics cannot weaken over time

But it does mean:

• normal political counter-argument will not work

• fact-checking will not work

• appeals to norms will not work

• persuasion fails once identity fusion locks in

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Bottom line (clean and defensible)

MaGA is not a normal political movement.
It is a cult-of-personality system organized around Trump, where identity overrides reality, loyalty overrides law, and institutions exist to serve the leader.

Treating it as normal politics is not neutrality.
It is surrender to the structure that allows it to persist.

That is the correct diagnosis — and it explains everything you’ve observed: the elections, the escapes, the control, and the failure of conventional opposition.

if they don't act like a cult member what are they acting like?

Good question — because once you strip away the word “cult,” what remains are several distinct behavioral roles that look different on the surface but still sustain the same power structure.

If they are not acting like classic cult members, they are typically acting as one (or more) of the following:

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1. Identity-protective partisans

These individuals are not devoted mystics; they are defending a threatened identity.

What drives them

• Fear of status loss (cultural, racial, generational)

• Perceived humiliation by elites or institutions

• “People like me are being erased”

How they behave

• Selectively rational

• Dismiss facts that threaten identity

• Accept contradictions without distress

They are not following Trump because they believe everything he says.
They are following him because he validates who they think they are.

This is not cult devotion — it is identity defense under threat.

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2. Transactional authoritarians

These supporters do not idolize Trump; they use him as a tool.

What drives them

• Desire for power outcomes (courts, deregulation, revenge, dominance)

• Zero concern for norms or process

• Ends justify means

How they behave

• Fully aware Trump lies

• Openly admit moral compromise

• Say things like “I don’t care, he gets things done”

This group sustains autocracy knowingly.
They are clients of power, not believers.

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3. Grievance voters

These individuals are animated by anger rather than belief.

What drives them

• Economic resentment

• Cultural displacement

• Desire to punish institutions or “elites”

How they behave

• Incoherent politics

• Contradictory positions

• Support whatever hurts perceived enemies

Trump is attractive because he is destructive, not because he is correct.

This is nihilistic politics, not cult behavior.

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4. Information-silo dependents

These are not irrational people — they are operating inside a sealed epistemic environment.

What drives them

• Reliance on partisan media ecosystems

• Distrust of all outside information

• Repetition substituting for verification

How they behave

• Can reason logically inside the silo

• Reject all external sources reflexively

• Treat contradiction as manipulation

They are not worshipping Trump.
They are living inside a closed reality loop.

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5. Authoritarian followers (psychological type)

This group exists in every society and activates under perceived chaos.

What drives them

• Desire for order

• Discomfort with ambiguity

• Preference for hierarchy

How they behave

• Strong leader fixation

• Obedience over deliberation

• Moral certainty replacing ethics

They do not love Trump personally.
They love what he represents: command and certainty.

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6. Performative loyalists

These individuals signal allegiance publicly without deep internal belief.

What drives them

• Social belonging

• Fear of ostracism

• Community reinforcement

How they behave

• Repeat slogans

• Avoid dissent publicly

• Privately more ambivalent

This is social conformity, not cult devotion — but it still stabilizes the system.

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So what ties them together?

Not belief.
Not ideology.
Not policy.

What unites them is alignment to a personalist power system where:

• Loyalty matters more than truth

• Identity matters more than consistency

• Power matters more than legitimacy

Some are believers.
Many are participants.

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The precise answer to your question

If they are not acting like cult members, they are acting like:

Participants in a personalist authoritarian system, each playing a functional role — identity defender, power client, grievance vehicle, or conformity enforcer — whether or not they emotionally worship the leader.

That is more dangerous than a pure cult, because it is broader, more flexible, and harder to disrupt.

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Bottom line (clean and accurate)

MaGA is sustained not only by cult devotion, but by identity defense, transactional power-seeking, grievance politics, information enclosure, and authoritarian followership.

You do not need everyone to be a cult member to maintain a cult-of-personality system.
You only need enough people playing roles that keep the leader unaccountable.

That is the real structure you are confronting.

Why normal political argument fails against cult-like structures

This gets to a deeper point: treating politics like normal exchange — evidence, reason, policy argument — works only if both sides share a commitment to shared reality and institutions. In a personalist movement where identity is fused with a leader, such arguments often fail because they are not addressing the reason someone supports the movement in the first place.

That is exactly why the Obama-as-tyrant example is so useful rhetorically: it forces someone to articulate a standard about authoritarian language before they apply it to a real example.

And when the real example is one of their own preferred leader, their own principle becomes the mirror of reckoning.

America does not fail because it argues too harshly. It fails when it refuses to recognize what it is facing. A political movement organized around personal loyalty rather than law, identity rather than truth, and power rather than accountability is not just another faction in a democratic contest. It is an authoritarian threat by definition. 

Democracies protect themselves not by pretending such movements are normal, but by insisting that no leader is the nation, no movement is above the Constitution, and no individual is owed unconditional devotion. The choice before America is not left versus right. It is whether the country will defend its institutions against a personality cult that seeks to replace them — or allow itself to be hollowed out in the name of loyalty to one man.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

The Authoritarian Ecosystem Around Trump — And What Would Change If It Vanished

When people discuss the threat of authoritarianism in America, the focus often lands squarely on Donald Trump himself. That is understandable. He is the focal point, the brand, the personality, and the gravitational center of the movement. But authoritarianism never happens because of one man. 

It happens because a network forms around him — architects, media amplifiers, legal operatives, political loyalists, wealthy backers, and bureaucratic enforcers — who convert instinct into structure, grievance into policy, and hostility toward democratic guardrails into actual institutional change.

That is what we are watching today.

Rather than a simple list of “top 50” names, the reality is an ecosystem made up of overlapping power centers. Some operate openly. Some present themselves as “policy reformers.” Others describe what they are doing as patriotic course correction. But when you examine the outcomes they seek, they align around several consistent objectives: weakening independent institutions, concentrating power in the executive branch, blurring lines between governance and propaganda, and redefining rule-of-law as loyalty-to-leader.

And that deserves clarity.

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The Engine Room: Policy Architects and Personnel Purge Planners

The clearest written blueprint for this transformation is Project 2025, a massive ideological governance plan supported by Heritage Foundation and allied groups. This is where the intellectual framing and administrative strategy for executive branch control resides. Its agenda revolves around replacing neutral public-service governance with partisan loyalty, politicizing agencies, purging civil servants, and aligning federal power under a political ideology rather than constitutional neutrality.

Names like Kevin Roberts, Paul Dans, Russ Vought, Stephen Miller, Spencer Chretien, Roger Severino, and others form the operational brain trust here. They are not tweeting memes. They are building systems.

Without them, Trump’s instincts would look far more like noise. With them, instinct becomes doctrine. Anger becomes policy architecture.

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The Governing Infrastructure: Loyalist Officials and Cabinet Power

Authoritarian drift requires implementation. That happens through cabinet choices, agency heads, department administrators, and regulatory leadership aligned more to loyalty than institutional preservation. Many of the figures floated or placed in governing roles are not simply conservatives in a traditional policy sense. They are individuals who publicly align with reshaping institutions to prioritize political obedience, cultural combat, and retaliation against perceived enemies.

This is not normal governance. It is governance as ideological enforcement.

Remove these people, and policy becomes far less directed toward execution of authoritarian alignment. Institutional guardrails regain oxygen. Bureaucracy becomes boring again — and boring is democracy’s unsung hero.

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Congress: Normalizing, Enabling, and Institutionalizing Power

Authoritarian drift does not work without elected officials who translate rhetoric into institutional force. In Trump’s ecosystem, key members of Congress and allied state lawmakers function as amplifiers, protectors, and implementers. They hold hearings designed to intimidate critics, push legislation that weakens regulatory independence, attack oversight bodies, and frame investigations of wrongdoing as “political persecution” rather than accountability.

More importantly, they normalize behavior that once would have ended political careers. They defend false narratives about elections. They pressure agencies and courts. They sabotage bipartisan guardrails in favor of loyalty politics. Congress becomes less about governance and more about enforcement of a movement.

If they vanished from the picture, Trump would still shout — but shouting without institutional adoption becomes noise, not policy. With them, the reactionary impulse becomes government activity. Without them, much of the authoritarian machinery collapses back into simple grievance performance.

The Supreme Court and the Judicial Keystone of Power

Authoritarian drift cannot succeed without judicial tolerance or active facilitation. Over the past several years, the Supreme Court has increasingly shaped the balance of power between the executive branch, federal agencies, civil rights protections, and democratic guardrails. Its decisions influence everything from voting rights to executive authority to whether independent institutions can restrain a president at all.

A Court willing to weaken regulatory agencies, narrow accountability mechanisms, expand executive power, reduce federal oversight of elections, or erode civil-rights precedent does more than interpret law. It redraws the playing field. And once those precedents exist, they remain tools for any future leader inclined to push the system toward centralized power.

If the executive branch and its partisan ecosystem represent the muscle of authoritarian ambition, the Supreme Court represents either the brake — or the green light. That reality is why courts matter just as much as elections and policy battles, and why democracy requires not just fair leaders, but independent, principled adjudication willing to restrain power rather than entrench it.

The Legal and Election Warfare Arm

Authoritarian movements cannot function without legal operatives willing to distort law into a tool of power rather than a guardrail of accountability. In Trump’s world, that role has included lawyers and strategists who devised election-subversion plans, pressured DOJ, attempted to manipulate certification processes, constructed fake elector schemes, and advocated extraordinary measures outside democratic norms.

They operate on the boundary between law and abuse of law.

Without them? Half the ideas never reach paper. The wild, norm-violating plans never gain procedural shape. Courts retain more integrity. Pressure campaigns lose force. Democracy breathes.

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The Congressional and State-Level Reinforcers

Then come the elected amplifiers: members of Congress, governors, attorneys general, and state-level operators who translate Trump’s claims into legislative pressure, performative hearings, weaponized investigations, and state election interference strategies. This group’s purpose is to normalize, defend, and escalate whatever authoritarian drift emerges from above.

Without them, Trump shouts. With them, shouting becomes government activity.

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The Propaganda Infrastructure: Media, Platforms, and Influence Machines

No modern authoritarian movement succeeds without narrative dominance. In Trump’s universe, that function belongs to a massive constellation of friendly media networks, influencers, podcasters, billionaire platform owners, and cultural agitators who flood the public sphere with misinformation, character assassination, grievance construction, and constant emotional conditioning.

They intimidate critics.
They overwhelm truth.
They normalize extremes.
They turn complex, dangerous plans into tribal identity signifiers.

Without them, authoritarian momentum slows dramatically. Instead of a synchronized messaging army, you have fragmented rhetoric. Public opinion stabilizes. Accountability regains voice.

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So What If They All “Vanished” From Public Life?

Let us be clear: we are speaking in purely lawful, democratic terms — resignations, electoral defeat, accountability, retirement. Not harm. Not fantasy. Just absence from power.

If the core operators, strategists, judges, influencers, and enforcers around Trump stopped acting tomorrow, three immediate changes would occur:

1. The propaganda machine collapses in coherence.
   No more instant synchronized message storms. No more dominating narratives before facts emerge. No more harassment swarms automatically aimed at critics.

2. The implementation capacity disintegrates.
   Project 2025 becomes a book on a shelf, not a functional roadmap. Purges slow. Radical rewrites of government face roadblocks. Chaos loses organization.

3. Institutional fear declines.
   Judges become less pressured. Civil servants feel safer. Congress loses its intimidation theater. Agencies regain their technical missions over political loyalty demands.

But it is also crucial to be honest.

This does not magically eliminate the authoritarian impulse in America.

Tens of millions of citizens have been conditioned to distrust democracy, demonize pluralism, and fetishize “strongman” rule. The belief infrastructure remains even if the personnel disappear. Someone else could step into the shape the movement has carved out.

Which leads to the most important truth:

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Authoritarianism is a System — Not a Man

Trump is a catalyst.
The ecosystem is the engine.
The public willingness to accept authoritarianism is the fuel.

So what actually stops it?

Nonviolent democratic participation.
Relentless truth-telling.
Strengthened guardrails and ethics laws.
Protection of independent journalism.
Civic education.
Accountability when laws are broken.
And refusing to normalize political violence or punitive governance.

Authoritarianism thrives on apathy, distraction, and despair.
Democracy survives through engagement, resilience, and refusal to surrender to cynicism.

The good news? That last part is still in our hands.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Citizens United: Built By Power, Protected By Power

I just saw this meme:

"First order of business for the Blue Tsunami Congress is to eliminate Citizens United.”

Is there a good reason NOT to eliminate it? Shouldn’t we somehow hold accountable why, and who, enabled this in the first place?

Short answer: there is no strong democratic or governance reason to keep Citizens United as-is, but there are arguments raised by opponents of repeal. Here is a clear, sober breakdown.

Why many argue it SHOULD be overturned

• Massive distortion of democracy: It allows unlimited outside money via Super PACs and dark-money groups, letting billionaires and corporations drown out ordinary voters.

• Lack of transparency: Many donors can remain hidden, undermining trust in elections.

• Corruption risk: Even if technically “independent,” big spenders gain disproportionate influence, access, and policy shaping.

• Not what “free speech” was meant to protect: Critics say the ruling equates money with speech and corporations with people in a way the Founders never intended.

• Unpopular with Americans: Polling consistently shows broad public support (across party lines) for major campaign-finance reform.

• Destabilizes governance: Encourages extremism and performative politics because outside spending rewards outrage and division.

Arguments typically raised AGAINST overturning it

• First Amendment concerns: Supporters argue political spending is political speech, and government regulation of it risks censorship.

• Who regulates and how? Overturning it requires either a constitutional amendment or a fundamentally different Supreme Court; crafting limits without empowering government to silence groups is tricky.

• Unintended consequences: Regulation could end up benefiting entrenched political parties or wealthy self-funded candidates instead of improving fairness.

• Money will still find a way: Wealthy interests may simply pivot to other channels if Citizens United is removed, so reform must be well-designed, not symbolic.

Bottom line There is a strong democratic integrity case for eliminating or significantly reforming Citizens United, and relatively weak public-interest justification for keeping it untouched. The real challenge is how to replace it with a system that protects free speech while restoring electoral fairness and transparency.

When Citizens United is overturned or re-structured, simply “fixing the ruling” without accountability for how it happened would leave the same forces in place to do it again.

Accountability here does not necessarily mean punishment; it means exposure, record-keeping, structural correction, and deterrence.

There are several layers of “who” enabled it:

1. The Supreme Court majority that engineered it

• The Roberts Court did not merely decide the case as presented; it expanded it far beyond its original question to open the door to unlimited corporate spending.

• Accountability here means:

  • Historical record and public understanding of how extraordinary that judicial activism was.

  • Ongoing ethics and legitimacy scrutiny (e.g., conflicts of interest, dark money influence shaping judicial ideology).

  • Long-term judicial reform discussions (term limits, ethics rules, transparency in amicus funding).

2. Political and ideological architects Citizens United was part of a decades-long conservative legal strategy funded by:

• Corporate lobbying networks

• Wealthy donors and foundations

• Organizations like Federalist Society–aligned circles shaping judicial pipelines

Accountability here means:

• Documenting who paid for that infrastructure.

• Transparency requirements for judicial influence operations.

• Public understanding that Citizens United did not “just happen”; it was designed.

3. The political class that benefited—and protected it Many lawmakers loudly criticize dark money while still using it. Both parties have, at various points, embraced Super PACs when convenient. Accountability here means:

• Mandatory disclosure rules

• Eliminating loopholes lawmakers rely on

• Political courage to stop benefiting from what they claim to oppose

4. The failure of Congress to act after the ruling Congress could have:

• Passed strong disclosure laws

• Created public election funding options

• Tightened corruption definitions

It did not. That failure deserves to be acknowledged.

5. Media and public conditioning For years, Americans have been told:

• “Money is speech”

• “Corporations are people”

• Campaign finance limits are an attack on freedom

Part of accountability is cultural: naming the propaganda effort that normalized this.

Bottom Line

Yes, democracy benefits not only from reversing bad outcomes, but from:

• Naming who engineered them

• Exposing the financial and ideological machinery

• Creating structural safeguards so it cannot simply be rebuilt

Otherwise, Citizens United becomes like many other U.S. democratic failures: briefly “fixed,” then slowly rebuilt by the same interests who designed it in the first place.

Bringing America around to be for our citizens, not only the power mad, rich, autocrats.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT