Trump missed a chance to entertain some ‘tremendous’ dictators

“Is Franco still dead?”

That was the running joke in the mid-1970s following the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. The former general came to power in 1939 and ruled over Spain as a military dictator for 36 years until he died in 1975 after a prolonged period of time on life support.

He had remained alive, technically, in an extended coma, which prompted the media to ask frequently, “Is Franco still alive?” That inquiry morphed into the running joke after doctors finally pulled his plug.

I mention this only because Franco is one of several former dictators who would undoubtedly have been invited to the Trump White House if he was still alive. Already Trump has expressed his admiration for world renowned tyrants including Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, while entertaining such well-known human rights advocates (wink wink) as Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, Egypt's president Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and China's president Xi Jinping.

Egypt’s El-Sisi, in particular, led a coup that ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. He later won an election that observers said appeared to have been rigged, and is credited with a series of human rights abuses during a government crackdown on Islamists since Morsi’s ouster.

Trump was also set to welcome Philippine strongman and murderer Rodrigo Duterte until he – not Trump – had second thoughts. Duterte has alternately claimed credit for and denied killing hundreds of people during a government crackdown on drugs. It’s not clear whether Duterte will eventually accept Trump’s invitation to visit Washington.

And then there’s today’s guest – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Since surviving a failed coup attempt last July, Erdoğan has jailed hundreds of political opponents, seized the country’s largest newspaper and tried to rewrite the constitution. He is described as “an elected autocrat, tolerated by the West for maintaining a certain stability” while overseeing a dominant political party that serves only his wishes.

In other words, he’s Donald Trump’s kind of guy.

All of this calls to mind a number of other dictators who surely would have been invited to the White House or Mar-a-Lago if they didn’t have the misfortune of dying before Trump became the authoritarian president of the United States. I’ve compiled a short list:

(1) There was Franco, of course, who committed decades of human rights abuses against the Spanish people, which included the establishment of concentration camps, the use of forced labor and the execution of between 200,000 and 400,000 political and ideological enemies.

(2) The next one who came to mind was Idi Amin Dada of Uganda. After seizing power in 1971, Amin was responsible for persecuting tens of thousands of South Asian immigrants and for the massacre of about 300,000 members of rival African ethnic groups. Who can forget the flamboyant leader who declared himself to be “His Excellency President for Life” and also “Conqueror of the British Empire” or CBE.

(3) Franco also leads directly to Augusto Pinochet of Chile. Like Franco, Pinochet steered clear of genocide but still managed to earn a well-deserved reputation as a vicious tyrant. There were multiple attempts to prosecute him for crimes including murder, torture, tax evasion and corruption that ultimately came to nothing, and he died under house arrest in 2006.

(4) Pol Pot, leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, was considered to be one of the craziest, most murderous dictators who ever existed. To turn Cambodia into a simple agricultural utopia, he oversaw the mass murder of about two million city dwellers, merchants, teachers and other “intellectuals.” He died of a heart attack in 1998.

(5) And no list would be complete without Mao Zedong of China. (That’s China, our new best friend which may or not be a currency manipulator depending on what deal we want done this week.) Mao was one of the most prolific killers of the 20th century. His reign of terror left anywhere from 30 million to 60 million Chinese dead before Mao died in 1976.

This is not to suggest that Trump will start killing people any time soon or that he’s in a class with Pol Pot or Mao. He’s not. At least not yet. But a president is known by the company he keeps, and it seems odd to me that in between visits from the leaders of Canada, Mexico, Australia and the United Kingdom, Trump is so willing to wine and dine the likes of Erdoğan and Duterte.

This is especially troubling after the news that Trump likes to share top secret intelligence with Russian spies who get to visit the Oval Office without being burdened by American journalists. I’m sure that Erdoğan and Duterte watch CNN and read the Washington Post, so they are no doubt aware of Trump’s proclivity for bragging about his “great intel.”

Don’t forget that Trump was the first western leader to congratulate Erdoğan on his victory in Turkey. If he plays his cards right and lays on a couple of well-placed compliments and a 40-second handshake, Erdoğan could easily get Trump to give out our nuclear codes, the password for Fort Knox and Melania Trump’s bra size.

Who knows what else might fall out of Trump’s mouth after he tells his visitors how many Electoral College votes he received? After yesterday's revelations, that's an open question and I'm not sure I want the answer.