by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m reading a book about the rise of Hitler given that the United States definitely has a Weimar Republic vibe to it right now. When it comes to Trump, I totally got him wrong — he was a would-be Hitler (or Putin) but the stress on would-be. He had autocratic and fascist tendencies, but in reality he was just a big old ding-dong.
He was nothing more than a real-life Chauncey Gardner from Being There.
But there are a whole host of men waiting in the wings to do what Trump couldn’t do, despite his impulses: strangle American liberal democracy. Let’s look at who they are.
Lara Trump / Ivanka Trump / Don Jr.
Of all the Young House Trump people, Lara Trump is probably the most dangerous. She’s smart and could probably be very smooth in any type of “Velvet Fist” arragmentment with, say, Mike Pompeo or Josh Hawley. Ivanka and Don Jr are just too vacuous to actually get the nomination. Or not. The likelihood they could pull off such a stunt grows significantly with how much Trump goes with The Patriot Party concept.
Christ Christy
Christy is probably the best of a lot of bad choices. Since Christy would have to bank right in a big way to win the nomination, if he became president, he would probably be an autocrat, but one with a little bit of enlightenment. He would become an autocrat for no other reason than he would need to dance with the one that brung him. His heart probably wouldn’t be in it all that much because he would want to at least pretend to stay within democratic norms.
Ted Cruz
The thing about Cruz is he’s so craven and cynical that even his turn to autocrat would likely have air quotes around it. He would be an autocrat simply because he could be, not because he was all that into it. But the end result would be the same — we would be nothing more than a managed democracy for the foreseeable future.
Mike Pompeo
Pompeo is dangerous. He’s dangerous because he’s smart and seen Trumplandia up close. And he really sees the job as an opportunity to force Jesus to come back by starting a war between Israel and Iran. As such, he’s the real deal when it comes to a would-be fascist leader in the United States. Once he’s elected, there’s no going back. I say this in the context that I expect both houses of Congress to flip in 2022, so in 2025, he would have zero oversight, just like Trump in 2017. He would have a full two years to completely consolidate power and crush any putative “resistance” to him.
Tom Cotton
Cotton is even more dangerous than Pompeo. He’s the real deal when it comes to would-be American autocrats. He’s the autocrat that Trump thought he could be. He’s young enough — and smart enough — that I could see him holding back in 2024 so he could get into a “Velvet Fist” arrangement with either Lara or Ivanka Trump where he would be Veep and let one of them be the “pretty face” of autocracy.
Josh Hawley
As I understand it, it’s Hawley that the MAGA base likes the most after the usual suspects of House Trump. And people who know him call him a fascist. So, in a sense, the only thing stopping him going full Fuhrer on us is his personality. At what end of the autocratic spectrum would he fall? Would he be more of a Putin or more of Hitler? That, I’m afraid, I can’t predict. But what I can predict is it would be Hawley who would flip the switch to turn the existing ICE infrastructure into concentration camps where people like me would be put.
Person X
If there were more conservative celebrities, I would say the real danger is not from any of the above, but someone who is similar to Trump but younger and more focused. James Woods seems the ideal type second generation Trumpian figure to run for POTUS. But he’s kinda old and, to date, doesn’t seem to have any political asperations. Bruce Willis is too nice as is Tim Allen. It would have to be someone who was conservative, frequently played autocratic figures in the media and was actually more than just an empty suit.
