by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Malignant ding-dong has made it clear that he wants to be a dictator at least for “one day.” And I get that the is working on using Schedule F and Agenda 47 to further that goal.
But.
Maybe Blues should become Blue Meanies.
The issue is even Putin gradually became the autocrat that we now know him to be. It took him a few years to consolidate power. If Trump just rushes into things in 2025 and starts to act like a dictator, I struggle to figure out how far he can get. I am well aware of how you can have a zombie “managed democracy” autocracy, but Trump is so, so very dumb and lazy that if he starts to do a major power grab in the first few days of his second term — there is going to be a reaction.
Now, some context.
The Traditionalists I know love Trump’s policies, but don’t like him in large part because they think he’s a “loser” who can’t win a general. If he wins, however, they will be quite content with his tyrannical policies…until it hits home on a personal basis.
Because if Trump makes deporting 20 million undocumented people in the United States in one fell swoop, then the idea of “show your papers” will become the center of the American experience. There are plenty of conservative white Americans who have at least one non-white person in their extended family and when 1 million armed ICE agents start snatching anyone who isn’t white off the street “just ’cause,” that MIGHT be enough to get even Traditionalists “woke.”
What’s more, even with his own MAGA Deep State in place, Trump couldn’t just instantly, overnight, be an American Tyrant. It would take time for him to ramp up the weaponization of ICE and to quell Blue parts of the country that might be upset with his tyrannical thrashing around.
As such, if Trump wins re-election in 2024, the first few months of 2025 could be very, very rocky. Because the moment Trump is so tyrannical that even Traditionalists have to acknowledge that he’s gone full-tyrant….Trump and everyone else in America has a problem.
Since I can’t predict the future, may be some Black Swan event — like what happened in 2020 and the pandemic — will happen that will allow us to defeat Trump once and for all and all of this talk about civil war / revolution is just going to be seen as silly as all the talk about Y2K back in the day.
I just don’t know. At the moment, it could go either way.
But, like I said, I just don’t understand what, exactly Trump thinks he can do that would allow him to be “dictator,” even for one day. I suppose he could just keep pardoning himself and anyone else who does something illegal. Only time will tell.
