Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/28/there-are-no-guardrails-trumps-second-term-will-lead-to-a-dictatorship.html
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Mood.
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The Trumpists have shown that they’re completely happy to utterly ignore the guardrails. Trump can’t pardon himself for state cases? He’ll dispatch his goons to harrass and muddy the waters. He can’t fire public servants? He’ll have his asskissers re-write the laws so he can.
Anyone who assumes that he won’t do absolutely everything he CAN do did not pay attention to Jan. 6.
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I’m getting close to finishing Dictator from Robert Harris’s Cicero trilogy, and it’s kind of terrifying to see the parallels between Julius Caesar’s rise to power and the path that Trump has taken. Are we already past the ides of March?
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And in in 4 years he’ll make sure we have fair elections and we can vote for whoever we want… either Ivanka or Don Jr.
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Or RFK Jr., the systemic opposition candidate.
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If Trump wins and the worst comes to pass, these “rational centrists” are going to have a lot to apologize for.
They’ll be doing so in some sweltering gulag in the southwest, where they’re imprisoned along with all the liberals and progressives they called “alarmists”. Or might be doing so, since many of them will still be insisting that institutions will come galloping in to save them even as they’re wasting away from disease and malnutrition.
Of course, a lot of them will likely go along to get along with the new regime, which will humour their claims of exceptionalism and normalcy and a viable opposition as a propaganda cover (this is one of Putin’s favourites). Those ones won’t apologise, but instead will continue to collect their salaries as they holler “all is well, remain calm!” from their DC offices.
She doesn’t deny that he’s going to TRY to be a dictator, just that our institutions are so robust he won’t be able to pull it off in four years.
This is the level of blindness present in the complacent zentrum, that in 2024 they forget the MAGATs had a trial run from 2016-2020 did plenty of damage, and that before and after that period the Republican party in general spent years undermining liberal-democratic institutions. This anti-democratic project has been chugging away for decades.
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I think the Anna Karenina principle applies to authoritarian states.
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
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The ides were March 15, significant because that was when consuls left for their military assignments, and so the last chance to catch Caesar in Rome. His dictatorship was of course founded on his military successes…which makes me wonder at choosing him of all people as a parallel for Trump.
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I don’t have any, “calm down,” friends anymore. I had dozens back in early 2020 when I predicted the Big Lie and 1/6 insurrection and I was called a massively over-reactionary radical, that my concerns weren’t just far fetched but absurd.
The institutions designed to protect us from a dictatorship, such as the electoral college, impeachment, the balance of power among the three branches of government, the media, etc., have all already failed and failed miserably. The sheer inertia of the greater federal bureaucracy and a small handful of intelligent actors at the capitol and in the courts, paired with Trump and Co’s sheer laziness and ineptitude spared us from the very worst the last time around but it would be the height of foolishness to rely purely on that to save us a second time.
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I’ve completely stopped believing the people who write these “Calm down, weirdos, everything will be fine” thinkpieces are just naïve. I think they know what the GOP has planned, and they’re working to smooth the way for the takeover.
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Media Misses emphasizes the important point of how such high-profile articles can act to discourage voters.
“It’s important to focus on an article like this that’s discouraging people from taking it quite as seriosuly as they need to…Let’s not minimize the danger” - Steven Beschloss
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They came within 40 feet of beheading the Vice President!!! Less than 1 minute of confusion saved our democracy.
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It will be much different than 2016 because of the people he is going to put into key positions. There were so many grifters, business elites owed favors, and recommended “normal” Republicans, that you still had a hodgepodge of “well meaning” and/or incompetent, self-serving people in place, but only a small number of sycophants who would do anything to retain Trump in office or further his goals (which, honestly, were largely unfocused.)
Not this time. With the 2025 project, True Believers ™ are going to be in key positions. They will further a fascist agenda and manipulate Trump by saying everything they are doing is to make him look strong and give him more power. He will fan those flames with more rhetoric. The guard rails in place may not be enough to stop their actions if enough of the key players are in positions of power and there are enough people under them that will go along with it. 
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I mean, other than talent, intelligence, military acumen, political experience, loyalty, and some semblance of ethical and moral compass, T**** is just like Julius Caesar. /S
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The majority of younger voters coming of age are solidly left-of-center. The GOP knows it’s not in the majority nationwide. It wants to hold onto power, and it can’t through the standard wheels of democracy.
So, that’s where we are. Interpret it however you want.
The GOP is facing political irrelevance, they may not think they have anything to lose by just tearing it all down.
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Is Mr. Trump a point out of the curve or a natural evolution of the system?
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