With different language, it seems to be the consensus that Trump won’t be able to engineer a takeover of the United States but that someone with more skill perhaps could.
What would “someone more skilled” look like? Several of the possibilities that emerged from that discussion were that it could be someone with experience in the higher echelons of the military; other poster or two hypothesized that it could be a “super cop,” such as a renegade sheriff or police chief. And another poster suggested it might be someone within the federal law enforcement agencies (or the intelligence community?).
Any other thoughts are welcome? Who would be the candidates to engineer the end of American democracy as we know it? Would it be a bigger than life personality like Trump who just finds ways to use his toxic personality to co-opt and brand religious and economic ideology? Would be a group of radicals, like say the Tea Party version 3.0 re-branded as a new fascist party?
Someone like an American version of Putin or another J Edgar Hoover, who rises up in the intelligence community gathering compromising info on Congressmen and other leaders and learning how to wield that info to maximum effect.
I am not talking about someone with a “tough guy” persona who is popular enough to be elected. I am talking about someone who can be a dictator, who can stay in power no matter what.
Maybe there is someone who can walk the tightrope, convince people to make him ruler without actually killing anyone. I think it’s probably easier to just go ahead and have your secret guard kill people.
It is an interesting thought. Because I have long thought that both Trump and Hitler owed part of their rise to power to their perceived incompetence. Mitch McConnell and other Republican power brokers embraced Trump because they thought he was a way to get what they wanted (more Republican judges/suppression of the socialists), without any danger of upsetting their apple cart. With Trump, they succeeded, but Trump is older, physically and mentally weaker, and less focused than Hitler was. Trump has the declared support of multiple militias, but he is no militia leader. He has no idea what to do with them and no real connection to them. He is surrounded by more grifters than brutal ideologues.
Trump and Hitler also benefitted from left wing contempt. No one in the left leaning or neutral media took him seriously as a candidate. He was viewed as either a harmless ratings driver or as gift that would guarantee a democratic win.
For someone to do the kind of real takeover we all fear in 2016 would require someone who could look like Trump to everyone outside the base, but was actually the highly competent and ruthless leader that QAnon sees Trump as.
Today might be different, with the complete divorce of the right from the facts the rest of share. Now, in my opinion, we are more likely to see ground up violence than another Trump. Facilitated by social media more worried about not offending conservatives and censoring anticorporation speech and a police force that sympathizes more with right wing terror groups than left wing protestors.
I doubt we can clearly identify such a person, because they wouldn’t put their face forward like Trump does. Charismatic populists aren’t necessarily malicious.
This dangerous person could have acted for Trump (or some other charismatic idiot). Let Trump use his superhuman charisma to whip people up, while the dangerous person (or committee) writes legislation, organizes militias, and so forth. Trump had such people, but…
People like Barr were just a little too competent or rational to go all the way. And Barr had his face attached to Trump’s backside, politically.
They weren’t competent. Mr. Miller, looking at you. Miller wrote up several totally-not-Muslim bans that failed in the courts, but then Jeff Sessions managed to write a ban that was just not racist enough to pass. Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and several other Trumpists fall into this category.
I think this is exactly right. McConnell and Graham thought of Trump as an unusually successful populist but they assumed that he would get stuck in the weeds, and that he’d come crawling to them for help. In fact, he bent the party over his knee and whipped them into submission. As we speak, McConnell and other Republican senators are watching Trump go through what could be political self-immolation, but they’ve been burned so badly by him in the past they’re not sure if it’s safe to cross him.
A key difference between Hitler and Trump is that the Nazis had a clear ideological framework that eventually became a set of core beliefs. It became a political bible or manual, which is something that Trump does not have. If Trump were leading a group of terrorists (and I’m not, but using group structure as example), he would be the leader of Al Qaida and not ISIS, as Al Qaida is pretty much whatever its followers want it to be, whereas ISIS has a pretty rigid ideological framework that instructs their violence and rhetoric.
Putin is definitely “someone more skilled” that Trump. He has almost certainly used Trump as an asset and he has given Trump tutelage on how to disrupt the state. I will never be convinced that Putin hasn’t had a lot to do with how Trump has behaved these last few years. To be sure, Trump’s impulses for firing Comey, McCabe, and Strzok, and attacking the deep state were always there, but Putin has almost certainly given him some guidance in private conversations, and moreover, Putin has probably inspired Trump by reminding him of the precarious position he is in after he leaves office – it’s a position that Putin himself was in after he left St. Petersburg.
Not to mention, Putin has very likely shared his own kompromat to help trump keep Repubs in Congress in line. Especially the rumored reason for trump taking a very anti-trumpist Lindsey Graham golfing shortly after the 2016 election, where immediately after Graham did an astonishing 180 degree turnaround and became rabidly pro-trump.
Someone more skilled than Trump wouldn’t even be in a position where he’d need to orchestrate a coup to stay in power. He’d pull on all the emotional strings of his voter base more effectively, say all the right anger-and-passion inducing words, so much so that he’d get legitimately reelected.
Yeah, this – SomeoneMoreSkilled would not have allowed himself to get here. When you look at how Trump’s reacting in this period you can see his characteristic pattern of conduct. This is someone who at all times, in business or in campaign or during the presidency, expected others to do whatever it took to give him a “win”, but did not have a real strategy nor was in there making sure they did, just “get me [off/paid/elected] or I’ll make you sorry!”
And I do not for a moment doubt he takes perverse pleasure in daring people to turn on him, knowing they can’t bear to contemplate the consequences. A sophisticated authoritarian lets people resign with dignity as long as they go away and shut up, and then watches them carefully in case they step out of line. Trump pisses on them on Twitter.
Just think where we would be now if Trump had to political savvy and knowledge of how to work the political system like McConnell? Instead, Trump put crony’s, hacks and grifters into power that were more interested in ethics violations than in dismantling their departments. Ryan Zinke springs to mind as the Secretary of the Interior. He did a lot of damage to the environment, but was more concerned with getting charter plane flights home on the weekend instead of really destroying everything he was chartered with protecting. Penny ass conman that could have really corruptly gone for big money.
Or that dumbass Scott Pruitt, head of the EPA. Spending time trying to get his wife a cushy job and a Chic-Fil-A franchise. Just think what would have happened if he had spent time with Dow Chemical, Exxon Mobile and Detroit?
Or Rudy and his deranged and incompetent lawsuits to stop the steal. Christ, had to disown is own lawyer.
Trump randomly sprayed with an AK 47 when he could have been American sniper and really took down the republic
Not after 4 years. But after 8 he’d sure need a coup to stay in power. Or have gotten a lot of existing legislation modified over those 8 years.
Erdogan hasn’t couped. He’s just had his pet court and pet legislature change the laws so he can be dictator for life without having to shoot rioters in the streets or deploy the Army.
Just lock up enough people who disagree and pay enough of those who almost agree and pretty soon you’re the USA dictator for life by the acclamation of a joint session of Congress.
Erdogan is a great example of a cunning survivalist and Islamic populist politician who used democracy in Turkey to essentially damage it (probably) beyond repair. When his party loses local elections, he has “do overs” – and yet we could still call it a democracy. That’s how authoritarianism works in the modern era. That’s essentially how militaristic leftists destroyed democracy in Venezuela.
We have to understand that when we predict the end of democracy in America, we can’t take comfort in knowing that we don’t see uniformed polizei standing around on street corners and arresting people; authoritarians have evolved, they’ve evolved in terms of both economic and political ideology to marry the successful elements of systems they resisted with systems they openly embrace and gravitate toward.
I read an argument that one reason anti democracy extremists stay in power longer in other nations is they deliver material increases to the standard of living to the voters. Chavez did (at first until the oil money ran out). the polish dictatorship did too. Trump did nothing for the masses economically and governed as a traditional gop plutocrat.
imagine if trump was not only competent and subtle, but he increased the standard of living of the masses. he would be far more popular.
The bizarre thing is that the Republican Party has never done anything for the standard of living of the masses. They have succeeded for decades with a huge con. They have convinced lower and middle income white people to keep voting for them, entirely against their own economic interests. Trump has continued that con, many people already support him because they continue to believe against all evidence that he an his party bring them prosperity, whereas the Democrats will destroy the economy.
I think most people who vote GOP vote for the GOP due to identity politics or what they ‘think’ the two parties stand for. therefore the fact that the GOP is plutocratic in practice isn’t really important to their voters.
However some swing voters may be swayed by a dictator if they actually improved the standard of living of the masses. In Poland, Venezuela, Hungary, etc the dictators have pushed for things like a higher minimum wage, expanded health care, stronger pension protections, subsidies for parents, etc. Things like that could probably win over some democrats, swing voters or non-voters enough to give a fascist a lead in the popular vote here.
Imagine if someone like Trump came along who aside from being competent and professional (but still a fascist racist) actually was willing to reform the health system, make higher education more affordable or double the minimum wage rather than just talk about it.