You cannot see an upside. Trump does. More is better. Especially more power and more money. You and I know Trump not have many years that. Does he know that? Would he ever admit even to himself that his health is failing?
Trump has a great deal of power now. He wants absolute power. Now, he has the means to get it.
Finally, quit applying reason and logic here. Trump is a motivated by greed and hate. Logic and reason do not apply here.
No. They’ll prop him up as a figurehead for as long as possible like they did on the Nazi Planet episode of Star Trek.
You do not understand Trump then. He always wants more money rrand more power. He will hold onto both as tightly and as long as he possibly can. Stepping down from being President would unquestionably be giving up power. Trump will never do that now that he has the means to hold power til he dies.
I wonder if the President-Elect can refuse the office between Jan 6th and Jan 20th
What if on Jan 20th he said he has been trolling the Republican Party all along to be a 2 term President and now that he’s done it he reverts to the Trump of the 80s? That’s a positive
OK, but what, concretely, would he do to get that?
He said in an interview recently that he wouldn’t run in 2028, and he had a bit of a sad look in his eyes. I think he knows on some level.
What would “total power” consist of in this case?
He is also motivated by fear. Logic and reason do apply to analyzing the motivations of Trump and his helpers and discerning what they are capable of doing at what cost. I don’t think you’ll find a better example of acquiring “total power” than Hitler in 1933, but even he had to tread very carefully in order to achieve his evil goals.
E.g., he had to appease the military and big business. If Trump or one of his goons like Elon does something crazy that impacts multinational corporations, what do you think they will do? What about sanctions from other countries, such as Putin has incurred? Stuff can spiral very quickly with unintended and unseen consequences.
The US is less like the Weimar Republic in 1933 and more like the Holy Roman Empire in 1533: a vast, barely coherent mass of governments (federal, state, local), the military, special entities (the Fed, etc.), corporations, banks, unions, NPOs, individual oligarchs and power brokers–the list goes on. All with their own varying interests and types of power. It’s not easy to manage it all, and one false move could create absolute chaos and extreme blowback.
Here’s another positive. Ain’t no one going to be able to carry the MAGA banner like Trump has. Now we have a firm end date - January 20, 2028.
I would agree if Trump were younger, perhaps not even that much younger, but the age and health factors are big.
I agree with that.
The nazis came up with evilly effective visuals (the swastika, the uniforms, the banners, Nuremberg rallies, etc.) and slogans (Sieg heil, Erwachte Deutchland, etc.), which is one reason why its iconography sadly endures today. Meanwhile, they had people like Goebbels and Rosenberg tirelessly working on propaganda and ideology.
MAGA is cheap Americana kitsch a few millimeters deep at best. It has no doctrine or ideology. It comes down to liking/worshiping Trump. It has nothing that will endure without him.
The good news as I see it:
Republicans actually have to govern, which they will discover is harder than sabotaging a government and blaming everything that happens on the governing party.
From 1-20-25 on, if inflation goes up- Republican’s fault.
Hurricane hits and victims are initially given $1500- why how dare they be so cheap!
Price of gas goes up- why those evil bastards in government!
Israel goes nuts in Gaza/Lebanon- it’s all on Bibi’s fanboy.
Interest rates go up- fucking president.
Republicans will soon find out that it’s easier to wield a wrecking ball than a construction crane. They will fail miserably.
Yes, and, importantly there won’t be (I dearly hope) a pandemic to obfuscate the relative success or failure of their governance. OTOH, Trump probably would have been reelected without the pandemic.
I would expand on what you said by saying, They will fail miserably if they try anything too crazy, but if they try to govern like normies, then they will have non-MAGA success or failure, which would be a healthy shift for the country.
Mrs Cad calls it his cult. What happens when the cult leader dies? Except for Brigham Young (if you consider the LDS Church a cult) has the second leader ever succeeded?
I’m recalling how Dick Cheny pretty much called the shots for an inept George W. Bush. I see no reason that the Vance/Trump relationship won’t be much the same. Trump stays in bed until noon on his phone and does a little golfing, Vance does most of the real work. No need for the 25th Amendment.
The real wildcard is Musk. Will he actually try to do anything? Will he be happy looting the funding for space exploration and EV’s? Will he clash with Vance & the rest of the staff?
I do feel that what they’ve planned is bigger than what they can actually execute, but I’m under no real illusions that bad things will be prevented by a crisis of competence. I can’t cosign any positivity at all here.
They will as long as possible. And I agree with a poster above that Trump would never willingly submit to be sidelined (maybe if he were literally on hospice or something like that).
But shit can happen quickly. My mom died this year, after eight months of independent living. She was 81–not much older than Trump is now. There was a time last year that led to the decision to make that shift to a facility: her suddenly not being able to walk without a level of assistance I couldn’t provide without great effort. That’s scary in a way that’s hard to describe if you haven’t been through it.
So imagine having to deal with something similar with Trump. It could be physical (cf: shaky garbage truck mounting) or cognitive or both. And, as I said, it could happen very fast. If Trump suddenly can’t walk or talk, he can’t protest effectively.
The NK Kim regime has done a pretty exceptional job with it. The Roman emperors had a literal cult, but often their succession efforts didn’t go as planned…
I think that’s exactly how it’s going to work. But note that Vance will be a moderating influence. Despite some of his dumb mouthings off, I think that Vance is, in essence, a centrist. Not an ideologue. I think he dearly wishes to be president to placate his ego, but I think he also wants to be known for doing a good job under fairly normie standards.
I think it’s also clear that Trump is more interested in foreign policy than domestic. So I think that Trump and Vance could divide the work up along those lines as well: Trump, foreign; Vance, domestic.
There would be in the event of actual insanity and/or physical incapacity. They can and will try to cover up a lot of stuff (cf: Biden), but there is a point beyond which that won’t work.
Good questions. I hate Elon for what he has done, but again in terms up upside, he could do some good in the right position. I think he’s an “idiot” but not an idiot, if you know what I mean.
I have to call 'em like I see 'em, and while I think JD Vance is an odious opportunist, I think he could also be an effective president. If he becomes president sooner rather than later, we could have a return to American Normalcy* sooner than we had thought possible. If that doesn’t happen, I think it will be a more a crisis of incompetence and incapability on Trump’s part.
*Still not a good or effective political system, but still more comforting than what we would endure under Trump.
When things go in the crapper and they can’t blame anyone else they’ll just make someone up. And it’ll get very, very ugly.
One normal positive case for losing the presidency is that your party is likely to do well in the next congressional elections.
If Trump turns out to be a real dictator, this does not apply. But destroying a representative democracy as entrenched as the U.S. likely takes more than four or eight years. Of course, likely is not the same as impossible.
As for Trump’s health, he did four (or was it five?) events on Monday, most with long speeches including extensive ad libbing. Y he did not sound as vigorous lately as normal. But this is not Woodrow Wilson 1919 territory. Not even Ronald Reagan second term. Of course Trump has age related cognitive decline, but I find the idea he is close to collapse is unsupported.
Appreciate the OP.
re: an older/failing Trump/Vance takes over. That’s plausible. For now, Trump is in command mentally (in his own unique way lol). If you cross him, you’re toast. I think we can all agree with that. But what happens when he’s no longer in command at all, but not dead. You’ll have this scramble for his power and it will be pretty ugly. Maybe fun to watch them go at each other, but honestly it will be really bad for America.
That’s kind of what’s going through my mind. Along with all the other normal stuff.
Some more positive case bits (and I do not believe Trump will be positive!!):
— New leaders lose popularity very quickly lately (think Kier Starmer and Olaf Schulz). Trump, being less competent, and having ridiculously over-promised, will have an abnormally short honeymoon with near record low job approval ratings to follow. This will weaken him.
— Preventing the above requires taking control of the media, as in Turkey and Russia. This takes time Trump does not have!
— He is a day one term-limited lame duck. GOP members of Congress will commonly say what a great guy he is and then ignore his wishes.
I would love to see a poll, a year from now, asking Americans to recall who they voted for in November 2024. Prediction: Clear Harris majority.
If t wasn’t for Trump being the commander in chief of the world’s strongest military, the above might actually make me feel better.