Do you really think the reactionaries and oligarchs behind Project 2025 haven’t thought of that?
In fact, the entire point of Project 2025 is that the people behind it don’t have to worry about popularity or electoral contests by way of eliminating the non-partisan bureaucracy and undermining elections through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and impugning the legitimacy of the electoral process through propaganda and manipulation of public opinion.
Trump is a means to an end for these people; not an end onto himself.
Stranger
To answer you and Stranger as well: Sure, they’ve thought of it. Thinking of it doesn’t effect their strategy, however. Without Trump, the P2025 guys are just authoritarian nerds with no power.
They have JD Vance, Mike Johnson in the House, John Thune in the Senate, and a Cabinet and executive leadership stacked with collaborators and true believers. They’re “authoritarian nerds” with real power that they’re not going to willingly give up just because an election doesn’t go their way.
Stranger
I agree with the spirit of your post, and I agree that we have a really shitty situation in the US right now. And, if Trump doesn’t croak, he will keep doing shitty things until his term is up. The fact that he can get away with as much as he is indicates that our system is deeply broken.
But that is different from launching a coup in which our governmental system itself is eliminated. That is what Hitler did in Weimar, and that is what Trump has not yet accomplished. For example, the equivalent of the 2026 elections did not happen after the Enabling Act was passed. I’m pretty sure that they will happen in the US. If they don’t, I will admit I was wrong.
Few if any of these guys is a P2025 devotee per se. Neither is Trump, for that matter. I would say that the P2025 boys have influence in the fascist regime, but they are hardly leading it or driving it.
They have power in the same way that Musk did in DOGE: only to the extent that Trump gives it to them. And I don’t get the impression that he’s giving them all that much.
Another point:
Hitler was skilled in presenting raw fascist power (Nuremberg rallies, military displays); Trump sucks at it:
I don’t think this is a small misstep, either. As our Dickhead in Chief might say: YUGE FAIL. Trump’s GOP toadies were extremely lukewarm about it before it took place and seem embarrassed by it now.
Trump does not have the stuff to be dictator.
What kept them away until now was that as befits ideological nerds, none of them had the true mojo to move the masses of the base, yet all of them wanted to be The Boss because I Am Obviously Smartest. That is also what makes their position precarious because w/o a Trump, who do they put in front of the MAGA Base to pretend to be the Man of the People? Therefore they are in a hurry to P2025 the Hell out of the system while they still have him around, so they can be set once he’s not there.
Noah Smith has come around to the OP’s viewpoint:
Nice.
Trump’s authoritarian impulses are in conflict with his narcissistic desire for approval from the public, big business, etc.
Hitler knew that he needed support from the public, the military, and big business, so he combined selling his program and appeasing those who could oppose him with ruthlessly eliminating dissent.
Trump has tried to stifle dissent without the power to do so effectively: e.g., his attacks on law firms, universities (especially Harvard), and the free press via lawsuits and withholding of funds. Meanwhile, his “sales” efforts are more than ineffective; they are self-defeating. He doesn’t understand that riling up the base is different (effective in campaigning) from receiving approval from the public at large (necessary for leading and governing), and the shit he’s pulling (tariffs, tax breaks for the rich, etc.) is mostly unappealing to his base anyway.
An extremely careful and disciplined president might be able to overthrow democracy; a fool like Trump has no chance at all.
Right.
Another thing is that they’re lucky they have any presence in the Trump administration at all. It’s clear that Trump himself gives two fucks about P2025. It’s probably Miller (is he even pretend “Christian”?) and other assorted christofascists who are the ones who are trying to push that agenda. But I guess that all of them are too stupid to realize that such a program will require years to implement and “lock in” so that it has any hope of continuing under a future president or (they hope) dictator. The best kind of president to lead such an effort now would be a respectable one who gets the major pieces in place before he does a disciplined coup later. The infinitely attention-seeking Trump shitshow is highly detrimental to its chances of success.
It’s not an all-or-nothing matter, though. They’ve already gotten their claws sunk deeply enough into the government that it’ll take a very long time to get them out, even once Republicans are out of office.
He’s Jewish, which is weird for a Nazi.
I keep hearing that the damage Trump et al. are doing will take “decades to repair,” etc., but is that really the case? My guess is that for some specific USAID programs, precisely because they didn’t involve that many people, the damage will more or less require starting from scratch. But for bigger stuff, I’m not really sure. Changes in administration often involve pretty big upheavals anyway, don’t they?
So I’m skeptical about such claims, but I don’t know enough about how Washington works to claim the opposite.
Indeed. What a freak.
Not really. He cares about the approval of his MAGA base but he could give a fuck about Americans in general—especially minorities and Jews , veterans, and even traditional Republicans, and of course revels in “trolling the libs”. He’s made a point of demanding performative compliance from business moguls and forcing major D.C. law firms to offer him billions of dollars of pro bono legal work. The notion that Trump will chase approval above all other interests is not remotely borne out in practice.
It’s not that weird:
Tablet: “The Jews Who Fought for Nazi Germany”
Stranger
USA relations with other countries, both with regard to trade and with regard to political alliances, are unlikely to be repaired in our lifetimes – because the problem isn’t only Trump. It’s that we not only elected Trump once (which might have been a fluke based on misunderstandings), we elected him twice.
So they cannot trust any US policy or support to last for more than four years, no matter who’s elected next time. Because who knows who we’d elect after that?
(Also, of course, individual people who are dead are going to stay that way; and individual people who are maimed are likely to stay that way; and the effects on their families and friends are likely to linger.)
Trump wants absolutely everyone to love and to praise him. His reaction to those who don’t, however, isn’t ‘I ought to do better.’ It’s ‘Those are terrible people who ought to be punished.’
For starters, consider the Supreme Court.
No, he doesn’t. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of pathological narcissism, and of what motivates Donald Trump in particular.
Stranger
Hitler was crazy and evil. But he wasn’t lazy or stupid.