The speeches given by Donald Trump, at the rallies he regularly holds in front of his fans, are becoming more and more deranged and bizarre. I increasingly find myself being reminded of listening to the tape recordings made of Jim Jones amongst his devotees in Jonestown. Trump, too, has developed a strong, almost messianic, personality cult among his “base”, and one gets the impression that his followers would follow him to the end of the Earth (perhaps literally).
While there is a possibility that Trump will become President-for-Life, the higher probability, from where we stand now, must surely be that one day he will be removed from office, through election defeat, two-term limit or impeachment. With other cults in history, there is often a friction point where the cultists’ world and the real world collide and things get real messy - Jim Jones with the Jonestown Massacre and David Koresh at Waco are a couple of examples that spring to mind.
Do you think that such a point will happen with Trump? Trump is suspected to have acted with criminal conduct in many aspects of his life, both non-political and political. There are still many ongoing investigations into these areas, and he may face criminal charges when his presidency expires. If Trump feels the walls closing in - perhaps he knows he’s going to jail when his presidency ends - do you think he might, to use a phrase, “go loco”? Could he hole himself up in the West Wing with his henchmen, and hold out in a Waco-style siege? Could he incite his Twitter followers into armed revolt? Could he retreat to Mar-a-Lago with his devotees? Perhaps with vats full of Diet Coke…?
No, Trump is not going to be President-for-Life. If he started making moves like that, even the most recalcitrant Republicans would be forced to stop looking the other way and jump on the impeachment bandwagon. His thirty percent support base would become irrelevant to them if the country were going to turn into a dictatorship. Republicans are greedy, not stupid.
The republicans have convinced me that there are, literally, no depths to which they will not sink. However I also think that there’s going to be at least enough of a ‘blue wave’ to erode their foundations of power anyway, making Trump-for-Life merely a fascist fantasy.
I’m not opposed to him and his followers moving to Guyana to do what they want. Except for the whole killing a sitting Congress member and children thing.
If Trump was not going to become President-for-Life, would he just walk out of the White House, albeit decrying it was “rigged”, “FAKE” etc, and go back to being a normal citizen (or possibly, prison inmate)? Maybe go on nostalgia tours, where he can play his greatest hits, such as “Lock Her Up” and “Drain the Swamp”, to his diehard fans in half-empty venues?
History shows that that’s not what autocratic and authoritarian leaders tend to do, and the same with cult leaders.
The idea of Trump going rogue, politically, and attempting to fulfil his autocratic and authoritarian impulses by becoming President-for-Life has been discussed elsewhere. In this thread, I’m more interested, not in discussing Trump as dictator, but Trump as cult leader, as well as discussing “cornered animal” psychology. Hence will Trump go all “Jim Jones”, and not will Trump go all “Hafez al-Assad” etc.
The Trump-as-dictator notion would require that the Republicans support him in his power grab. So let’s suppose, for discussion, that the Republicans decide to adhere to the Constitution and will not support Trump being President-for-Life. What does Donald Trump do when the end of his presidency is nigh?
Like he said, Republicans are greedy. If Trump tries to make himself President for life, he’s taking the Presidency away from every other Republican who wanted their own turn.
You need proof that Trump says deranged and bizarre things? Do you also need proof he is a fat white man?
Heres a video of him getting lost walking from air force one to the presidential limo.
Here is a video of Trump in his early 50s. He is far more rational, coherent, cogent and in control of his emotions. His mental decline is obvious comparing now to 1999.
Just two days ago in San Antonio he rambled on incoherently, truly sounding like people I’ve known suffering from dementia. It was so bad even Fox News had to cut away. It seems like he’s seen things in movies and thinks they’re real.
Jones needed to be surrounded by his followers on a visceral level. Trump just uses his followers to prop up his public image. They’re just pawns in his show—he doesn’t actually want to be around them.
He’ll probably just use legal machinations for as long as possible, and die of poor health or mental deterioration before getting thrown in jail or otherwise receiving punishment. All the time, however, he’ll continue to tweet increasingly incoherent gibberish.
You send Trump here, and we’ll send Fraser Anning, Pauline Hanson, Clive Palmer, Alan Jones (radio shock jock) and Avi Yemeni in return. All of them are Trumpist sycophants who have jumped onto the fearmongering gravy-train. Please take them.
