Another massive idiot, but a sadder case, as he once seemed intelligent.
People keep acting like trump himself personally will somehow do all these evil acts. Like take over the RNC, etc. Others of us take solace that he’s too incurious, lazy, or simply in love with Xitting to bother wrecking the place. Both those ideas are wrong. That’s not how it works.
Through his utterly evil narcissistic nature he’ll get elected. Then drag a whole bunch of genuinely evil, but smart enough to be dangerous folks with him. Not because he hand-picked them, but because they in effect picked him by ingratiating themselves into the inner circle. Why’d they do that? Because it would pay off for them massively, at least until trump decided they were a threat and tried to fire them.
And once these folks were in, trump was not giving detailed marching orders to each of them. He sort left them to their own devices as long as they said his name with enough reverence and regularly told him all the things they were doing in his name and to his advantage.
Bannon is a classic example. Probably half the total damage the trump administration did in the world was Bannon’s handiwork, not trump’s. But an evil bastard like Bannon would never have been in a position of power without a trump to put him there.
The gutting of the RNC wasn’t trump’s doing. But it was totally done in trump’s name by his self-promoting henchmen and in accordance with trump’s general outline of how to operate that every one of us know so well.
THAT is how the RNC got gutted and a very similar process will be used on every federal department that isn’t law enforcement or the military. The goal for them is to cripple the organization, not reform it or remake it.
This scenario is entirely plausible. I think the mitigating factor would be Trump’s ego combined with his ineptness. He will have a Bannon or two, but then he’ll insist on idiots for other positions, etc. He’ll get upset, as he definitely did with competent people like Kelly, who are trying to save him from fucking up.
One may also ask when the evil mastermindery will at last kick in. His election denial and insurrection were a farce. He’s fucked up GOP chances multiple times by handpicking or otherwise endorsing nutjob candidates. He is clearly not having an effective influence on the House (lol). So the new Bannon is not by his side yet, helping him actually get shit done.
In contrast, Hitler had his evil minions right by his side from day one. Some, like Heinrich Himmler, were monstrously evil but highly effective. Some, like Ernst Röhm were effective but a problem to be dealt with. And some, like Robert Ley, were just idiots. In any case, the team was in place and ready to effect autocracy in a more or less disciplined fashion.
You’re mistaking competence at delivering good government with competence at stealing and destroying good government.
The problem trump had with Kelly was that Kelly was trying to deliver good government while trump wanted to steal the government.
Most of the folks around the cabinet table in about 2018 were by and large hell bent on suborning their respective departments in service of their clientele of other billionaires, not in running them according to their governing laws and regulations.
And they were competent at doing that. Which served trump’s interests nicely, since he got a cut of all that one way or the other.
I take your point, but I don’t think Trump has a coherent plan or vision to do this, either, nor do I think he is able to communicate effectively any intuitive stabs in that direction he may have in his mind.
I agree with you in that Trump is a highly intuitive grifter and con man, but his understanding of how government (or anything, really, besides real estate and self-promotion) is so poor that he can’t make the most of his opportunities.
You’re certainly right that he’s not going to be a competent fascist dictator. And especially now as it seems he’s rapidly sliding down the dementia hill.
OTOH, take a look at truth social, DWAC, and trump media whatever it’s called. Somebody put that business deal together and made trump the chief beneficiary of it. Yes, right now the stock is cratering.
The kinds of folks who assembled that whole setup are the kinds of folks that end up in his orbit. Selfish, immoral, illegal, and happy to steal. Instead of putting their mind to scamming real estate investors, they’ll be scamming the government or writing themselves as paid do-nothing middlemen into otherwise legit contracts.
No disagreement there!
One question, however, is whether those who want a fascist dictatorship (the Bannon and Miller types) will be able to work via Trump to that end. I think they can do a lot of damage, but I think Trump is as likely to hurt the cause as help it along.
I mostly agree with this. Trump’s instincts are kleptocratic. He complains about a stolen election because it’s what he wants to do. Steal it. That’s different than autocratic or anarchic. A kleptocratic government is still a government, if a corrupt one.
He’s still an evil POS, but that is how I read him.
True, in the strict sense. But there are similar systems which can also cause leaders to take power without having a majority of the popular vote.
In the UK where I live, for example, each county gets to elect a certain number of Members of Parliament to the House of Commons (equivalent to Representatives in US terminology).
The party which has a majority of MPs in the Commons gets to form the government. And the ruling party selects the prime minister from its ranks internally: voters do not have a choice of prime minister in general elections.
(Above sketch of UK political system very simplified, I should note).
I’m not sure if there is any democratic country which uses a true proportional representation system to elect its leader?
Isn’t that what the Heritage Foundation is up to?
Trump is the vehicle to get them into a position of power; without him they’d never make it to power, much less be able to exercise it or retain it.
In some sense and to some degree trump is manipulable. He responds well to flattery and being given an outsized slice of any takings. He doesn’t respond well to being bypassed, to put it mildly.
He (trump) is a difficult tiger to ride well, or for long, as many have seen. But he’s profitable enough while you’re aboard for the Bannons of the world to be frothing at the mouth to be given the opportunity to try. It only takes a few months in one of those key roles to steal enough to be utterly set in the top 0.1% for life. Any job longevity after that is gravy.
From your and my POV, it really doesn’t matter how long e.g. Bannon lasts in his role destroying the e.g. State Department before he’s replaced by a different equivalent crook cozying up to our enemies and gutting the bureaucracy of all skill and corporate knowledge while shoveling the budget into his (and trump’s) pockets. We care about the results of that destruction, which will happen more or less equivalently whether it’s e.g. Bannon the first SecState of trumps’ new term or is the 5th person to replace Bannon.
The chaos and destruction will reign as long as trump is in the drivers seat to enable / foment / cheerlead / ignore it.
Summary
You’re new here.
It’s considered poor form to simply post some emojis with no indication of who or what ideas you’re responding to.
sorry, there were veterans involved in Jan 6
Moderating
Please do not make empty content posts like this in P&E or GD.
In order to impeach and convict a president you have to have grounds for impeachment.
Ummm… NO. The only “grounds” necessary are that you don’t like him. “Impeachment” is purely political.
Look at the right-wing GOP attempt to impeach Biden. They began impeachment proceedings, then tried to find some justification, even introducing false “evidence” from a Russian spy to convince the non-lemmings in their party.
In Trump’s case, we have someone who declared that he will be a dictator on Day 1. Despite his stooge Aileen Cannon delaying the trial, we all know that Trump stole hundreds of highly classified documents and tried to hide them from authorities. What we don’t know (at least, not us common people) is WHY. Some are still missing and presumed “lost” after being taken to an international golf tournament in New Jersey.
We also KNOW he has been convicted in civil court, and we all SAW his actions in the Jan 6 insurrection and most await his convction there.
There is ample reason to impeach Trump. I think the legal issue will be whether it is possible to impeach him before he takes office.
BEWARE. Please note that our electoral college system DOES permit the electors to vote for whomever they wish, in spite of the results of balloting. Trump is counting on this to steal the election, and has been actively working on using this loophole. People have generally ignored the fact that GOP legislators have installed Trump supporters to key positions in their election boards.
I would not put it past the fanatic Trump supporters to exercise this option. In most cases, it would be a criminal act, but “dictator” Trump could pardon them of any federal crime as soon as he takes office, and state prosecutors appointed by the GOP could decide not to prosecute.
They might try this, but I think this is the one thing that might trigger an actual civil war. If everyone saw Biden win enough states to get 270 EC votes, and then congress counts some of those for Trump because faithless electors voted against the wishes of the voters in their state, that would be a plainly obvious coup. Definitely mass protests, and maybe actual violence.
Any steal with a chance of actually working needs to be more subtle.
It would be pretty blatant. More subtle would be the usual manipulation of ballot boxes.
These days, many state counts are close enough that the GOP can cheat and get away with it. That’s how Bush won in 2000 - they hid Gore votes in Tampa until after Gore conceded. It’s how Rick Scott won the Senate race in 2018 - as Governor he sent state police to destroy ballot boxes in Miami, authorized by the GOP legislature. Coincidentally, DeSantis rode in as the new Governor.
I’m sure that’s why Trump assumed he could get the Georgia GOP to “find” a few more votes for him in 2020. He already had fake electors in motion from two other states. One way or another, he thought he would be announced the winner.
Yes, schemes like that would be far more likely to work.