Opinion | A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.
There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. So why is everyone behaving like normal?
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No ....no it's not it just isn't. What this is a sensationalist headline trying to sow discord, despair, and defeat.
I understand the implication of a future where Trump or his like were in charge, but as dark as it looks I still think the majority of our country has better sense than to elect him president again. So what if he makes the Republican nomination it just confirms their lawless criminality.
In other words STOP with the crap attitudes that trump is "Inevitable" Shit... he's not.
I'm not sure enough people with enough sense are actually voting...
Would reminding them that Trump is a major reason abortion rights are on the backslide in the US help? Or that Republicans are running around banning (or trying to ban) books from libraries? Or that Republicans are largely refusing to allocate taxpayers' money to help taxpayers?
Aparently not?
There's plenty of logical reasons to deny him another term, but none of it seems to matter.
I think that would work... Look at the recent democratic wins: it was mostly elections where abortion rights were on the ballot.
How are Republicans refusing to help taxpayers?
Here's a recent article from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities detailing how they're refusing to help in the form of the most recent House appropriations bill.
It boils down to the fact that the Republican party's position as being fiscally conservative typically entails reducing government spending by cutting funding to and thereby underfunding domestic programs that help taxpayers/citizens.
Only everything they do.
It doesn’t fucking matter who we elect if we don’t hold them accountable with general strikes.
the majority of our country has better sense than to elect him president again.
The majority of country didn't elect him the first time and definitely isn't necessary to elect a president.
The presidency is decided by electoral college votes, not by the people's vote.
This is true. But calling the worst case scenario "inevitable" is doom and gloom surrender before the fight - stuff like this will just make people think "well, it's hopeless, there's nothing I can do" and so they do nothing when maybe they could have done something.
... the majority of our country has better sense than to elect him president again.
The majority of the country elected Clinton in 2016. American politics has always been structured in a way to appease the assholes by putting a heavy thumb on the scales to make them more powerful than they should be.
This opinion contradicts the polls though right?
I mean it's a shitty headline and I dislike the use of the term "inevitable", but polls suggest that voters are eager for a Trump dictatorship.
Polls show them as neck and neck, not to mention that 2023 elections show up pretty bad for MAGA.
He won in 2016 with a minority of votes. Neck and neck is not reassuring.
polls suggest a hardcore portion of Americans want fascism and what biden sucks so hard he might still lose despite that being his competition.
the majority of our country has better sense than to elect him president again.
More people didn't vote than voted for either of the candidates.
Fix that problem and assholes like Trump won't be a concern
the only truth to the headline is the increasingly part - and it's because of articles like this.
I still think the majority of our country has better sense than to elect him president again.
Why? You think the polls are completely lying? It's very dangerous to be this complacent when the data directly contradicts you.
Yeah there are still many who don't vote. If some of those get swayed by this and actually vote, there could still be a chance.
Who's to say they will vote the way you want them to?
How can you call it sensationalist when you know that the consequences of Trump being elected that are listed in the article are highly likely to be true?
I don't consider it sensationalist. I consider it to be a strong warning. If you read the article through to the end; you'll note the tone changes and explains why this has happened. Is it potentially sounding the alarm too soon? Personally, I do not think so. It might be the intention of the author to scare someone of enough power into action extraordinary enough to Stop Trump.
Or maybe it will scare an everyday reader into leaving the country to escape the growing fascism, or into actually turning up at the polls and voting for anything but the Orange Tyrant.
Emphasis added - I will try to avoid highlighting who is responsible for the failures but they are listed in the article. I am not sympathizing with Trump Supporters; I am pointing at how this article outlines how we got here today.
What is certain, however, is that the odds of the United States falling into dictatorship have grown considerably because so many of the obstacles to it have been cleared and only a few are left. If eight years ago it seemed literally inconceivable that a man like Trump could be elected, that obstacle was cleared in 2016. If it then seemed unimaginable that an American president would try to remain in office after losing an election, that obstacle was cleared in 2020. And if no one could believe that Trump, having tried and failed to invalidate the election and stop the counting of electoral college votes, would nevertheless reemerge as the unchallenged leader of the Republican Party and its nominee again in 2024, well, we are about to see that obstacle cleared as well. In just a few years, we have gone from being relatively secure in our democracy to being a few short steps, and a matter of months, away from the possibility of dictatorship.
TL;DR: The odds are higher because the listed barriers have been cleared.
Yes, I know that most people don’t think an asteroid is heading toward us and that’s part of the problem. But just as big a problem has been those who do see the risk but for a variety of reasons have not thought it necessary to make any sacrifices to prevent it. At each point along the way, our political leaders, and we as voters, have let opportunities to stop Trump pass on the assumption that he would eventually meet some obstacle he could not overcome. Republicans could have stopped Trump from winning the nomination in 2016, but they didn’t. The voters could have elected Hillary Clinton, but they didn’t. Republican senators could have voted to convict Trump in either of his impeachment trials, which might have made his run for president much more difficult, but they didn’t.
TL;DR: There were many people in power who could have stopped him, but did not, as they felt certain that "Surely the next obstacle will stop him. The next obstacle did not stop him
Throughout these years, an understandable if fatal psychology has been at work. At each stage, stopping Trump would have required extraordinary action by certain people, whether politicians or voters or donors, actions that did not align with their immediate interests or even merely their preferences. It would have been extraordinary for all the Republicans running against Trump in 2016 to decide to give up their hopes for the presidency and unite around one of them. Instead, they behaved normally, spending their time and money attacking each other, assuming that Trump was not their most serious challenge, or that someone else would bring him down, and thereby opened a clear path for Trump’s nomination. And they have, with just a few exceptions, done the same this election cycle. It would have been extraordinary had Mitch McConnell and many other Republican senators voted to convict a president of their own party. Instead, they assumed that after Jan. 6, 2021, Trump was finished and it was therefore safe not to convict him and thus avoid becoming pariahs among the vast throng of Trump supporters. In each instance, people believed they could go on pursuing their personal interests and ambitions as usual in the confidence that somewhere down the line, someone or something else, or simply fate, would stop him. Why should they be the ones to sacrifice their careers? Given the choice between a high-risk gamble and hoping for the best, people generally hope for the best. Given the choice between doing the dirty work yourself and letting others do it, people generally prefer the latter.
TL;DR: The Psychology is briefly explained; and it highlights how extraordinary that taking action would have been for the person(s) in question.
A paralyzing psychology of appeasement has also been at work. At each stage, the price of stopping Trump has risen higher and higher. In 2016, the price was forgoing a shot at the White House. Once Trump was elected, the price of opposition, or even the absence of obsequious loyalty, became the end of one’s political career, as Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Paul D. Ryan and many others discovered. By 2020, the price had risen again. As Mitt Romney recounts in McKay Coppins’s recent biography, Republican members of Congress contemplating voting for Trump’s impeachment and conviction feared for their physical safety and that of their families. There is no reason that fear should be any less today. But wait until Trump returns to power and the price of opposing him becomes persecution, the loss of property and possibly the loss of freedom. Will those who balked at resisting Trump when the risk was merely political oblivion suddenly discover their courage when the cost might be the ruin of oneself and one’s family?
TL;DR: More Psychology is explained briefly and it highlights that the price to stop Trump has been rising exponentially with each step.
Trump pardoned murderers.
I hope you're right.
However I also never imagined my country (Holland) the PVV extreme-right would become the biggest party by far. People really have gone mad. Even some of my friends are now so hostile against immigrants and transsexuality in particular, I just don't know where it comes from. I guess they doomscroll too much in the wrong places and edge each other on or something.
