Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists Conference, above left at the start, below at the end raising his fist defiantly to a decidely anti-Trump group. Was Putin watching?
Trump now famously said he'd only be a dictator on day one. (You can read more about the dictator comments here.)
Thoughts about what Trump could do if elected were literally keeping me from falling back asleep when I woke up at 2:00AM. I started to write this at 3 AM afer thinking about it for an hour and not being able to fall back asleep. It is about the horror of what the maniacal vengeful Trump I saw when he was interviewed yesterday by the Black journalists could do if elected president. What triggered my anxiety over this was watching how unhinged and downright vicious Trump was in that interview.
This is a flight of frightful fantasy. I doubt it would happen. However, it could happen.
Trump wouldn't have to do the comparatively minor things he said he'd do as a dictator on just day one. He said he would close the border and drill, drill, drill. These were the two he mentioned. What else crossed his mind at the time we may never know. I suspect he knew he couldn't say what he'd really do.
What Trump actually said about this is irrelevant because once he is sworn in as president he has the power to do much, much more. In fact, he can exercise incredible power day one, on day two, when he said he'd "merely" stop the electric car mandate, and thereafter. Again, this is just what he said. It isn't what he is planning to do.
What would make sense for him on day one would be to make his first official duty to make himself permanent dictator would be to declare a national emergency. He would say it was to use the military using deadly force if necessary to quell the unrest across the country caused by his election. I have little doubt that there would be protests. This would be especially likely if the election was close and there were indications that the Republicans, like they accused the Democrats of doing, actually did steal the election .
It is quite possible that protests would have included some violence so this would gin up MAGA support for the action. Of course the Supreme Court ruled that he could never be held accountable for this once he's no longer president. That ruling, as much as it shreds the Constitution seperation of powers, is irrelevant to a dictator who rules for life.
Let's consider what this would enable him to do. The following is from a US News and World Report article:
First order of business is to declare a national emergency. What, then, is a national emergency?
A national emergency is a national crisis or a situation where circumstances threaten the country and call for an immediate response. What actually constitutes an emergency, though, is up for debate and requires the president to use existing law to justify a declaration. Presidents in recent history have exercised their power to declare national emergencies under the National Emergencies Act of 1976. President Gerald Ford signed the act into law on Sept. 14, 1976, to formalize the emergency powers of the president, as well as create checks and balances for that power through Congress.
What does the NEA mean for the president and Congress?
The act allows the executive branch to declare a national emergency, but the president must cite the specific emergency powers he is activating to make the declaration under existing statutes. There are hundreds of provisions of federal law that delegate the president "extraordinary authority in time of national emergency," according to the Congressional Research Service. The 2007 CRS report notes, "the vast majority of them are of the stand-by kind — dormant until activated by the President."
Consider just one portion of this:
According to the report: "Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens."
This is the nightmare scenario. A nightmare is a frightening dream. It isn't real. Nightmares come from the unconscious but they are frequently based on real life fears. Sometimes the fears come true. Sometimes they don't. With this in mind I offer something of a waking nightmare of what could happen if Trump wins.
Before he got to controlling people like us Trump could, for example, order all of his enemies arrested including Kamala Harris, her running mate, and Joe Biden, in addtion to Democratic members of Congress, and members of the media. He could do the same with the judges and prosecutors who went after him. He could use both the FBI and the military for this. In fact he could have given groups of local militias arrest power.
Concurrent with these direct acts against people would be taking total control of as much media as possible. This would mean replacing all television, radio, and internet (as much as this is technically possible. I'd expect more and more people would figure out how to use the dark web) with MAGA controlled media. Tucker Carlson could be the media czar.
Whatever statutes, The Posse Comitatus Act comes to mind, which would limit the use of the military for domestic purposes would be ignored.
Trump would have readied the control of the military in advance with his 2025 team to assure he could fire all the top generals and have them replaced with those loyal to him. Welcone back, General Flynn.
He would have made certain that the National Guard could be federalized. His 2025 advisors would have secretly planned all of this for him.
Then he'd deploy active duty military where he thought it most necessesary. This would not be to the southern border since he really doesn't care about that, it being a campaign ploy to scare people into voting for him. In fact, he might want to stop people from crossing the northern border since those who was to mount an anti-MAGA resistance may want to flee to Canada. Trump would use the military and federal law enforcement like the FBI and US Marshals to make sure there isn't active resistance against him. It might be to the streets of Washington and cities like Portland and Seattle. Wherever protests erupted they would be met by a swift and ruthless response.
This is what Trump would want to happen. Whether he could pull it off would remain to be seen. To succeed would depend on the majority of members of the armed forces and federal law enforcement being willing to obey what they seen as illegal and unconstitutional orders. While the members of military and law enforcement tend to lean right they may not lean that far to the right.
Some of the more extreme MAGAs have threatened a civil war if Trump loses. By this they mean an actual civil war where they will engage in actual battles with the anti-MAGAs. These are the people far more likely than Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans to escalate a conflict to violence but at some point those who want to save democracy would fight back.
If all this comes to pass we will have a nation that would no longer be a democracy. Instead of a country divided by a Mason-Dixon Line it would be fought all over the country. The country would be ungovernable. It would descend into chaos. States would turn into enclaves with governors activating their national guards to defend their borders and their cities.
Roughly half of the country support Trump but not all of them want the country to turn into a country like Russia ruled by a dictator like Putin.
It is quite possible that the end result of Trump's attempt to become a dictator would be a military coup aided by members of the Secret Service on the White House and Trump's detail.
It's also possible Trump and MAGA would prevail and people like us will be looking over our shoulders in fear that a MAGA neighbor will turn us in for being disloyal.
A year from now, while I doubt I am important enough to be in jail, I could be publishing my blog on the dark web.
Addendum:
My nightmare scenario fits right in with what cult expert Steve Hassan told Chauncey DeVega in tolday's column
Excerpt:
How would you respond to those people who will say that you should not describe the MAGA movement as a cult and/or Donald Trump as a cult leader? And to do so, especially at this moment, is not polite or nice. You should tone it down and be more “responsible” because you, and people like you, are part of the problem in this country with all these troubles and how high the political temperature has risen.
I would tell them that the MAGA movement is in fact an authoritarian cult. It is dangerous, destructive, anti-human rights, anti-woman, racist and white supremacist, antigay and has many other antisocial values and beliefs. The Trump authoritarian personality and the larger antidemocracy movement are very dangerous. People tried to stop these evil forces in the 1930s and 1940s. We can learn from them and rise to the challenge today. It is the very definition of being responsible to tell the truth about these dangers.
Donald Trump and his agents across MAGA and the larger neofascist movement have made it very clear that their "enemies" and critics and anyone else who opposes them will be severely punished, including being put in prison and worse, when/if they take power in 2025. Enemies lists have already been made. This is a documented fact. Given your book "The Cult of Trump" you are likely on one of those lists. Are you afraid? Is that going to change your behavior?
I believe in standing up against such evil I have been confronting danger since I was deprogrammed from the Moonies 48 years ago. I will not be silenced nor flee. I have always stood my ground against cults. Some of them are very powerful with billions of dollars. I will not surrender the truth or be intimidated into silence. I have had my life threatened by these powerful cults for many years. But I'm not going to stop talking. I want to live my life looking in the mirror knowing that I am doing the right thing. I will not just follow the crowd out of fear like too many other people have done in dark times. We need to be brave. I want people to know we are the majority, and they are the minority. If we believe Trump and MAGA will win, then we give up our collective resources and power. We are stronger together.
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