Actually, it seems that it would be easy for him once he gets sworn in. As I’ve said before, Absolute. Immunity. He is going to have a ridiculous amount of power and it’s all his. He can give a listen to someone’s request, but the ultimate question will be does it increase his power, or does it just placate the American people, who think he’ll do something for them, because he promised, yes? Trump promises mean less than the air he used to say them. They are worth zero, zilch, nada, nothing. He made promises on the campaign trail that gave him the votes he needed to get back in power. This time he’s not going to lose things so easily.
Let’s start with my favorite. He’s going to bring the prices of groceries down. Except he won’t because tariffs are going to raise ALL costs, even though he thinks tariffs are beautiful and they will make money for the US. Well, no. They won’t. He’s already said, to paraphrase, it’s hard to get prices back down, very hard. Then why did you promise to bring them down? Oh, right, because that’s what MAGA wanted to hear so you could get back in power. That’s what you promised the people of this country who don’t have very much so they believed you wanted to help them. Authoritarians care nothing for anyone except their power. They enrich themselves. They can *promise* the moon and stars but all you’ll get is air, and hot air at that.
The Mango Mandarin admires authoritarian governments. Come on, some of his heroes are Vladimir Putin (interesting how his first name is rarely used in the news) and Kim Jong Un. He supports good ol’ Victor Orban in Hungary. Then there’s Nicolas Maduro Moros who continues being “President” of Venezuela even after he lost the election. He is wanted in the US on multiple charges. Oops! How could I almost forget?! Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Hungary. He used a template built by Putin and used by many power-hungry “leaders” around the world. Millions across the world have lived under these authoritarian cascades. Ugh, now my fingers feel slimy.
The title may be president, but the power is authoritarian. SCOTUS screwed our country with the Absolute. Immunity. They gave it to him last year. I’m looking forward to the day, IF it ever happens, that they *really* realize what they’ve done. As long as it can fall under a president’s duties and power, DonOld can do whatever he wants. Dictator for a day? No, dictator for 4 years. He may yet find some sort of loophole, although his people would have to look really damn hard for a really long time to have even a chance of it. We hope. I can’t remember exactly what is needed to change something, so rather than guessing, I’m just going to say I hope it isn’t something easy, especially with GOP majorities *everywhere*.
I ran across an article about this problem, and the author gave quite a list of what to do to “get what you want and need”. Here are a few: Goal: amass as much power as possible within the formal parameters of a liberal democracy. Rule 1: Begin with a voice – you are the conduit of the “real people” (hello MAGA) in their struggle against a nebulous class of “elites” (hello billionaires boys club). Rule 2: Rewrite history and bring out the greatness of your ideas and plans to change things into what you want.
I wish I could include all of them but it’s a very long and VERY interesting list. You can see more of it here. Read it. It’s worth your time because you can see its parallels to today’s modern world. You can see how other countries have oh-so-subtly used it until it’s too late to change. You can see where we’re heading and it’s a dark, dark, dark world.
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Susan…you seem like a nice person…be sure to have a plan when they get around to outlawing blogs that disagree with the new dictator. Authoritarian governments start with the big fish, but they know in their evil little chest cavities where a heart should be, that eventually NO dissent is allowed, because they aren’t there but by nefarious means, and God forbid, what if the truth starts to matter? That’s why in Hitler’s official list of enemies of his Reich, he not only included the usual suspects, Jews, intellectuals, communists, etc., but also a group labeled ‘grumblers’. I think all of us here, except for the occasional cult member who visits, could easily meet that criteria. Hell, I’m an educated, criminal Jew,(by conversion a half century ago), AND a grumbler…so I’ll be arrested before you if that’s comforting. Oh…and my daughters and my adopted family the last twenty years are black folks from Alabama so there’s that also. See you in the camp to plan our escape. Ha.