A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.

And yet people keep telling me that Biden needs to lose so that Democrats can be "taught a lesson."

Ah yes! Enlightened Centrist and Libertarians. They will always vote GOP no matter how horrible the candidate is with some shit reason to not vote Democrat. OR they will vote for some numbnuts third party candidate with an equally shitty reason.
- The common talking points these days are either, "DeMoCrAtS aRe FaScIsTs, ToO!" or, "DeMoCrAtS nEeD tO eArN mY vOtE!"
  
  And I'm sure the next generation will thank them for taking an ideological stand right as Fascism is trying to take over. /s
- Don't vote Democrat, vote third party I hear! Me, I'm like well with first past the post voting this is impractical and could help empower fascists to take over, but let's see what options we got.
  
  /opens box of third party candidates, before gently closing it and walking away
  
  Yeah no, Biden still best option, these guys are nutters. It makes sense though, a sensible candidate would run in the democratic primaries, rather than hurting their own purported causes by running in the general in a first past the post election. It's why you saw Bernie Sanders, an independent, running in the democratic primary, and not out there helping to siphon votes to fascists by running as a third party in the general against Biden.
  
  Anyways, let's focus on continuing to empower politicians that want to improve our voting system (usually has been democrats, though with an exception in Alaska). This starts at the local level, but we're getting more and more federal offices now with ranked choice voting. Once you have that, then better quality third party candidates will follow, knowing they can fairly safely run without harming their own causes.
- I show up to vote against Brownback and in support of abortion. Then I vote against every incumbent and to fire all the judges.
- Unfortunately, there are few leftists that push the same narrative, too. And all because Biden (or Obama, or Hillary) are not the pretty pony they think they were promised or something.
I do worry that Biden will lose though. He was far from a popular candidate to begin with and his support of Israel's genocide of Palestinians has made him even less so. In many ways the best outcome might be for him to die in office prior to the election or for him to lose the primary. It would hurt the Democrats to have a non-incumbent running, but possibly less than running Biden. The real wildcard though is if Trump will even end up on the ballot considering his legal issues.
- I do worry that Biden will lose though.
  
  Good. Everybody should think this. Thinking Trump can't possibly win is how he won in 2016.
  
  We need to behave as if it's a real possibility, even if you feel optimistic about next year.
- It would hurt the Democrats to have a non-incumbent
  
  If Biden were not on the ballot next year, the Democratic candidate would be Kamala Harris. No mainstream Democrat would challenge her in 2024, the optics would be horrible.
The way that talking point gets pushed unusually hard by an unusually dedicated few using the same stupid arguments looks an awful lot like the kind of psyops campaigns I'd see when I was on Reddit during the Trump presidency.

The real long term solution is changing how we vote. Star Voting or some form of Ranked Choice. That's how I respond along with https://fairvote.org so, in case some impressionable soul happens along, they aren't taken in by such silliness. I encourage others to consider doing something similar.
We already learned that lesson - in 2016.
People have no idea how to move the overton window.
My Roman Empire is remembering how the shitheads screamed and yelled denying responsibility on the day Dobbs came down.

Was grocery shopping with my grammy and had to pull the most hemmeroid passingly determined poker face in history to not break out into cursing them and their obvious waste of what privileges they live with to be in the position of treating this like it's teaching the DNC a lesson.

Fucking Priv Shit Vote Karens, every last one of them, "Take me to the party's manager right now or I'll let the fascists take away even more of your rights!"
Why can't democrats run a better candidate?
- Voting is a chess move, not a love letter.
- Because the party isn't going to defy the incumbent president. This should be obvious.
- They all ran before the 2020 election, people mainly liked Biden. (I voted Bernie). The time to get a better candidate than Biden was then, changing things up would be a huge risk for Democrats and would help Trump (R's can't easily say Biden is insane and take their away their rights, unlike a new candidate which they can say is the bogeyman). This is the exact same reason Trump ran basically unopposed for his 2nd term, its generally the best idea in the US's system vs picking another candidate. If you care about how "bad" Biden is, then vote in the next general and help out the best candidate.
- Depends how cynical you feel today.
  
  IMO it's either:
  
  The DNC believes anyone too progressive will get stomped in the general election
  
  Don't forget, Dems would be conservatives in most other countries. As much as I hate to say it, I'm not convinced most of them aren't just as beholden to corporate interests as R is.
  
  OR
  
  Probably a little of both of those actually. Also, maybe a dash of - boomers are going to control our politics until a bunch more boomer voters and boomer politicians die of old age.
- They can and I wish they would, but it's too late this election. Anyone else would have two weeks or so to get on the ballot and get name recognition and get people to like what they're doing. Not really sure that's possible.
it's because of people defending biden's atrocities. like, there's more than one person you can run, and most of the options could poll better vs. trump.
- Such as?
Biden needs to deliver on at least one campaign promise - be a 1 term President, and drop out of the race now, so we don’t risk the election.

His ego, nor the desires of his donors, are not worth sacrificing democracy.
- Your wish is granted.
- Wait, you not only want him to be a one-term president, you don't even want him to finish his term? We get President Harris until 2024?

Polls a year out are meaningless. Obama was also "losing" at this point before his re-election.

Nationally, Democrats have been beating polls by 9+ points at the ballot box since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Reminder of what an absolute shit-bird Robert Kagan is.

'No rational person would believe a word Robert Kagan says about anything. He has been spewing out one falsehood after the next for the last four years in order to blind Americans about the real state of affairs concerning the invasion which he and his comrade and writing partner Bill Kristol did as much as anyone else to sell to the American public.' - Glenn Greenwald, Salon.

Kagan is one of the shitheads that got us to this point. He's now concern-trolling us about how we shouldn't bother opposing Trump.

I completely agree but I would just like to point out that Glenn Greenwald is also a massive shithead.
- Yes, he absolutely is, but he was also correct in that particular assessment.
EXACTLY. I'm getting tired of these doom and gloom articles from journalists who know better.
- Either the media wants a horse race or they absolutely don't know how to poll post Roe v. Wade.
  
  Probably both.
Nationally, Democrats have been beating polls by 9+ points at the ballot box since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

It's really surprised to me how quickly this dropped from political discourse and analysis. We've had several off year elections and the midterms now where Republicans have underperformed. Polls have largely seemed to miss this trend.

There's a lot of reasons to be hopeful right now. Republicans can't control their messaging on abortion, and it's very clear voters are unhappy about bans. Yet, Republicans in the House are only barely aware of it, and in the Senate you'd think they hadn't seen any results at all. Tuberville's continued hold for abortion reasons, while voters have made it clear anti abortion advocates can go fuck themselves, is remarkably visible. I don't think it's a mistake that Republicans are signaling they'll bypass him if he doesn't budge. Elections a month ago make it clear it's a millstone around their necks.

We have an advantage to capitalize on, but it only matters if we press the advantage. We have to show up en masse to the election.
- Moreover, the Democrats need to get their messaging together. Hammer in that THESE ARE THE PEOPLE who overturned Roe, who are currently cratering Florida and Texas, who allowed COVID to run rampant. Hammer in Tuberville blocking military promotions, hammer in Johnson and McConnell both effectively refusing to do any of their jobs, hammer in Trump nearly getting us into a shooting war with Iran (remember that assassination we carried out during a peace conference?) Remind the voters who exactly Trump is, what exactly he's done, and what exactly he's stated he's going to do.
At this point, I think it's advantageous for anyone who is set in their decision to lie on polls and say you'd vote for the opposite candidate in the hopes of making that side complacent and light a fire under your side.
Just because he's a neocon piece of shit doesn't mean he can't be right. Also, dude, Glen Greenwald is no fucking saint either. That guy is a certified scumbag. At least with Kagan there's a chance that he actually believes his bullshit, whereas with Greenwald, we know he's an intellectually dishonest grifter.
Obama was also “losing” at this point before his re-election

Obama was about 46% and trending upwards at this point, Biden is 37% and trending downward. This is a pretty nice visualization of historical presidential approval ratings plotted with Biden's. Takeway is while other presidents have tanked way harder (Nixon, Dubya, HW), Trump and Biden are basically tied for historical unpopularity on a consistent basis. Biden did hit mid 50s as he came in to office where most presidents get a bump, Trump didn't even reach 50.

Same paper that just ran the "Women should stop shunning Trump supporters in their dating pool" article. I guess that's so they'll be less likely to abused under the pending dictatorship?

Same author?

Because papers often run a variety of opinion pieces...
- Really wish people would stop posting / up voting garbage opinion pieces here. I want facts, not hot takes.
- Good point and probably not, but I'm too lazy to look right now.
  
  Edited to add: Presumably same editorial team, so the seeming dissonance between the two articles isn't lessened much by having different authors.

Non English speaker: inevitable means it will happen no matter what. They way i see it, its used wrong here correct? It should maybe have been 'increasingly realistic' or maybe 'increasingly plausible' but inevitable assumes that voting for someone else won't stop it from happening

The title is a bit clickbaity, but the subtext is that if he is elected, dictatorship is increasingly inevitable.

And the 'increasingly' modifier further shows it's only a potential outcome.
- The author isn't the most self-aware... Robert Kagan was a Republican strategist until 2016, he's an interventionalist neocon, thinks the GOP "lost it's way" rather than contributed to this by design.
- I agree. I think that if Trump is elected and puts an end to democracy as we know it, but it won't be a dictatorship of Trump, alone. Trump is but a mortal man. And whoever replaces him will be worse.
One of the many examples of how English is manipulated and massaged to mean whatever you want it to mean. A more accurate phrase they should have chosen is "increasingly likely".
Technically, I'd say "increasingly inevitable" is a meaningless phrase. "Inevitable" is an absolute - an outcome either is, or is not, inevitable. Like they say, "you can't be a little bit pregnant", outcomes cannot be a little bit inevitable, or somewhat inevitable, or mostly inevitable, so the degree of inevitability cannot be increasing.

However, I think most native English speakers would not think twice about it, and would read it as something like: "a Trump dictatorship is approaching inevitability." That's how I read it, at least.
This is just the usual polarising fear mongering bullshit. Even "increasingly plausible" is a stretch.

Maybe the democratic party should focus more energy trying to understand what is that that makes so many people even considering trump.

When people turn the other side into a one dimensional caricature they just ignore the real world problems that make them lose elections.

It's only inevitable if we do nothing

So pretty much inevitable then. :(
Kind of like Sandy Hook and Uvalde. Welcome to America.

As a non American I can't understand how anyone could vote for Donald twice.

As a free-thinking human being, I can’t understand how anyone could vote for him once.
- When you see his opponent it becomes easier to understand.
As an American I can't understand how anyone could vote for him once.
- As a Canadian, I can absolutely understand how someone less informed in politics and (rightfully) angry at the political establishment would vote for Trump in 2016 just to flip the bird to Hillary. Americans need to understand why he won to make sure it doesn't happen again.
- I was working at this business owner’s home. Smart, genuine, kind guy in his mid-40s with a beautiful “nuclear” family. He said he was going to vote for Trump because his sister in law worked at one his properties and she spoke well of him. That was it. That’s how a seemingly respectable upstanding well-to-do member of the community chose the president of the United States. Or, at worst, that was the reason he felt compelled to tell others.
My in-laws voted for him twice. They are pro-life, and that's all that matters to them. Otherwise they support progressive policies like single-payer healthcare. But when it comes to abortion, they will vote for a literal anti-Christ to make it illegal. Funny that they are Catholic.
- People who say they are pro-life will vote for the most pro-death policies, it's crazy.
- Its not funny. Its ludacris.
- Your in-laws sound like uninformed rubes.
- So they're going to vote for the guy that had an abortion?
They'll vote for him a third time. Believe me, folks. *accordion hands*
As a non-American I can’t understand how Bernie wasn’t voted in decades ago.
- DNC sabotage his campaigns
If there's anything the last few years taught the world, stupid people are far more numerous and far more stupid than we thought.

Perhaps we should have a way to flag opinion pieces.

Is anyone honestly confused as to whether or not it's an opinion piece? I find that very hard to believe, but I guess you never know...
Yeah LOL. It's just sooo over the top. Garbage like this I expect on Twitter. Gotta filter the noise on lemmy too I guess.

There are graduating seniors in high-school this year. That group of unregistered voters needs to be coaxed to register, and vote. They need easy, step by step directions. They need to understand their new power of citizenship. They can be tried as adults. They should know who the sheriff is. They should know its an elected position. They need to learn this shit, and most likely it's not gonna happen in school. Please ticktock or whatever. Make it viral.

I still don't understand why people have to register to vote. Everyone should automatically be registered to vote.
- I think you know the answer.
But they better vote the way we want them to vote. /sarcasm

If you've ever wondered why no one killed Hitler on his rise to power, now you know.

The main difference is, in 2023, we know how Hitler rose to power. In 1933, Germans didnt.
- Yeah, but that's like... almost a 100 years ago. Completely different. SlashEs
I think that is a bridge too far for many reasons. First off I hate the Cheeto. He is a mudstain on used panties from a crackhead pornstar.

However, we have Hitler in recent history. We have many forms of media that they did not have to see how it's going with everyone else. And let's not forget that Hitler was smarter than Trump ever will be.

I don't glorify Hitler lightly. He was a force that needed to be stopped and so does Trump. But that is were the comparison ends. Nazis became so huge because people were afraid of what would happen to their family if they didn't. Here we will fight the morons back. Stop giving this man so much power and admiration. He's a conman. A shitty leader. And a dumbass.
- And let’s not forget that Hitler was smarter than Trump ever will be.
  
  Not really. Hitler's (supposed) "genius" exists in the same way Trump's does - as propaganda and nothing else.

What should we do about it? Other than vote and try to talk people out of voting for Trump.

Basically, this coming election will be decided by the margins because almost everyone who follows politics–at all–knows who they're voting for already.

Think about the number of people who follow politics and then understand that those people are already not the demographic that will likely decide the outcome. It's the people who are surprised they Joe Biden and Donald Trump are on the ballot that matter.

It isn't worth trying to pressured persuade either the right or the left. What we need is to activate and engage the non-participating section of the electorate. This is hard, but achievable. It's people who work multiple jobs and don't have time for politics that need to know it matters if they vote. Civil rights are not a given and 2024 will be hugely consequential.

Take your friends with you on election day! Register for vote by mail and bug your friends too! Take about it and don't leave easy points on the table. Yes the options are terrible. Yes one of them will make the possibility of improving it ever infinitely more difficult.

The people saying it doesn't matter do not understand what they stand to lose. It is so so much harder to build something than tear it down and our imperfect institutions will not save us. Politics matters and the luxury of not caring, will lead to co-optation and the loss of rights that are easy to take for granted now.
- Target reluctant republicans that don't like Trump but so far are only willing to abstain. I'm pushing hard for them to send the strongest message they can by voting for Biden. I think if we plant enough seeds they may go for it in the privacy of the voting booth, even if they won't admit it.
Young people need to register. Help them!
That's it. That's the best we have short of organizing mass mass protests and raids. Which definitely isn't going to happen.

Maybe Trump will have a heart attack before the election...
yup, vote, and call out any of the children larping revolutionaries who refuse to vote
- Fuckin' privs drive me up the damn wall. They act like they're taking some noble stand for the palestinian people, meanwhile me the actual fucking palestinian am staring down the barrel of having to go without my Keffiyeh in public lest I get beaten, called a Sand N****r, and told to be grateful the bastards who did it to me didn't bring a rope, all on the back of their militant refusal to lift a finger in solidarity and vote against Trump.
  
  These so called allies of my people seem to like me much more as a potential martyr for their cause than as an agent for my own.
Don't you guys have book depositories any more?
- As long as there's a royal family and house of lords...

This is stupid fear-mongering horse s*** that ignores all the steps Americans are taking to fight against Trump being elected, and ignoring that they voted him out 3 years ago.

Stupid b*******.

People took steps against him in 2016 as well. And voting him out previously gives no guarantee of anything.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/

Polling is bullshit, but to the degree that it isn't, it isn't looking great. This isn't some guarantee that Trump will lose. The boomers that vote republican do so EVERY election. The people who vote against them aren't so reliable in comparison.
You're on the internet. Censoring yourself makes you look childish. Just cuss. Also, it's not fear mongering. The GOP has announced their intentions if they win.
- Please point to where the GOP has said they intend on installing a literal dictatorship. Please remember how many executive orders President Biden signed in his first 90 days in office as well.
you know you can swear on the internet right?
- Some instances run profanity filters.

It's a good piece and I think the analysis is largely accurate. But there's one thing I think Kagan missed: Trump isn't the only would-be dictator who could take power. He lists DeSantis and Haley as the closest competitors to Trump within the Republican Party, but he doesn't point out that even if, by some miracle, one of them becomes the party nominee, they would assume the very same dictatorial powers Trump is threatening to wield. Neither of them is going to defend democracy when offered the reins of tyranny, and both could easily hold power for decades. Trump maybe has a single decade at most.

The problem isn't simply Trump wanting to be President for Life. The problem is that the path has been cleared for any Republican to assume that role the next time one is elected. Project 2025 won't work for Trump only. The next time we have a Republican President, expect it to be the last time we have a fair election.

Not to run interference for those shitbags cause most of them are just as evil but I wouldn’t say they all equally threaten democracy. For one I’m not sure their base would allow a woman to be dictator lol even if she won due to institutional fuckery
- Anyone who thinks she wouldn't try is deluding themselves. They're both cut from the same cloth, but they're not afflicted with dementia yet.
No, none of the other GOP candidates have anything even remotely like Trump's grip on the base. Without that none of the above can happen. Trump got where he is through a long series of steps that Kagan details in the piece. There is no world in which some other candidate steps in and immediately plugs into the same kind of power that Trump has amassed as a result of Republican cowardice. Every one of them would have to start over with consolidating power in a party that's swarming with amoral power-hungry grifters.
Trump isn’t the only would-be dictator who could take power.

honestly I think only trump has what it takes to form the cult of personality necessary to take over. he's got the charisma to entrance 35% the country. DeSantis is more temperamentally fit to be the lieutenant you send in to do massacres than a figurehead leader

Stop sucking Trump's cock, www.washingtonpost.com. There's nothing inevitable about Trump but lies, treason, and bullshit.

As with Napoleon, who spoke of the glory of France but whose narrow ambitions for himself and his family brought France to ruin, Trump’s ambitions, though he speaks of making America great again, clearly begin and end with himself.

As the author keeps comparing Trump to Napoleon and Hitler, I can't help but wonder if maybe the US is due a conflagration. At what point do we admit that the American experiment returned a null result?

In the cases of France and Germany, the answer was violence. Oppression has never been defeated with pacifism. If history is our guide and conservatives are our oppressors, soon we may have to make some very difficult life and death decisions.

Conservatives have already embraced violence as part of their ideology, which I think makes the path out of their oppression more clear.
- the choice of weather there will be violence isn't ours to make, the conservatives have made it for us, and they chose violence. our choice is to resist or concede to fascism. conceding won't make the violence stop, it will only make it worse and don't let anyone convince you otherwise
- Oppression has never been defeated with pacifism.
  
  I was taught that Gandhi helped India defeat the oppression of the British Raj with pacifism.
  
  Is that not the case? I mean I wouldn't be surprised if Power taught me peaceful protest works every time.
I think it's more that human societies are very rarely stable across 3 or more generations. The US has had a number of major crises through its history, it's definitely due for another. Repeating the dead line about a failed experiment is kind of needlessly deaf to that history.

All you can do for now is stand up and fight it.
At what point do we admit that the American experiment returned a null result?

Probably when the commerce clause meant the fed can regulate shit you do in your home with your own body.

But even failed experiments give data. I'm a fan of the bill of rights, save for a few niggling details.

Polls are meaningless when nobody answers the phone and/or they call people who don’t actually vote. Kids today know to shut up and beat the shitbags at the polls. We are collectively punishing the Republicans for 40 years of attacks against our society.

There is a reason that no poll I've ever responded to has ever straight up asked me who I plan on voting for in the next election.

They can spin your feelings, They can't spin a simple yes/no question.
- Dang I didn't notice that before. I was polled once and they only asked me what I thought of my current elected officials not who I planned to vote for.
  
  Guess it wouldn't get clicks if they were honest
- Push polls are the only ones I've ever gotten, and those seldom and not for a long time.

Are people really going to vote for a 80’ish year old would be dictator? For notionally a 4 year term? And no coherent succession plan?

He got more votes after people knew exactly who he was. I don't think he's lost many of them the more 'out loud' he gets.
- Actually if you go by percentage Trump basically won nobody new, he just picked up more votes total because vote by mail made the poles more accessible to more folks who would have voted for him anyways.
  
  What changed was that people weren't fucking around and voted solidly against him, giving Biden an absolute majority of the popular vote.
- One silver lining is a lot of them died from COVID.
Yes.

Shit website

Paywall

Bezos

Good thing the archive was posted with it.

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/MEbuN?wr=true

Kagan has many problems, but that doesn't make him wrong here.

Quite honestly, I go back and forth on whether a Trump second term would result in a dictatorship. Don't get me wrong, he would do immense damage to our democracy and should be kept as far away from power as possible. (Preferably in a prison cell.)

Trump's first term, though, showed that Trump was often too incompetent to fulfill what he wanted to do. Not only that, but he was prone to get distracted by shiny things. He's going to go after the "deep state" and kick out anyone who doesn't support him? Well, first he needs to hold a press conference with a hurricane map that he marked up with a sharpie.

All this being said, the best case scenario for a Trump second term is that democracy is seriously wounded. We could emerge from it still with our voting rights intact, but with our entire democracy vulnerable to the next guy who can con a group of people into thinking that he's protecting them from The Other by removing everyone's rights.

This is an incredibly naive take (no offense), and is exactly the kind of thinking that allows authoritarianism to take root.

It can happen here

Regardless of Trump's competency, I can guarantee you that the anti-democratic powers that underpin Trump, galvanize his authority, and who do posses the competency to back his authority will absolutely accomplish a silent dictatorship in this country should he re-gain power.

You are absolutely insane to believe, given every single historical warning to the contrary, that this will not happen. I would go so far as to say that given the current geo-&-socio-political climate that this is the MOST likely scenario at the present time. History has a tendency to rhyme, and we are in the pre-global conflict phase of the paradigm. Every single person in this country who cares about the democratic process should take this threat deadly serious.

It can happen here.
It can happen to you.
It can happen in your lifetime.
WAKE THE FUCK UP.
- I think you're misreading what I wrote. I was saying that the best case scenario of a second Trump term is that he continues his habit of getting in his own way and fails to institute a dictatorship. But even then, he'd do so much damage that it would only be a matter of time before the next wanna be dictator used the doors that Trump opened to finish the job.
  
  When even the best case scenario is "democracy is on life support," we've got to do everything possible to stop Trump's second term.
  
  Of course, what I didn't mention in my original comment - and what likely tips the scales in what will happen - is not what Trump would do, but what others would do. When Trump won, I don't think the right was prepared for the amount of power Trump was going to let them wield.
  
  They likely thought he would lose or would be a "typical Republican" up to that point - willing to bend the Constitution a bit but not outright shred it. By the time, they realized what they could do, they had no time to get plans together and people in place. The midterms had already occurred and Democrats controlled Congress.
  
  Now, though, they have Project 2025. They are organized and know exactly what they need to do to fatally wound democracy. Would Trump get in their way and (accidentally) stop them from achieving their goal? It's possible, but I'm not willing to risk our democracy on that bet.
- I believe that's the tl;dr summary of the article in the OP.
There is a bluprint out there in the open :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

Some people are seriously planning to take down US democracy...
- Seems like a good reason for the party to adapt in order to secure as much participation from as many likeminded voters as possible.
  
  "Not Trump" is not as universally convincing as I fear the party is assuming. It's sufficient for you and I, to be sure.
- Right. I didn't address this in my comment because I wanted to focus on Trump himself. Whatever Trump does, he'll likely use this plan to destroy our democracy.
  
  If Trump gets into office again, our best hope would be that 1) the institutions can survive Project 2025 and 2) Trump and Co are too incompetent to enact their plans. I wouldn't want to bet my life on either of these, though. A better hope is to work to keep Trump (and anyone else like him) away from any position of power all the way from President to city councilman.
- Reagan started to get in to ideas of unitary executive theory and Bush was another proponent. The founders often debated, famously Hamilton, what the "executive" role actually meant for the office, and it was left vague as a lot of their ideas were. In the context of the time you had landowners being allowed to vote, the whole point of the government was basically to ensure no states had power over any other, then over time the executive branch developed and expanded and presidents had to see what that meant testing limits over time. I don't think this plan would be successful and if it were it would probably be bad by virtue of who would be in power.
I wouldn't put it passed him to try to weasel into a 3rd (or indefinite 2nd) term but given the rampant nepotism and astonishing loyalty I think it more likely his family will all start rotating into that role and we'll see a Trump on the ballot for the next 2-3 decades. Plenty of time to slow cook that frog.
- He's already said this kind of thing. He admired the Chinese President for declaring himself President For Life and he said that he deserves a third term for the "Russia Russia Russia investigation." His age might play into him actually going for a third term. He'd be 82 in January 2029 - assuming his lifelong bad health habits didn't get to him first.
  
  I could see him trying to appoint his successor, but none of his kids are as "charismatic" as he is. (Using the term "charismatic" loosely to describe the hold he has on some people. Not sure what else to call that.) A Trump Dictatorship could oddly result in a civil war as we get Trump Jr MAGAs fighting Greene MAGAs or Lake MAGAs etc. All while the tattered remnants of the Democrats try to use the chaos to right the ship.
- The Supreme Court will find a way. Clarence Thomas will get a new boat.
  
  No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,
  
  They will just say the first term or second term doesn't count because he wasn't elected he won the EC.
Trump governed like a milquetoast Republican and most of what he did the Democrats haven't undone, the tax breaks for corporations, the tariffs, the immigration policy, the fucking wall.

The rhetoric is part of the hyperreal spectacle of politics and it's hilarious how so many people still clutch pearls over his insane personality even after his first term. His entire political brand was created by provoking outrage and he continues to do this. The threat to democracy is the Republican party and people forget how they already stole the 2001 election, and how fraudulent American elections historically were. The "fair" election is a very recent thing, like last 50 years. Some of the stories from the past are hilarious too like literally paying people to get on busses and carting them to polling stations.
You don't go from 0 to dictatorship in a couple years. You have to wait for slow burn of propaganda, build support with appointees, etc. You can't judge this from the first term.
- I think the biggest factor isn't going to be Trump himself. If it was just him, he might trip over his own feet and keep himself from instituting a democracy. (Not that I'd bet our democracy on that happening.)
  
  The bigger danger are the people who would be (and already are) working behind the scenes. I think they were caught by surprise in 2016 - both in Trump's win and in his willingness to go further towards dictatorship than they even hoped to achieve. They weren't prepared and we got the chaotic slip that did damage, but didn't result in President Trump For Life.
  
  This time, they're prepared. If they get into power via a second Trump presidency, our best hope is that the institutions are sturdier than they seem to be and possibly that Trump is even more clumsy - to the point of sabotaging his own team's plans. That's not a very big hope, though. It's about the same level as saying "I'm completely broke so I'll spend my last few dollars on this lottery ticket to become rich." Could it happen? Sure, but it's much more likely that you/America lose.
  
  And even if we somehow, miraculously, emerge from a trump presidency with our democracy intact, it would be on life support. As you said, you don't go from 0 to Dictatorship. Trump would have turned the dial enough that some future Trump figure would get into power and turn it the rest of the way.
  
  The only way to ensure that our democracy is safe is to keep Trump - and everyone supporting him - as far from power as possible.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.

Until now, Republicans and conservatives have enjoyed relative freedom to express anti-Trump sentiments, to speak openly and positively about alternative candidates, to vent criticisms of Trump’s behavior past and present.

Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the Wilson administration shut down newspapers and magazines critical of the war; Franklin D. Roosevelt rounded up Japanese Americans and placed them in camps.

There is every reason to believe that active-duty troops and reservists are likely to be disproportionately more sympathetic to a newly reelected President Trump than to the “Radical Left Thugs” supposedly causing mayhem in the streets of their towns and cities.

The power shift at the federal level, and the tone of menace and revenge emanating from the White House, will likely embolden all kinds of counter-resistance even in deep-blue states, including violent protests.

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.

The original article contains 6,008 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 97%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

If a fascist dictatorship in the US is "inevitable," it's only so because liberals won't actually lift a finger to stop it.

There are plenty of organizations out there working to make sure this doesn't happen. You could sing up for one of them instead of spreading doom and gloom on the internet. The change starts with you.
- Such as?
liberals rolling over for fascism is the reason they're winning. the moment enough liberals draw a line in the sand and hold firm is when it stops.
- Liberals rolling over for fascism is the only way fascists win. There simply is no other way fascists can win.

Is there a way of filtering US politics on here?

Read the sidebar. This magazine is for US politics.
- On Lemmy!
Yes. In the sidebar, there is a link to block this community.

When does this brinkmanship dilemma stop occurring? How long are dems gonna get a blank check to spit in our faces because republicans are a looming threat? Is MAGA gonna be gone in 2028? 2032? When is the income gap gonna stop accelerating? Or emissions? When are houses gonna be affordable, or education? What about the situation is supposed to improve if dems win 2028?

Voting for local elections is more important than president. Some flavor of socialist could win a local election. You are fooling yourself if you think a socialist could win presidency in the upcoming election.

Also why should Democrats care about someone that doesn't vote? What you want them to lose 2 votes for you...continuing to not vote?
- Who said anything about not voting?
You get downvoted for actually expecting something from your vote. I’m sorry some 1/100000000 chance of a president becoming a dictator isn’t going to make me want to vote for someone who doesn’t want to fix economic problems for the middle class. Do better and winning the presidency would be a cakewalk do the bare minimum and possibly lose to Donald Trump.
Democrats would rather lose and have someone to blame than try to win voters over.