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A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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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.