If we return Trump to power, ‘this is going to be no different from Putin’s Russia’ | Opinion
The other day, a Kansas Citian who was born in Iran and has been a U.S. citizen for decades told me how upset he is about our former and God forbid, future president’s gangster threat that, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”
“What are we going to do about Trump?” he asked. What I answered is not important, but what he said then really is.
I wasn’t taking notes, so I am not going to put this in quotes, but it’s pretty close: We have to stop him, no matter what it costs us, or we’re going to lose everything, said my friend, whom I’m not naming out of concern for his safety. We’re going to lose our democracy. Americans have had it so good for so long, they have no idea what that means, and I hope they never find out, but if we don’t wake up, this is going to be no different from Putin’s Russia or Iran under the mullahs. You see that, right?
Unfortunately, yes.
If you have read Donald Trump’s latest indictment, you know that according to his own team, he was willing even to use force to stay in power.
There is a word for that, and it is certainly not “conservative.”
Admires dictators’ authoritarian power to kill
Those of us who see our country rushing toward authoritarianism do not think Trump was kidding in 2019 when he said, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”
Or that he was any less serious in December when he called for the “termination” of the U.S. Constitution.
We took Trump at his word every one of the many times he openly drooled over what dictators could get away with. So, for that matter, did former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who has said that her former boss seemed to fear Putin, but “I also think he admired him, greatly. I think he wanted to be able to kill whoever spoke out against him. So I think it was a lot of that. In my experience with him, he loved the dictators, he loved the people who could kill anyone, including the press.”
And we believe Trump’s promise that if we return him to power, he will purge the federal civil service of all non-Trump loyalists, eliminate an independent Department of Justice and thoroughly remake our system by undermining the checks and balances that have brought the American experiment this far.
These plans are not a secret, but to his followers, a selling point; his campaign advisers cooperated with a July New York Times story laying them out in great detail: “Donald J. Trump and his allies,” it began, “are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.”
None of this is a surprise from the man who thinks rules, laws, norms and vows are for suckers, just like paying your bills; Who said his fellow Republican Mitch McConnell must have a “DEATH WISH” for disagreeing with him; and announced at a National Prayer Breakfast that he didn’t agree with whoever said “love your enemies.”
Democracy more important than policy differences
So what brought us here? Complacency, for one thing.
“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time?” an unnamed senior Republican official told The Washington Post after Trump’s initial claims of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. “No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.” Mmm.
Then there’s the collective disinterest in both history and news, particularly in the rest of the world, that keeps us from seeing how this story has ended elsewhere.
And there’s the polarization that keeps us from admitting how inconsequential even the most dramatic policy differences are compared to whether or not we keep our democracy.
But there’s also the negative magnetism of this person.
A few years ago, an evangelical Republican I know, not a Trumper himself, told me that his explanation of Trump’s appeal to so many of his friends was that he got away with so many things they couldn’t. They vicariously enjoyed watching him cheat and talk smack, while also telling themselves that it still was virtuous to cheer him on because he was going to overturn Roe.
What I think is that Lincoln was right that we all have better and lesser angels, and that Trump spends full time in communication with the lesser angels of our nature, winking and waving and inviting them to come dance naked in broad daylight. Oh, and they do.
What he is selling isn’t any ideology, because he doesn’t have one, or any collection of policies, other than those that benefit him personally.
The uncommon loyalty he inspires comes not from any program or promise, but from how he makes his people feel, which is both angry and thrilled, because like all aspiring authoritarians, he is exceptional at exploiting our grievances.
If you’re a Republican still telling yourself that you like him for his tax cuts, or the wall he was never going to build, or the way he stood up for traditional marriage by having three of them, then vote for Mike Pence or any one of the other old-fashioned believers in our institutions, and save the republic, please.
Editor’s note: The Iranian individual mentioned in this story is not named. We have decided to grant his anonymity out of concern for his safety.
This story was originally published August 8, 2023 at 5:02 AM.
