Then-President Donald Trump basks in the flattery of his Cabinet in a meeting on June 12, 2017. (Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP)
July 18, 2024 by David Silverberg
On Feb. 7 of this year, over 700 Southwest Floridians gathered in a Naples church for a conference called “Reduce the Rancor.” It brought together a wide spectrum of people who were sick of the extremism, divisiveness and toxicity of the local political dialogue.
On July 14, the nation had a similar epiphany after the near-assassination of former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pa.
In an address from the Oval Office, President Joe Biden said, “You know, the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. And we all have a responsibility to do that.”
There’s now much discussion of reducing the rancor in politics nationwide.
But as much as the temperature may turn down, as much as the rhetoric may cool, Americans should not forget or ignore the very real dangers to the nation presented by Donald Trump, his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, and Project 2025.
As has been stated many times in these pages, this election is much more than the battle between two candidates: it’s a stark contest between democracy and dictatorship, freedom and tyranny.
What are the dangers from a Trump dictatorship that Americans are facing? Some are psychological. Others are political. Some are constitutional.
The implications need to be explored, no matter how calmly stated. This essay presents some observations but hardly covers the entire spectrum.
Nonetheless, it bears repeating that even if the rancor is turned down, the danger remains and will come to fruition if Donald Trump is elected.
Government by groveling
On June 12, 2017, President Donald Trump’s Cabinet secretaries went around the table in the Cabinet Room of the White House, extravagantly flattering and praising him.
It was an extraordinary display of obsequiousness and debasement from otherwise proud, intelligent, accomplished people. However, Trump’s priority wasn’t the execution of their duties or the priorities of the nation, it was inflation of his ego. The Cabinet, led by chief of staff Reince Priebus, delivered on that, at least for the moment.
On Tuesday night, July 16, at the Republican National Convention, it was the turn of Trump’s former rivals for the presidential nomination to grovel before him.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis once said of Trump, “If he’s running for personal retribution, that is not going to lead to what we need as a country. You got to be running for the American people and their issues, not about your own personal issues and that is a distinction between us.” Trump for his part had dubbed DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious.” In Milwaukee, DeSantis changed his criticism to adulation and said of Trump, “We cannot let him down, and we cannot let America down.”
Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who once called Trump “a con artist” and said “friends do not let friends vote for con artists,” and whom Trump for his part insulted as “Little Marco,” now praised Trump before the convention for having “inspired a movement” and “transformed” the Republican Party.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who also served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, once called Trump “unhinged” and “not qualified.” Trump in turn called her “a birdbrain.” Now, after a long fight, she stood before the delegates and said “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period.”
And Sen. James David “JD” Vance (R-Ohio), now named Trump’s running mate, who in the past called him “America’s Hitler,” “a cynical asshole,” “reprehensible,” “an idiot,” and “cultural heroin,” now says, “President Trump represents America's last best hope to restore what if lost may never be found again.”
And so the litany went on, with once-proud politician after once-proud politician, bending the knee, promising subservience, and most of all, groveling before the king.
Time and again Trump has shown that receiving respect is not enough; he demands debasement, he insists on subservience, his subjects must grovel before him. He will extend his insistence on complete submission to all Americans if he comes to power electorally or otherwise.
Where once the power of presidents flowed upward from the consent of the people they governed, under a Trump dictatorship the power will flow downward from his will alone and it will be dictatorial, imperious, and unaccountable, like any king that Americans once rejected.
The threat to women
Donald Trump’s contempt for women has been made abundantly clear throughout the time he has been in the political spotlight.
The public got its first revelation with the infamous Access Hollywood statement in 2016 when he was recorded saying that as a TV star he could do anything: “You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.” Since then accusations of rape have emerged several times—including of an underage girl he allegedly tied to a bed—and he was held liable in court for the rape of writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump’s contempt and disparagement of women is likely to spill into the policy realm in a second term.
He has claimed credit for the striking down of Roe v. Wade based on his judicial appointments to the Supreme Court. As he put it at the time: “My Supreme Court justices are great. They had the courage to end Roe v. Wade.”
Although he has opposed a nationwide abortion ban, his promises based on his word are worthless. If elected he will be under pressure from anti-choice forces to enact such a ban and his vice presidential pick is firmly anti-choice.
But there’s no reason to expect that the MAGA movement will stop at abortion. Having rolled back one right, there will always be the possibility that another right could be rolled back and that includes a woman’s right to vote.
With a Trump election the MAGA forces seeking to suppress women will be emboldened and energized and know that they have a friend in the White House. The temptation to enact further restrictions on women will be very strong and they will be seeking new frontiers for suppression.
At the very least, as long as Trump is in power the ability of women to meaningfully engage in public affairs—or even participate at all—will always be under threat.
The end of elections
Donald Trump refused to accept the accurately counted and confirmed results of the 2020 election. He attempted to falsify the results of the Electoral College vote. He attempted to stop the certification of the results by inciting a violent insurrection. He encouraged the lynching of his vice president when thwarted in his illegal demands. He attempted to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. He disparaged and tried to discredit the entire system—the entire notion—of elections as the legitimate mechanism for expressing the people’s will.
The 2024 election could be the last if Trump is elected. He has already refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s election, when directly asked about it in the June 27 debate.
He was unwilling to give up power when he lost in 2020 and he is likely to seek some means to end presidential elections altogether if he takes office. He will find a way to blow past the two-term limit for presidents (a term limit introduced by a Republican in 1947).
If he wins this year and accepts the notion of a regularly scheduled election in 2028, that one will truly be rigged. It will be the kind of election held by dictators like Saddam Hussein who won his 2002 election with 100 percent of the vote, or Vladimir Putin who won his fifth term in office this year with 88 percent of that vote (after his likely rival, Alexei Navalny, was disqualified and died in prison).
If elected this year, Donald Trump will almost undoubtedly try to find a way to become president for life. His cultic enablers will certainly be complicit.
Aftermath
With Project 2025 as a blueprint, there are innumerable specific actions that are likely to flow from a Trump victory.
To date, no one has better warned of them in a concise manner than the Lincoln Project, an organization of political and media professionals “dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of democracy.” On July 8, the Lincoln Project released a 4-minute, 16-second video called “Aftermath” that provided a preview of a Trump presidency and the measures he is likely to take.
The video has its greatest impact when watched but its text is a powerful warning.
November 5th, 2024.
Donald Trump defeats a divided and dispirited Democratic campaign.
On January 20th, 2025, Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
Unfortunately, he keeps his promises. Trump seizes control of a divided government, signing hundreds of executive orders implementing Project 2025. Trump replaces over 50,000 civil servants with hard-line MAGA loyalists.
The federal oath of office now requires declaring loyalty to the president, not the Constitution.
Protected by the Supreme Court's grant of total immunity for official acts, Donald Trump orders the Department of Justice to arrest members of the January 6th Commission, current and former DOJ employees, and political opponents for treason, election interference, and conspiracy.
He declares it to be an official act.
Trump ends birthright citizenship by executive order and turns millions of American-born citizens into illegal aliens overnight.
Mass deportations begin. Hundreds of thousands, including legal US residents and American citizens, are imprisoned in newly-built camps.
Protests erupt.
Trump addresses the nation from the Oval Office, invoking the Insurrection Act and declaring the protestors a danger to American sovereignty.
He orders the National Guard to use deadly force to suppress the protests.
In the wake of the bloody violence, Trump declares nationwide martial law, awarding himself new powers under the freshly-signed American Sovereignty Protection Order, which defines protests of immigration policies as non-protected speech and a threat to national security.
Governors in New York, California, Illinois, and elsewhere declare their opposition, promising to refuse compliance in their states.
Trump orders their arrests.
Trump pardons every January 6th attacker, including those who assaulted the police, and in a White House ceremony, issues a new presidential medal honoring them.
Many are given jobs in his administration.
The Department of Education is renamed the Department of American Values, and mandates a nation-wide Christian nationalist curriculum for all schools receiving federal aid.
Trump, joined by speaker Mike Johnson and evangelical leaders, announces that the Department of Health and Human Services has reclassified Mifepristone, making it illegal to distribute or prescribe, as well as new HHS regulations that make IVF treatments impossible to legally administer.
Trump reverses one campaign promise by declaring a national abortion ban by executive order.
Challenges to his authority are rejected by the Supreme Court, which has seen new appointments from Trump after it was expanded to 12 justices.
He signs an executive order removing abortion records from HIPAA privacy regulation and announces a new federal data-sharing program so states can monitor women's periods.
Thousands are detained while crossing state lines under suspicion of seeking an abortion.
Trump’s acting secretary of defense, a disgraced ex-general, fires over 400 generals and admirals, leaving the military leaderless.
Other Trump appointees purge the ranks of the CIA, FBI, and Department of Justice.
By executive order, Trump withdraws the United States from NATO and ends Pentagon cooperation with Ukraine.
Russian tanks enter Kyiv. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is killed.
It is announced that Trump will run for a third term, claiming he was unfairly cheated in the 2020 election.
His Supreme Court ultimately agrees with this interpretation, paving the way for Trump's 2028 reelection.
If you hear all this and believe it isn’t possible, then ask yourself, what did you believe was impossible just eight years ago?
This isn’t a fantasy.
It’s Trump's plan, and he’s counting on you to believe it couldn’t happen.
The decision
In his first term Donald Trump was restrained by good, patriotic people committed to American freedom and the Constitution. He was bound by institutional checks and balances, by a truthful and skeptical media and by the law and the courts.
Since announcing his run for the presidency he has been tried and convicted of 34 felonies. He is accused of many more and may come to trial.
However, he has also bulldozed his way through all the restraints built into the Constitution, he has been granted near-total immunity from prosecution if elected president, he has successfully delayed or obstructed prosecutions and he has so consolidated his grip on his political party that he has turned it into an unthinking and obedient cult.
The elements for an extraordinarily oppressive and total dictatorship are in place. The enablers, from highly placed officials, to Supreme Court justices, to ground-level cultists to Project 2025 applicants, are primed and ready to implement it. They are blind to what they’d be giving up in freedom, liberty and equality.
This election represents the final barrier to total tyranny, regardless of who is at the top of the Democratic ticket. If the election is held as scheduled, if it is honestly counted and if the majority of Americans want to keep their freedom and democracy and express that desire through their votes, then the American experiment will live on and America will not only be great, it will move on to new greatness.
The rancor can be dialed down but the substance remains. In coming days, those who would defend democracy may be polite—but those who would end democracy should heed the words of Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “Don't mistake politeness for lack of strength.”
Liberty lives in light
© 2024 by David Silverberg