I was wrong.
For years, beginning in 2016, I have argued that Trump's populist authoritarianism was not really popular enough to win the popular vote. After all, he lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020. This indicated to me that although he had a solid base of 35 to 40 percent of the voters, he did not have a majority, although he could win in the Electoral College. That's why I predicted that Harris would win the election yesterday.
So, now that Trump has won the popular election, we face two questions. First, will Trump be the kind of populist authoritarian that he has promised to be?
If he does fulfill this promise, he will use his power as Commander-in-Chief to use the military to punish "the enemy within"--those who disagree with him. He will use his pardoning power to protect himself and his supporters from criminal prosecution (including the January 6th insurrectionists). He will also act vigorously within the immunity from criminal prosecution for "official acts" recently granted to him by his Supreme Court. He will use the military to help him in forcibly deporting over 10 million illegal immigrants. He will raise tariffs on imports so high as to impede international trade and create what will be effectively a high sales tax on imported goods. He will establish an isolationist foreign policy that weakens the NATO alliance and withholds support for Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion.
Trump and his supporters have said that he is God's Chosen One to save America. After all, didn't God miraculously intervene to turn his head away from the assassin's bullet? If they believe this, will they treat Trump's opponents as evil enemies of God?
If Trump carries out these and other promises for acting as a populist authoritarian, that will raise a second question: will the Americans who voted for him say yes, this is just what they wanted? Or will they regret their choice?
Having shown how bad I am in making political predictions, I will not try to answer these questions.
1 comment:
What if the military defeat of the major fascist governments in the 1940s wasn't biologically or philosophically preordained, but was rather just a fluke or random luck?
And what if the anti-fascist ethos, that arose from the trauma of WW2 and the Holocaust, has now, 80 years later, finally petered out?
What if "chimpanzee politics" is really the human norm, punctuated here and there briefly by anomalous leaders and event?
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