Be Prepared: President Trump for Life?

Let’s call a spade a spade: the convicted felon President Donald J. Trump has dictatorial aspirations. His aim is not to oversee an oligarchy, nor to shift to a more authoritarian style of leadership, but rather to place himself at the helm of a full-fledged American dictatorship. He infamously said that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021. Now that he is back, and undoubtedly more psychologically unhinged than ever, he will double down on this pledge. He will stop at nothing and use every weapon at his disposal to remain in power for life.

First, Trump will try through Congressional action and/or legal maneuvering via his pet Supreme Court to circumvent the constitutionally mandated two-term presidential term limit. If that path succeeds, he will be allowed to remain in office legally until 2033, when he will be 86. If it fails, he will face the prospect of having to step down in 2029 at the age of 82. In either instance, he simply will refuse to leave the White House, a feat that will be realistic for him to achieve in four or eight year’s time.

During his next one or two terms, Trump will only continue to consolidate his power through misinformation, threats and increasing reprisals to those who cross him. Crucially, he will ensure that “yes men” are placed into key military leadership roles. (The singularly terrifying prospect of the confirmation of democracy denouncer Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary already has come to pass.) With the generals behind him, Trump will declare the need to create the likes of a new American Empire built around himself in order to fulfill his supposed deal with God, whom he believes saved his life so that he can “make America great again.” As someone who espouses non-violence, I am most grateful that Trump was spared, and pray there are no further attempts on his life. That horrific assassination attempt has only served to make him a martyr for his cause, solidifying his image as the ultimate American “strong man.” 

Trump’s resulting messianic delusions, and his sense of ultimate empowerment from an election victory that he views as a mandate for his Divine right to rule will congeal with his professionally-diagnosed malignant narcissism and his fear of prosecution upon any future loss of presidential immunity. The result will be a perfect storm compelling him to seek to utterly destroy American democracy. His immediate sweeping pardons of the lethal January 6th insurrectionists only cements the already-demonstrated reality that he condones any means necessary – including military and paramilitary violence – to support remaining in the seat of power. Moving forward, if he ever begins to sense his grip on the nation slipping – and as his encroaching dotage and mortality increase his sense of vulnerability – he will lean even more heavily on any and all “boots on the ground” at his beck-and-call to keep the public in line. His acolytes who deify him as their savior and the harbinger of their so-called New Apostolic Revolution will cheer him on and eagerly join ranks. Others will feel pressured or threatened into doing the same.

Let us stop deluding ourselves by downplaying such clear cut signs as Nazi salutes by the hands of one of his closest far-right endorsing henchmen Elon Musk at Trump’s stomach-churning inauguration (which happened to kick-off a week of debilitating illness for this writer). We must not forget that Trump borrowed the very same xenophobic and hateful slogan that Hitler employed when he explicitly stated that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” Just days into his administration, Trump’s anti-immigration executive orders and his demand for daily arrest quotas from vicious Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, have begun to add sharp teeth to these threats. Trump poignantly issued executive orders that seek to bring to fruition his maniacal fantasy of expanding the death penalty, as Hitler and other dictators have done since the dawn of civilization to stoke fear in the hearts of the hoi polloi, while simultaneously whetting their appetite for state violence. Likewise, Trump’s immediate Stalinist purges of independent government watchdogs across the federal government draw directly from a dictator’s playbook. Trump has attempted publicly to distance himself from such fascist demagogues, assuring the American public that he is not a student of Hitler.” Yet, his promise rings hollow in the wake of his previous statements and actions, including allegedly having both kept a book of the Fuhrer’s speeches at his bedside table and praising Hitler for “doing a lot of good things.” 

In order to do such “good things,” Trump will unflinchingly come to believe – if he does not already – that he must stay in office for life. This is the inevitable culmination of his psychological and moral unraveling, as well as his insatiable lust for power. The rapidly evaporating norms that Trumpism has ushered in for the United States, and now across the world, will allow him to fulfil his megalomaniacal goal.

Now that Pandora’s Box has been opened, and the ships of democratic values and the rule of law have begun to set sail, it behooves civilization to prepare for these eventualities. Peaceful rallies and protests must inform the masses of the reality of this threat so that they will be ready to organize when it comes to pass. Otherwise, like after Trump’s two election victories, many will find themselves once again blindsided and powerless to discover that this is what the United States and the world have come to. The more people who take the plausibility of this scenario seriously, the better prepared society will be to respond appropriately to this outcome.

Naysayers who dismiss Trump’s existential threats often cite his well-documented style of “aiming high” in his demands in order to reach a “deal,” as he most recently succeeded in doing with regard to Colombia’s acquiescing to his immigration-releated demands. Many politicians, therefore, will come to believe that these signs of Trump’s burgeoning appetite for power are nothing more than bluster that can be appeased through compromise. In so doing, they will forget how a similar approach by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in his subsequently derided Policy of Appeasement abjectly failed to contain Hitler in the 1930s. Not even a century later, Trump is counting on history to repeat itself, and he will be right. To be clear: no appeal to any form of deal-making or rationality will deter Trump from his ultimate goal of remaining in power. Neither will any clerical call to that most universal spiritual value of compassion soften his heart, not even a plea as respectful and inspiring as that of Bishop Budde at the National Cathedral. Mercy is antithetical to Machiavellian subscribers like Trump. 

As for me, I made the heart-wrenching decision to leave my homeland of the United States for  Canada when Trump was nominated, and continue to advocate from afar for my loved ones in that once-great nation. Admittedly, I now realize that I may not have moved far enough away, as Trump now has set his sights above the 49th parallel. Canada is but one of many worldly treasures that Trump is eyeing as he seeks to fulfill the prophecy of evangelists who have proclaimed him “Manifest Destiny’s Child.” 

I pray I am wrong about all of this, but I have been right more often than not about Trump. I urge readers to take me seriously now, before it is too late to salvage any of those democratic institutions and most fundamental guardrails that may yet survive Trump’s disastrous wake and self-imposed life-term – surely a “life-sentence” for the free world. 

More than anything else – please – be prepared…