5 scenarios for staving off a dictatorship
Trump’s momentum is alarming, but we can fight back and win.
We’re in a terrible mess, people. The White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court are in right-wing authoritarian hands. The police state is being built. Major institutions in the media, higher education, and the legal profession have capitulated.
It’s becoming harder to be both a democracy defender and an optimist. But it’s not time to give up. In a nation of fighters and folders, let’s be fighters.
Here are five scenarios for how we could escape from this mess.
The best-case scenario: Voting our way out
I hear people on cable news say, “In the midterms …” and I shout at the television: “You mean if there are midterms! IF!”
I’m worried that Donald Trump will invent or exploit a national crisis to suspend civil rights, send troops into all major cities, and postpone or cancel the midterms.
This is one reason why large demonstrations are important. We need the Trump regime to be so worried about mass protests that it’s afraid to cancel the midterms. You can join the next major protest on Thursday, July 17. It’s called "Good Trouble Lives On," a tribute to civil rights leader John Lewis on the fifth anniversary of his death. Find an event near you.
Even if the midterms happen, there’s the issue of fairness. Republicans are trying to expand their already outrageous gerrymandering. And federal support to help states protect our elections has been largely dismantled by the Trump regime.
However, if we can manage to claw back control of Congress, or at least the House, we can start the long climb out of this nightmare.
A messy scenario: Fighting a coup with people power
Let’s say Trump cancels the midterms or rigs them. That’s when we have to get into the streets again with mass protests. Would that stop Trump and his gang from ending democracy? It depends on whether you and people like you get involved.
People power is one of the few weapons we have, and we see examples in other countries. Last December, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s power grab was thwarted when opposition politicians and throngs of protesters acted quickly to defy his declaration of martial law. Just last week, trade unions in India conducted a one-day general strike to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic policies.
The really scary possibility – one that Trump has rehearsed by sending the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles – is the regime ordering American troops to fire on American demonstrators, which, horrifyingly, is not entirely without precedent in the US. And Trump has expressed admiration for China's massacre of peaceful protesters in 1989. "When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Trump said. “Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.”
An unlikely scenario: SCOTUS grows a spine
Not much about our slide into fascism has surprised me, but I’ll admit I didn't expect the Supreme Court to give kingly powers to Trump. After all, if Trump becomes a full-fledged dictator, the highest court becomes meaningless. Do the right-wing justices only want to wear freshly dry-cleaned robes every day? Don't they want influence?
Based on the idea that some right-wing justices might not want to be puppets, it’s possible that at some point they push back on Trump in a meaningful way. But would they be ignored? After all, SCOTUS does not have an army. On the other hand, Trump’s outright defiance of the Supreme Court could be the last straw that gets some people off their couches and into the streets.
An even less likely scenario: this Congress grows a spine
After congressional Republicans have endorsed Trump’s cruelty and corruption, is it possible that a new Trump scandal could cause them to repudiate him? I doubt it.
I mean, what could it be? The “pee tape”? New Jeffrey Epstein evidence? There have been so many “deal-breakers” already, and they didn't break the deal.
Perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope in the lame ducks. For example, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced he won’t run for re-election and then voted against Trump’s awful megabill. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa is also considering retiring. The GOP’s margin is even tighter in the House, which could become a bulwark against a Trump dictatorship if just a few Republicans freed themselves from re-election pressures and voted for democracy.
But at this point, expecting a Republican politician to grow a conscience seems like wishful thinking.
Another unlikely scenario: The regime collapsing due to its own incompetence
Could the Trump presidency become so dysfunctional that his base erodes? The regime is built on bigotry, grievance, and grift, none of which contribute to a well-run government. Military plans were shared with a reporter. The economy is being vandalized with trade wars. Once-conquered diseases are coming back. And the response to the Texas flooding has been botched.
Trump’s top officials are interested in money and power, not public service, so there’s plenty of infighting that makes things worse. For example, the knives are already out for Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Then there’s Trump himself, a 79-year-old whose mental lapses get worse every day. Can he last through an entire four-year term? How bad will it have to get before his enablers assign him to full-time duty on the golf course? And will Jake Tapper have anything to say about it?
If Trump were to leave office early, none of his prominent lieutenants could retain the level of fanatical loyalty he inspired. While a recent poll put Trump’s favorability at a weak 46%, Vice President JD Vance’s was worse, at 41%. The cult of personality is not transferable.
But let me be clear: While I’m raising the idea of Trump’s disability for public office, I’m not wishing him ill health. If it were up to me, he’d be healthy and hard at work in a prison laundry.
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hey Mark, good stuff as always, but one thought re GOP congress growing a spine: they won't grow a conscience, but if his support among the conspiracy wing of MAGA actually erodes over the next months bc of the perceived Epstein betrayal, those congresscritters already shaky about midterms will have to weigh whether Trump's threats against them have teeth anymore, and whether they stand a better chance of surviving if they start standing up to him. not saying it will happen, but it has become a real possibility as the base reels. and as you know, that story isn't disappearing, it's blowing up so even the folks who don't follow the news will begin to know about it as it osmoses into their brains.
Lethal violence as a means of retaining power is woven throughout America’s history, from Wounded Knee to Ludlow to Haymarket Square to Kent State. As Black revolutionary H. Rapp Brown said, “Violence is as American as cherry pie.” Trump says, “Fight, fight, fight,” and that goes both ways.