The Fear Factor

[Tom Rinaldo]

Note: This is a edited and rewritten version of an OP I posted here yesterday. For one thing, it's shorter (though I still can't call it short, lol)

Dictators are rarely popular for very long. They’re not bothered when the public turns against them, not until the people stand up to them. Dictators succeed at unpopular endeavors all of the time. Most Americans disapprove of Trump, but it hardly matters. For the most part he’s turned his attention away from swaying the electorate now. That phase is over, he got what he needed, which was never about winning majority support. It was always about building a fanatical, hyper loyal base.

Prior to Trump, America's political leaders more or less believed their power ultimately derived from the people, and that without wide public support, their rule would eventually collapse. But the National Rifle Association long ago established that fanatical single issue voters can steer our political system, and Trump spun the concept of single issue voting completely around. No one issue need hold sway, rather loyalty to a leader would prevail. MAGA voters became Trump’s political shock troops, and within the insular combat circles of Republican Party primaries, their single focus devotion to his wishes almost always carried the day.

Trump wasn't content with political shock troops however. He recruited physical ones as well, and his January 6th insurrectionist mob was just the most visible tip of the iceberg. How many fake swatting calls regarding public officials have been made to police stations across the nation? How many anonymous death threats have elected officials, and judicial officers, and election workers, and their families, received? Members of the Republican Party who cross Trump now understand that doing so puts the safety of their families at risk. The vigilantes of MAGA world have little patience with traitors.

Lisa Murkowski literally acknowledged her fear. Mitt Romney stated that he knew of Republican Senators who voted not to impeach Trump, following the insurrection, because of the danger their families would face had they voted to convict. Since Trump's violent thugs were released from jail, thanks to his recent presidential pardons, those fears have faces. One of America's two great political parties is now operating under full cult lock down.

With the Republican Party obediently subdued, Congress offers no checks on Trump's ambitions. The Courts for now are a work in progress, but Trump is in a position now to appoint dozens of new Federal Judges screened primarily for their loyalty to him. Meanwhile his administration initiates five new unconstitutional actions for each one the courts find time to weigh in on. And the option to ignore any Court ruling is never far from mind. The law offers little in the way of long term resistance to an aspiring dictator. It can be bent beyond all recognition to a dictator's will, once those who interpret it, enforce it, and mold it, become subservient to a strongman.

With the executive branch at his disposal, Trump has his hands on every lever of the administrative state, while usurping additional legislative authority daily. That enables Trump to shift his attention now toward power centers less reliably under his direct control, from Major Law Firms, to Leading Universities, to not as of yet MAGA dominated aspects of the media. The government is fully weaponized on Trump's behalf Trump has the capacity to potentially intimidate virtually any public or private institution or individual, without having to literally resort to threats of force. Threats to withhold funding can suffice. Or moves to revoke licenses, or block mergers, or to investigate a tax-exempt status. And vigilantes aren't always needed when the FBI is under your thumb.

With the mere wave, or waiver, of a tariff Trump can punish or reward corporate leaders who, acutely aware of Trump's vindictive nature, now scramble to be viewed favorably by him. Meanwhile the ultimate specter of state sanctioned physical force remains an arrow lying ready in Trump’s quiver. He continually shuffles the leadership of federal security and defense forces, seeking those who will reliably follow his orders. No doubt Trump keeps a copy of The Insurrection Act on his bed stand, where Mein Kampf reportedly once lay.

The classic Sci Fi series Star Trek Next Generation popularized a phrase, voiced via The Borg: "Resistance is futile." It is the call of all dictatorships, attempting to create a self-fulfilling prophesy. We are less than a tenth of the way into Trump's second administration. His assertion of unprecedented power is still tentative. Americans have not yet forgotten what a relatively free society feels like. Resistance is far from futile.

Choices being made daily will determine the outcome: Businesses deciding whether to still embrace diversity, equality and inclusion. Publishers and producers of newspapers and news shows deciding whether coverage likely to incite the wrath of the President ever sees the light of day. Each capitulation makes further ones more likely. Every act of defiance inspires others to do the same. We can lock our doors, curl up, and watch Netflix. Or we can go out into the streets instead.

[marble falls]

1. You mean like Putin, any of the N Korean despots, Stalin, Mao, Queen Victoria, General Franco ...

... Ceaușescu, Pol Pot, Enver Hoxha, Tito, Papa Doc, Baby Doc, Fidel Castro, the Shah?

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Why not Orban or Musilini? lol.

But I would much rather it be any number of names that history has largely forgotten because the people who they attempted to intimidate into compliance never put up with their crap.