We Only Have One Chance To get This Right
Steven Day
Common Dreams
October 25, 2024
Has there ever before been a wannabe tyrant as open about his intentions as Donald Trump? This transparency—absent in everything else in his politics and his life—is nothing short of astonishing. This is a man who lies every time he opens his mouth. Yet, as to this one, immeasurably important, subject he’s been remarkably frank, openly embracing one characteristic of an authoritarian after another. He even expressly announced his desire to be a dictator, if only for one day.
One cannot help but wonder if this openness is because the drive to be an autocrat is one of the few things to which he has ever been deeply committed.
He makes no effort to hide his distaste for the rule of law, bragging publicly about plans to turn the Justice Department into his personal avenger, prosecuting and jailing his political opponents. These will be prosecutions not intended to prevent or punish crime, but as a means of attacking those with the nerve to oppose him.
The same is true of his lust for political violence, another classic authoritarian trait. He has repeatedly, and again openly, encouraged his followers to engage in political violence—famously telling the crowd at one of his rallies in 2016 to “knock the crap” out of a heckler. And, of course, there is the granddaddy of all political violence—sending a fired-up crowd to the capital on January 6, 2021, with orders to “fight like hell.”
He is a man who regularly celebrates dictators. The only foreign leaders he seems to be comfortable with are totalitarians, people like Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, and, of course, his favorite squeeze (“We fell in love”) Kim Jong Un.
Yet despite all this, some progressives still intend to either stay home or cast a protest vote for a minor-party candidate. And in a close election like this, if enough people in the wrong states do stay at home or vote for a third-party candidate, Trump could win because of it. And if that’s the choice you make, which is certainly your right, all I can say is enjoy casting your protest vote, savor the experience, because if Trump wins it is likely to be the last act of protest you will ever participate in where you won’t be putting your life on the line or risking a long prison sentence.
= new reply since forum marked as read
