On the Prospects of a Trump Dictatorship

With a perspective of 10 days after the election, I don’t think Harris’s loss was a result of anything special. The truth of the matter is that, as history shows, the US system is rotten at picking presidents. Trump is going to focus (he has said) on three things: mass deportations, tariffs, and revenge. The other policies will come from people around him.

    Before Trump can become a dictator, Senate Republicans and the Supreme Court will have to be turned into rubber stamps, and they are likely to resist. The coalition that backs Trump also has enormous internal conflicts: the nationalists, the evangelicals, and the techbros all hate each other. Peter Thiel (Vice President elect Vance’s patron) and Elon Musk (who is trying to install himself in the administration without any formal office) hate each other. So there’s going to be chaos and, probably, no clear victor.

    As Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li observed on Bluesky: “actually implementing totalitarianism–aka total state control over all aspects of society–requires an extremely large and efficient bureaucracy, and controlling and maintaining large institutions is itself very difficult.” Trump is an old, probably demented, man who was only ever good at salesmanship. There is the possibility that Trump will be shouldered aside by someone more competent but I think it’s going to be more like Mussolini than Hitler or Stalin. On the other hand, it seems Trump is now living for revenge – he has nothing else. He is going to want to smash things.

    The results of a Trump administration are unpredictable. There are multiple possibilities, none are good but some are less bad. Instead of voting for the lesser evil, we now have to fight for the lesser evil.

“And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come.” – Gandalf