"I am your retribution." Trump Leans into Tyranny.
Domestic deployment of the military—targeting immigrants and Democrats—purging government employees with a "test"—building fairy tale utopian cities.
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
The simple truth is, it all sounds like vengeance on the one hand and self-aggrandizement on the other—but all summed up, its sounds like very menacing autocracy cult ideologies humanity has seen before. Trump plans to:
Deploy the U.S. military against American citizens—which is patently illegal and utterly unconstitutional. His purpose? Mopping up gangs, fighting crime, and deporting immigrants. These are authoritarian tactics used against citizen populations by the autocrats Trump most admires: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Require a test of civil servants, which presumably he’ll design. Far too easily it can be used to fire Democrats or Republicans—whom he calls RINOs—who don’t agree with him. This would extend Trump’s personal tendrils throughout the federal government, making it a fully Trump-riddled machine.
Conduct a heretofore unimagined deportation operation, using police and military. This echoes stances Trump has taken before, targeting immigrants as weights on the economy, criminals, and detriments to society. As experts on fascism put it, this is the creation of the “internal enemy” that the “strong man” invents and then pretends to handle heroically and unselfishly.
Build fantastical, utopian “Freedom Cities,” which he’ll raise from scratch on public land. Big, self-aggrandizing “public works” have been a favorite of autocrats. Hitler’s plans for a huge city with a crown-jewel museum filled with the art he stole from the Jews he killed comes to mind. Most of the tyrants on Trump’s most-beloved-dictators list have some experience with this kind of showy building project.
And it is, still, all about stoking the cult he helped to create.
Together, we are going to finish what we started,” Trump said at the Waco rally last month. “With you at my side, we will totally obliterate the deep state, we will banish the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, and we will cast out the communists and Marxists, we will throw off the corrupt political class, we will beat the Democrats, we will rout the fake news media, we will stand up to the RINOs, and we will defeat Joe Biden and every single Democrat.”
In one paragraph, he has cast aspersions on eleven different groups or individuals. Nixon, with his enemies list, had nothing on Trump. Trump fails to mention that the real fake news media got its clock cleaned this week in a $787.5 milllion dollar settlement it’s going to have to pay to Dominion.
The great loss here is that there are no positive, constructive plans—there are no creative solutions offered—there is no address of the problems of racism or climate change—there is no compassion for the plight of the besieged trans and gay people or the women targeted by fundamentalist religion. There is, as was the case in 2016, no real platform. Only the arousing of passion and manufactured rage to serve one man’s ambition.
