The Fate of the Republic

“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.” - Charles Bukowski, Author

How’s that for a ponderous title?

There cannot be too many people drawing a breath in these United States who are not contemplating whether our form of government will survive Donald Trump. We are legion, I suspect, and our trepidations are not unjustified. While the former president runs around social media and his rallies of cultists by complaining the government is being weaponized against him, he finishes his whining by explaining how he intends to turn the institutions of our republic into weapons of mass destruction to be used on anyone who resists his authority.

Our national destiny now is connected to how many people find emotional and political sanctuary in the delusions of a pathological liar. Trump’s courtroom trials will determine facts surrounding his behavior but the body politic already has sufficient evidence to reach a sane verdict on the preening authoritarian. Although many polls show President Biden with comfortable lead in next year’s race, the New York Times Siena Poll had it a statistical tie. I have not seen anything that bothers me this much since I watched Trump mock a reporter with disabilities on national television. Further, I never understood how the nation did not dispose of his candidacy the next morning.

But here we are. Unshakable numbers of Trump supporters either do not care about Trump’s crimes and abuses of government or they are simply oblivious to the risks he poses to the nation in which they live. Even before his inevitable indictment in Georgia for election interference and likely racketeering, there are already 78 criminal charges and three significant indictments against the man who would be their king. A fourth indictment with further allegations is almost certain. The only president to ever be twice impeached is also the sole commander-in-chief that history has known to be served with criminal indictments. They are not specious claims against him, either. Grand juries do not impugn reputations with indictments, especially of a former president, without some convincing evidence. Do his supporters really think Mr. Biden has conspired with the Department of Justice and average citizen taxpayers serving on those juries to manufacture indictments?

I am not yet convinced Trump will even win his party’s nomination. The case to be brought against him by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis seems to me more accessible to the general public in terms of his apparent crime. The recordings of him badgering the Georgia Secretary of State for more votes are probably sufficient to earn a conviction of election tampering but Willis is reportedly planning to use a state RICO statute to prosecute Trump because his scheme involved out of state actors and fake electors, who apparently have testified before the grand jury. Logic suggests that the accumulation of four indictments and two impeachments will accrue political damage to the point where even MAGA minds will have to surrender to the notion that the entire state and federal judicial system is not that corrupt or inept.

The Hope of Humor

Or maybe not, and that is what is so frightening to those of us who fancy ourselves at least marginally intelligent and informed. There is probably not thirty percent of the general electorate still supporting Trump, and the accumulating negatives from his whining and persecution complex are certain to diminish that number, even if he wins the nomination from his party of cowards. MAGAts appear to have some Trump fatigue, but I wonder if they truly listen to his pissing and moaning about how he has been treated. How could they, with even minimal convolutions in their brains, not be sick of seeing and hearing him? He has become the party guest who cannot entertain conversation from anyone that is not about him, and always maintains his primary focus with inane slights, “But enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think of my greatness?”

As comical as Trump appears, we still might be at the great denouement of America’s story. If he earns the nomination and Biden falls seriously ill, or dies, Kamala Harris will carry the Democrats’ flag, and the election will immediately change. There is, of course, the near certainty that Gavin Newsom of California would jump into the race should Biden be indisposed before the nominating convention. I think Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who has turned her formerly red state into a Democratic fortress, will also make a strong number one or two on any future ticket. Such scenarios, though, do not consider the disruption of the Black vote if Harris were to be snubbed by the party. The Biden campaign, as a security measure, needs to message the president’s long list of legislative accomplishments, and, equally fervently, speak to the party that empowered his decisions to improve this country.

There are no guarantees, though. Evidence will be introduced at his trials, which should begin before the election, and combined with testimony from credible witnesses, will cause Trump to continue to leak support. While he has nothing to offer voters outside of anger and revenge and a long history of losing, there are no obvious successors in the present field of the party he controls. Only a few of them have acquired the courage to utter contradictory words to Trump’s lies; it took the Florida governor three years to acknowledge Biden had won the 2020 election. That is the kind of courage lined up behind Trump. GOP candidates are either trying to get to his right by picking on marginalized communities or attacking librarians and teachers instead of offering even a vague indication of policies that might serve the country they want to lead.

A Sketch of His Alternative Reality

There appear to be too many variables that need to align for Trump to be reelected, but what if the trials are televised and instead of verifying his criminality much of America concludes he is, in fact, being persecuted? Political analysts already put Florida, Ohio, and Texas in his column, which, if true, gives the madman a jump start on the Electoral College. Positive thinkers might be relying too much on our convictions that the Dobbs’ ruling on abortion will motivate enough voters to cast out Trump. We also are hoping that his mere presence in the American zeitgeist will be viewed as more of an infection than a curative, and this might be unfounded optimism, too. There is certainly a non-zero chance Trump can win, and scenarios become even more precarious when the right-wing funded “No Labels” sham begins to promote a third candidate as a unifier, who is really being armed only to drain Biden votes.

The thing to remember is that the singular promise a Trump campaign is likely to keep will be to deliver a dystopia to your doorstep. He will end the EPA and allow corporate polluters to self regulate and bring greater toxins to our air and water. The FBI will be mostly defunded and probably replaced by a primarily vestigial agency made up of sycophants who only investigate Trump critics. He will have the U.S. consort with Putin and North Korea to polish his totalitarian skills and he will begin investing taxpayer money in China that will give his companies business opportunities worth billions while sacrificing the U.S. economy. Any military commanders resisting his authoritarian plans will be dishonorably discharged and replaced with a toady who “just follows orders.” American troops will be deployed against dissatisfied citizens engaged in peaceful protest. Members of Congress will become functionaries doing his bidding and any that resist will be intimidated and their campaign donors threatened. The Constitution will be considered an outdated document that is comprised of a series of unrealistic and impractical suggestions.

And that’s just in the first year.

The professional pundits say this a lot but never has there been a more stark choice, nor a more important election. We are not simply voting for a president; we are casting ballots to determine a nation’s fate, and that is not overstatement. A vote for Trump is ceding your responsibilities to a person who cares not a damn what you think, and only wants your support to acquire and use power. Offering Trump a vote is a rank insult to the concept of democratic rule of the majority, and re-electing him president takes us to a dark place of existential crisis in America. We are confronted with possibly the most troubling question of our history: If an electorate chooses Donald Trump as president after everything it has already learned about him, does that nation even have the right or the will to continue its existence?

We might witness the dissolution of history’s oldest democracy.