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He is 78, in awful health, and has no interest in a legacy or supporting a successor. He keeps everyone around him at odds and maintains enough infighting that no clear heir apparent could really show up.
So like, he really only will hold power long enough to make everything terrible. So we got that goin for us.
It will definitely be interesting to see at which stage each "well, maybe it won't be that bad" people realize that, yes. It will.
I find it equally likely he tries to be in power until his last breath as it is for him to set the White House ablaze just before handing the keys to it's next owner.
You know how long Caesar was dictator for life before he was assassinated? Less than a year.
But the damage was done, and Rome had a civil war over whether it would go back to being a Republic like it had been or if it would have an autocratic ruler. Obviously, the latter won out.
A lesson from history.
So you're saying he was dictator for life? 😂
Let's not lump Trump in with Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar was a war hero and a capable leader who's final crimes were giving out citizenship and housing.
Trump's final crimes will be giving all our state secrets to every other government in the world and obliterating our infrastructure.
Yet nobody chose Caesar, yet millions chose for Trump
He was elected as Dictator many times on a yearly basis and sometimes multiple times a year. He was so vastly popular the citizenry they killed the assassin's, hunted down an heir and put him in power.
Julius Ceasar and his follow on Agustus were insanely capable leaders that did great things for their country. The empire was so great and lasted twice the time America has, it's fall caused the Dark Ages.
Rome is a bad example here because technically the Dictatorship was good for them. Rome fell due to corruption that came in via enabling the Christian church to operate freely. Now that is a much better analog here that we enabled religious organizations to become tax free political action committees and uncapped their ability to influence government. This meant the evangelical grifters became the most powerful political entities in America.
We have so many lessons from history to pull from right now that you would need multiple professors to explain them all and yet they were all ignored.
Professors? You must mean those librul elites. I do my own research!
Well, we're going to see plenty of new crimes in the next 4 years, and Trump is going to be motivated to stay out of jail if it's even still remotely possible. I think he's going to do everything he can to stay president until he's actually dead or incapacitated.
Yep, when trump dies his "movement" explodes. They won't consolidate around one, and trump would never have a clear successor because then he risks everyone siding with them.
MAGA ain't a movement it's a person.
When he's gone the knives come out and the party will balkanize itself
I wish I had your optimism
Ideally, we would have avoided all this risk, but we didn't, and for the time being, the best self-care for most of us is to keep in mind scenarios that may play out to reduce harm. Infighting has long been a normal to happen when the GOP asserts itself, so it's not crazy to imagine it being ultimately the block for attempts to dismantle some of the political structure (the powerful players know how to play this game, and are hopefully worried enough about losing that power in any big change that they will work to protect the mechanisms currently in play).
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
The only right way to be an optimist about the big picture is to make sure you're ready for when shit goes sideways on the day to day stuff.
For instance a big silver lining about four years of trump, this is one of the few scenarios people stay politically engaged after the election, thru the midterms, and onto 2028.
Republicans have the Oval, the House, and the Senate. There is not much they can do that people will blame on Dems.
Historically he'll lose House or Senate in two years. Hopefully both, but ideally the Senate. There's benefits to the other way around too tho.
Adjust your timescale you're looking at this with. 4 years ain't long, two years ain't shit. Think of all the fucked up horrible shit we've done as a country. Realize that even if things get worse then they ever been in America (incredibly unlikely) we've bounced back before and we'll bounce back eventually again.
This is going to suck.
But 20 years from now we might look back on this as the last speed bump before we finally fixed our political system. Empires burn down all the time, but ash makes fertile soil.
There is a possibility that in their haste to suck him off, the Republicans either all but eliminate or completely nuke the filibuster. If this happens and we have another election, there is no way it isn't a positive development IMO. The filibuster absolutely sucks and is a clear obstacle to majoritarian rule in the country.
If they pull this to do wildly unpopular things on a short time scale, it will suck, no doubt, but they will likely pay a huge price for doing unpopular things in the next cycle.