Outside the Beltway

“Four more years and it will be fixed” Redux

A better articulation of the problem.

Steven L. Taylor
21

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To follow up on my post yesterday, I would recommend Brian Klaas at The Atlantic, Trump Says Americans ‘Won’t Have to Vote Anymore’ If He Wins (gift link).

Klaas better articulates what I was trying to say yesterday. Klaas noted the same two interpretations of Trump’s statement (i.e., either no future elections or meaningless ones) but I wanted to highlight his description of the second one, as I think it really gets to the heart of what I was trying to say yesterday:

 A second and slightly more charitable interpretation of his remarks is that Trump believes his presidency will entrench so many pro-Christian policies into the United States government that no future election could realistically undo his transformation of the country. Both interpretations lead to the same conclusion: that Trump is telegraphing his authoritarian intentions in plain sight, hoping to sever the link between voters and government policy.

Emphasis mine.

As Klaas notes earlies in the piece, “rarely if ever has a major party’s presidential candidate directly stated his aim to make elections meaningless, a notorious hallmark of autocracy.”

The whole piece is a good rundown of Trump’s authoritarian rhetorica and behavior.

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21 responses to ““Four more years and it will be fixed” Redux”

  1. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    Thanks for clarifying, but this was exactly what I took from yesterday’s post.

    I wish you were wrong. I really really do.

    Le sigh.

    ETA
    What I really wish was that half the population of voters (+/-) weren’t so determined to try to make this country something it was never intended to be.

    Or that so many (claim to be) Christians actually were interested in following the words of their God.

    My only consolation is that I’m not likely to be here to see the conclusion.

    11
  2. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    Sadly, the gift link doesn’t work for me.

  3. charontwo Avatar
    charontwo

    @CSK:

    It doesn’t work for me either, but here are some excerpts:

    There are at least two ways of interpreting this statement. First, Trump could be implying that there won’t be any future elections if he comes to power. He may imagine himself as an American Xi Jinping, the Chinese dictator he routinely praises, a leader who’s declared himself “president for life.” As he often does, however, Trump left just enough room in what he said for plausible deniability. A second and slightly more charitable interpretation of his remarks is that Trump believes his presidency will entrench so many pro-Christian policies into the United States government that no future election could realistically undo his transformation of the country. Both interpretations lead to the same conclusion: that Trump is telegraphing his authoritarian intentions in plain sight, hoping to sever the link between voters and government policy.

    Trump’s remarks last night are just the latest in his long record of expressing authoritarian ideas and admiration for strongmen in several undemocratic regimes—including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

    Since launching his first presidential campaign in 2015 by painting an entire group of immigrants as rapists, Trump has taken just about every page from the authoritarian playbook. He lies constantly. He calls the press “the enemy of the people,” a phrase so incendiary that Joseph Stalin’s successor removed it from Soviet propaganda. Trump even went so far as to label any critical reporting “fake.”

    snip (stuff familiar to us all)

    More dystopian still, Trump’s acolytes are co-opting the language of autocracy and are using it to describe fully democratic processes while ignoring or excusing Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. Republicans have begun talking about the “coup” against President Joe Biden, even though his decision to not seek reelection according to the formal rules of his own political party is a typical—and relatively common—way that unpopular incumbents behave in democratic states. Meanwhile, many Republicans insist that the insurrection on January 6 was a “normal tourist visit” and balk at the notion that a president launching a coordinated conspiracy, pressuring election officials to find additional votes, and inciting a violent mob to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power are textbook attempts at a so-called auto-coup.

    This funhouse-mirror inversion risks creating the false impression that both sides are a threat to American democracy. In fact, Trump is a unique threat to the core institutions that constrain power in the United States and make self-governance possible. We must not make the mistake of, yet again, giving Trump an undeserved benefit of the doubt. He has told Americans who he is and what he intends to do. All that voters need to do is believe him—and care enough to vote for democracy. After all, Trump said it himself: If you don’t, you may never need to again.

    2
  4. Barry Avatar
    Barry

    These people are like Stalinists in 1970 insisting that ‘liquidation’ of groups meant increasing their social mobility and access to transportation.

    3
  5. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    @Flat Earth Luddite:

    What I really wish was that half the population of voters (+/-) weren’t so determined to try to make this country something it was never intended to be.

    It ain’t half the population (+/-). It’s somewhere closer to 40%, plus a bunch of lemmings, plus a lot of powerful people willing to use the lemmings to hold power.

    7
  6. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Flat Earth Luddite:

    What I really wish was that half the population of voters (+/-) weren’t so determined to try to make this country something it was never intended to be.

    A functioning, multiracial democracy with equal rights for all?

    1
  7. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    @Gustopher:

    A functioning, multiracial democracy with equal rights for all?

    Weeeellllll, that’s what I thought the ‘shining city on the hill’ was supposed to be. Even as a child, I knew we weren’t there, but silly me …

    5
  8. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    @charontwo:
    From Brian Klaas:

    [Trump] has told Americans who he is and what he intends to do. All that voters need to do is believe him—and care enough to vote for democracy.

    That’s the entire project right there in two sentences.

    6
  9. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Gustopher: No, he’s thinking about the other half.

    @Scott F.: You’re doing the “not half only a little less than 45%” dodge here. Not buying it. Still dysfunctionally high.

    4
  10. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @charontwo:

    Thanks!

    1
  11. gVOR10 Avatar
    gVOR10

    Repeating what I said yesterday, you, and Klaas, are misrepresenting Trump … by accurately quoting him, with context and video. Trump has deliberately cultivated an obscurantist speaking style designed to let his supporters hear what they want without actually saying anything he can be held to. I see no reason I, the MSM, or anyone else, should give him any benefit of the doubt in interpreting what he says. He meant for his faithful to hear he’d create an authoritarian theocracy. So be it.

    5
  12. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    @just nutha:
    More than 10% is “dysfunctionally high.” I’m not arguing for complacency or acceptance, rather against defeatism. I’m arguing that, in a democracy, the majority doesn’t cede power to the minority if it wants to stay a democracy.

    4
  13. charontwo Avatar
    charontwo

    This is a message to Dr. Taylor, everyone else can disregard:

    Dr. Taylor;

    I tested your link again, it’s still not working. My thoughts:

    You would think, when you do copy link to put a gift link on the clipboard, you simply do cntrl-V to paste it wherever you like, but maybe it is not that simple. I have several Chrome profiles on my computer, most of them use the same gmail address as identity as the Atlantic knows me by, the address my former charon handle used. It appear that when I try to paste Atlantic gift links within any of those profiles, the results are erratic, sometimes truncated.

    My workaround is to paste into a different profile, picking one that does not know I subscribe to the Atlantic – then the full link seems to paste OK. (E.g., open OTB in a non-Atlantic-subscribed profile).

  14. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @charontwo: Well, I am the culprit.

    I have been away from the computer, so I have not had a chance to see what I did.

    I understand you are trying to help, but I would suggest an alternative theory: I successfully cut and paste 1000s of links in the course of a year, but sometimes I make a mistake!

    1
  15. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @charontwo: I think I see what you mean about The Atlantic. Even my second attempt took me more than once.

    Ah well, it is fixed now!!

  16. Ken_L Avatar
    Ken_L

    One of the Hot Air stable wrote this (my emphasis):

    Trump was obviously imploring potentially reluctant voters who might otherwise choose to stay home to go to the polls and support him. You will note that he never said that you won’t be able to vote again in four years. Only that you won’t have to because he’s promising to fix all of the issues that concern them. These include things like abortion, religious liberty, and freedom of speech.
    https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2024/07/28/about-trumps-you-wont-have-to-vote-comment-n3792378

    Why religious liberty and freedom of speech need “fixing” is baffling, unless he means he expects Trump to limit them so they privilege Christians, but the inclusion of abortion is revealing. Clearly the MAGA people don’t accept the stats quo, and expect a re-elected Trump to organise a national ban.

  17. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Ken_L: All I can say is that if your guy is advocating that voting won’t matter in the future, that person is not advocating for democracy.

    3
  18. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    Frankly, I think what was in Trump’s head was that he wasn’t going to be on the ballot in 2028, so that he doesn’t care at all. But he knows that that will come across as too self-centered, so he adds that he will have fixed everything.

    I mean, that’s like “I’ll bring back coal”, right?

  19. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    When I came up in the protestant church (I described myself as evangelical, but the meaning of that has changed since those times) there was definitely a sense of Christian = democracy = capitalism. Because that was the opposite of the Soviet Union, I guess.

    These days, however, it seems different. The white evangelicals are losing demographically, and this means they are losing significant political battles: over same-sex marriage, abortion, and trans acceptance, for instance, but other things, too. Things they hold as “morally wrong” and not subject to a vote. So yeah, they appeal to authoritarianism. I mean, God is the ultimate authority, right?

    2
  20. Ken_L Avatar
    Ken_L

    @Jay L Gischer: The idea Trump expects to go into retirement obscurity after a second presidency strikes me as thoroughly implausible. No matter who might be the front man in the Oval Office, I suspect he intends to be the leader of the Republican Party and de facto head of government as long as he lives, and his family after him.

  21. Ken_L Avatar
    Ken_L

    @Steven L. Taylor: Of course not. The Hot Air writers are republic-not-democracy MAGA faithful. I expect they subscribe to the Christian Nationalist idea that the state is subordinate to the church.

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