jupiviv,
It is eminently clear that Trump has no idea what he is doing and no desire to follow through on any of his campaign promises except the Wall + restricting immigration.
It has been eminently clear since the very beginning of his political career that he has no what idea what he is doing. His speech patterns are incoherent, his views on the world at large are blatantly ignorant, even his style of campaigning reeked of chaos and incompetence. And yet none of this harmed him politically. It actually made him more popular.
As I say, people keep on underestimating him. All throughout the campaign they laughed at him, calling him a buffoon. No one gave him a chance of even making it though the early rounds of primaries and yet here he is 18 months later, President of the United States.
The fact that he has no idea what he is doing only serves to underlie the concerns I have about him. If you recall, I wrote in my opening post:
- There is no doubt in my mind that Trump is deliberately riding roughshod over the US Constitution and methodically trying to shut down all democratic institutions in an attempt to grab absolute power for himself. I know this because it is clear to me that he does not know how to operate in any other way. He has no capacity to govern in a normal, sensible manner. The only thing he knows is to keep sowing chaos, keep taking advantage of the resulting mayhem and keep expanding his power until he can do it no more.
It is precisely because Trump has no capacity to govern in a normal, sensible manner that he poses a grave danger to democracy in the US, and to international stability. If you cannot govern through competence, then you can only do it through chaos and fear.
Given this, the next few months are going to be boom-or-bust for Trump. Because of his overriding incompetence in almost all areas, he will have no choice but to move quickly to grab absolute power for himself. If he doesn't, he will be a goner. The longer he leaves it, the more his incompetence will undermine his presidency. His only real life-line out of this scenario is to ramp up the anti-immigration/anti-Muslim rhetoric and generate as much chaos and fear as he can surrounding it, and then use this turmoil to affect a take-over.
This relates to the link that Dan posted a couple of days ago:
From the we-are-not-bothering-to conceal-it-anymore fascist rhetoric here, you can tell that Trump is just positively itching to declare a national state of emergency or some such thing. That is going to be the key to his ascension.
It is informative to go back to the travel ban that Trump and Bannon initiated a couple of weeks ago. The most interesting thing about it is that it confined itself to seven nations who, although they were all Muslim-majority nations, have not actually contributed to any terrorists attacks on US soil since 1980, while a number of countries that have contributed to such terrorism (particularly 9/11) or are known terrorists hot spots - e.g. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan - were conspicuously left off the list.
What was the purpose of this exceedingly odd decision? The liberal establishment predictably made a big fuss about it and claimed that Trump was trying to protect his own overseas business interests, but I think there was a darker agenda involved. By engaging in a blatantly provocative manner towards Muslims in initiating the ban in the first place and by leaving the back door open, as it were, for those other countries with known terrorist-links, Trump and Bannon are hoping that some Islamic terrorists will become so riled up that they will attempt an attack in America somewhere. If and when an attack does occur, as it surely will at some point in the future, Trump will immediately claim the high ground. He will say, “See, I told you the courts were soft. I told you there was an emergency, but you didn’t believe me. This is why I need to take control of the situation. Only I can fix it. Only I can make you safe.” In this way, another big leap towards authoritarian rule is made.
And there will probably be little resistance. As GW Bush's trajectory showed in the aftermath of 9/11, people quickly rally around even the most ridiculed of leaders when there seems to be a national emergency involved. Most people are ruled by ignorance and fear; they won't discern Trump's subterfuge and they will huddle around him like frightened little sheep. And those who are more intelligent and should know better, they will probably still be in denial.
Jup: Trump is 70 years old. No fascist, autocrat or monarch has ever achieved anything if they came to power at that age.
Trump has been steadily overturning expectations and defying precedents as though they were nothing. His age is not an issue.
Some people have suggested to me that it would be great if Trump had a heart attack and died. He is, after all, grossly overweight and eats poorly. While that seems delightful at first glance, I fear that it would only excite the fevered imaginations of the far right nut jobs. You can imagine all the conspiracy theories that would go around. Some people would blame the Clintons. Others would think that Obongo had organized a hit job in cahoots with the CIA. It would keep Fox and Breitbart and all those other joke sites in business for many more years. It would be a gold mine for them.
On the flip side, Kevin would be in hog’s heaven. He could trawl through endless third rate sites and watch endless third rate videos that claim to have irrefutable proof that his death certificate was forged. It would keep him harmlessly occupied for years.
No, Trump dying wouldn't solve anything. For any good to come out of this whole fiasco, the puss needs to be thoroughly lanced.