I don't think Trump will become a dictator. He has already pressed the self-destruct button.

[Doodley]

Last edited Thu Apr 24, 2025, 06:13 PM - Edit history (1)

His poll numbers are already falling, but when tariffs interrupt supply chains, when truckers are laid off en-mass, when the tourism
and hospitality industry slumps because he has killed inward international travel, when factories have to suspend production, when prices go up, and 99% of Americans are affected, his approval numbers will be where they were when he left office in 2021----that's 34 percent. CEO's won't support Trump when we are in a recession of his creation. I think all that will happen this year.

Trump's incompetence and lies will be exposed to all, even his own base. Confidence in him will be on the floor. Protests will be in the millions. His behavior will become increasingly erratic. Trump's disastrous presidency will be the ongoing dominant news story. GOP lawmakers will start to distance themselves from him. He won't have the authority to grab more power without deligitimizing himself further. The military will have lost faith in him and all respect. His ambitions to be a dictator will be in ruins. His presidency will be in ruins. His legacy will be as a nasty stain on America's democracy and America's reputation.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

1. And the timer on the explosives are ticking

down, it's just a matter of time now and it can't come soon enough for us.

[roscoeroscoe]

31. That's Right, Top

Amen

[Johnny2X2X]

2. The worse thngs get, the more power dictators consolidate

I don't thinkTrump cares about poll numbers anymore. While he is effecting chaos, a whole bunch of power grabbing measures are being implemented.

[Doodley]

10. Agreed, but when most of the country hate his guts, he has no chance in pulling off a power grab to serve a third term.

[MLAA]

3. I'm concerned a President Vance will be equally as disruptive and his administration full of the same ignorant players.

[Sky Jewels]

4. But he doesn't have the cult following.

People see him and their first reaction is: "I'd like to punch that guy in his fat face."

[MLAA]

7. Excellent point.

[Sky Jewels]

8. Of course, we all have that same reaction to the orange cretin,

but somehow half of voters don't. It's one of the great mysteries of the universe.

[Nasruddin]

14. I'm afraid of President Vance

for a different reason.

He has 0 charisma, credibility, and capability.

He will kick open Pandora's Box as every ambitious jackass says YOLO to him/herself and heads out to start a civil war.

[OLDMDDEM]

5. I have to agree with you. Dumpy has overstepped his bounds.

[unblock]

6. Semantics perhaps, but I'd argue he's already a dictator. The question is, can he keep it?

Or at least an authoritarian. Point is, he's already doing things in violation of law, ignoring congress, ignoring the courts for the most part, violating treaties, and basically governing by his say-so.

Just look at musk/doge. Doge wasn't created by congress, musk wasn't confirmed by the senate, they can't make up their minds if he's an advisor of an agency head or what, because they ignored all that and just let him do damage because Donnie said he could.

The semantic question is, is a dictator not a dictator until he cements his permanence as a dictator, or is he a dictator from the moment he starts acting like a dictator things happen based on dictatorial edict?

I would argue that hitler became a dictator when he became chancellor, even though he didn't cement his permanence until the enabling act.

Either way, I think the resistance has been wayyyy too slow, but Donnie is certainly providing a lot of motivation, even from unexpected constituents.

[Doodley]

9. He hasn't used force to take total control. He is already caving against the resistance to tariffs. He has caved on

his threat to fire the Fed Chair. Trump has lost in over 90% of legal challenges against his unlawful actions. The protests against him are growing. He has humiliated himself on the world state. There isn't another world leader who doesn't know he is an idiot. He has lost the respect of the military. His dream of staying in power for a third term is dead. Yes, he's an authoritarian, but that will also be his downfall.

[unblock]

11. Indeed. We survived Donnie 1.0 primarily due to his abject incompetence

Sadly, the one thing he did accomplish in his first administration was to further corrupt the courts, congress, and the media.

Between that and surrounding himself with people who are more adept at helping him exert authoritarian control, he's far more dangerous this time.

And even more sadly, if he goes away, one way or another, he'll only be replaced by another like-minded authoritarian. No matter what, we're in for 4 full years of serious damage.

All we can do is hope the current pushback is and remains effective.

[Frasier Balzov]

12. Attractive candidates are indispensable.

You can't beat something with nothing.

[Aristus]

13. Haven't we already seen online comments from Trumpsters who will never, ever abandon him or admit they were wrong?

Isn't there a businessman out there who said he would gladly lose his business because of Trump's tariffs because "Trump is a good man and is doing good things for the country"?

You can't expect human-level intelligence from people who possess no humanity.

[Dr. Shepper]

19. Most of my clients are Trumpers

They will absolutely love him no matter what because liberals are bad. Period.

[Aristus]

24. Forty years of AM hate radio have taken their toll.

No chance of cult de-programming now...

[TBA]

15. He can't even get the trains running on time.

[crud]

16. they will not be turning things around

They will keep losing support. At this point, he has fucked up stuff so much, that we will feel the pain no matter what he does to turn it around.

[Fil1957]

17. If he can get the military to pledge fealty to him rather than the constitution,

(which he's trying to do BTW), it doesn't matter how bad the economy gets or how low his popularity sinks, he will remain in power, although things will get very ugly.

[cab67]

18. From what I've seen -

Red-hatters are behaving a lot like the people surrounding Brian when they decide he's the Messiah in "The Life of Brian." Any legitimate argument against his status as the Messiah is rationalized into evidence that he is. For example:

Brian: I am not the Messiah!

Follower 1: Only the true Messiah would deny his divinity.

Brian: OK, I am the Messiah! I am the Messiah!

Crowd: He is the Messiah!

These people actually believe the Decerebrate One. He says a long list of countries begged to re-negotiate trade deals; this is almost certainly bullshit, but the Core Believers accept that without question. Hence, reversing course on the tariffs is a major victory in their eyes, even though it's objectively a crushing defeat for him.

They will never blame him for anything. There's a recession? That wasn't Twinklesphincter's fault - that's because other countries keep screwing us over! Or their fellow Americans are weak and unwilling to just give it all a chance! Can't be his fault!


I really hope you're right, but I'm a lot less optimistic. His approval rating is unlikely to fall below 45 percent this year, as far as I can tell. And I really, really want to be wrong about that.

[Doodley]

25. His approval cratered at the end of term one, so I wouldn't be so sure it is rock solid now.

[cab67]

28. His approval cratered because of the pandemic.

The other shit he did barely made a dent in his support. I mean, if the insurrection didn't end him, I don't know what will.

He's not leading a political movement. He's leading a cult. Anything he does can be explained away as a victory, or as some sort of shrewd multi-dimensional chess. His followers are immune to reason and explanation. What's that? He ate a live kitten on national TV this morning? So YOU say! That's the lying libtard media with their fake news again! Oh - you mean there's video of this event? And the remains of the kitten are still out there on the White House lawn? That was an MS-13 kitten! And a transgender kitten! It was spreading pro-Palestinian propaganda and promoting DEI! It was turning other kittens gay! The kitten spoke ill of Bill Maher! Of COURSE he ate it - he's protecting us! Whatta guy!

I eventually unfriended a bunch of people I knew in high school on Facebook largely because his actions in the first few weeks of this administration were so obviously stupid and harmful, and yet their allegiance to him remained steadfast. When some of them expressed joy that my own side of things (science) was getting hammered, and that I personally would finally have to live in the real world - the one I've been living in for almost 58 years- I was done.

[Doodley]

32. He had an average of 34% approval. Whatever the reason, according to pollsters, there was a time when only a third of

the nation supported him. It shows that his approval is not set in stone and even some of those who support him now have shown they can change that position. Nobody will escape recession and many, even many Trumpers, will blame him. But I don't blame you for unfriending cult members. I have cultists in my family! It is hard to handle.

[Ollie Garkie]

20. He's pissed off the moneymen.

They can make or break a regime. Let's hope he doesn't lash out like a cornered animal.

[Janbdwl72]

21. You make some salient points

However, it's always good to have some insurance if possible. So the opposition needs to make it as difficult as possible for him. Every action should be challenged. (maybe except for not producing any more pennies)

I always find it difficult to imagine why anyone (or at least so many) supported him in the elections of 2016, 2020 and 2024. It was a fluke that he was first elected in 2016, losing by 2.8 million popular votes. Obviously, other things happened, including the action for which he was later convicted of 34 felony counts. He made such a huge point out of Hilary Clinton's emails and yet he has been by far the worst President in terms of sharing classified information and appointing officials who also are far too generous in this area. (Hegseth, especially at this time)

Plus, he appointed the richest, yet worst qualified Cabinet in history, whose main (qualification?) seems to be excessive loyalty to the Retaliator-in-Chief. And on and on we go.

[Doodley]

27. The right get totally different info from us. R/W propaganda dominates TV, radio and social media news and commentary,

In addition, their messaging is very powerful and connects at an emotional level (in their case, fear, anger, prejudice, and patriotism). Our messaging largely misses the emotional connection. That is why so many people say they don't know what Democrats stand for. Lastly, our campaigning isn't at the level of Democrats. For example, we received 12 flyers (in Georgia) telling lies, such as Democrats tried to kill Trump, and the economy was the worst with Biden. From the Harris campaign, we received nothing.

[not fooled]

22. He might not become the dictator but

the next GQPee president will take advantage of the measures being enacted now, including trying to restrict voting.

And there's enough dumb*ss 'Muricans who would vote him (of course it would be a him) in.

[0rganism]

23. The dictator doesn't care about poll numbers when he's running the only game in town

If he ever needs a bump up to 90%, any mass-casualty event that can be blamed on a minority group will do just fine.

If a bomb goes off in central San Diego killing hundreds and F47 says "MS-13 just attacked our nation", visits the attack site, makes a bunch of blustery speeches, then summarily deports 10000 Hispanic immigrants and launches an invasion of northern Mexico the next week, what do you think his poll numbers will be for the next 6 months?

It doesn't matter at this point. F47 has America by the short hairs. Barring some truly exceptional chain of events, Americans will do his bidding as needed. We are not free people.

[Doodley]

29. I agree with your suggestion, except we are talking about Trump. Yes W went into the 90s after 9/11, but look how Trump

handles himself in a crisis---like a narcissistic moron! .

[0rganism]

35. I'm fairly confident we'll find out, probably in about 19 months to apply maximum chaos to midterm elections

It's true, F47 is, among other things, a narcissistic moron. We will see that reflected in the content of his blustery war-mongering exhortations to reactive violence. However, he is also a thief and an extraordinary conman, albeit one rarely capable of coherent, original thought. Which is what makes me so certain this will happen: it's worked for others in the past, and he "reasons" it could very well work for him too. Actually, IMHO he's not wrong about this -- those polls would need be running a lot lower for it to fail. And I'm quite certain, even in the face of likely failure, he'd try it anyway to prevent impeachment/removal/prosecution. He's determined to live the rest of his life as El Presidente and he'll do anything to make that happen.
From Timothy Snyder's 20 Lessons from the 20th Century:

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.

[Dan]

26. My thoughts, it's not really about domestic politics.

It's the international politics that will bring about the downfall of Trump, and America.

We have proven we lack both the intelligent and will to be the leader of the free world.

[Doodley]

30. Good point!

[Hekate]

33. He paves the way for the next guy. Both Vance and Li'l Pervy are waiting in the wings....

The next guy will inherit rubble, but that afaict is exactly what they want: complete destruction of, among other things, the non-political Civil Service and all it has provided us.

[Blues Heron]

34. Maybe we can skip to the impeachment part maybe next week?