Trump Stumps With Fascist Cosplay

His campaign is following the dictatorship blueprint

Weak, tiny, and scared, Trump is doing the only think he know…look tough to cover the weakness.

About our democracy -- "If we don't win this election, I don't think you're going to have another election in this country,"

About civil unrest -- "If I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole country." (Maybe he was talking about the car industry, sure ok. Regardless, the fact that this isn’t surprising is a major problem)

About immigrants – “I don’t know if you call them people, In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion.”

As he campaigned for president last week Donald Trump turned up the volume on his authoritarian message. He followed the well-known blueprint for dictatorship, which included dehumanizing outsiders, predictions of violence, and dramatic warnings about a supposed emergency facing the nation.

Trump is doing all the things that would-be autocrats do as they campaign for power, and this should scare the hell out of us. However, he is also doing it in a style that echoes with weakness and looks a little like cosplay. Outside on a windy day in Ohio, he donned a red ballcap to protect his precious hair and struggled to rouse the crowd. Frustrated, he reached for profanity but even that didn’t energize his audience.

Speaking of the audience, it does appear that they are getting bored of the schtick that seems little changed since their man crashed onto the political stage in 2015. He’s still railing against the media, and the “radical left” and still using the slogan – Make America Great Again – that he debuted nine years ago.

When Ian Ward of Politico attended a rally earlier this year, in Manchester, N.H., he found that Trump’s speeches have become “inescapably monotonous.” Worse for Trump, many of the fans – err, voters – who stand in line for hours to be admitted to a rally, seemed to be bored by the show. In Manchester “even the supporters standing behind him on the stage started to look a little bored,” wrote Ward. “Out in the stands, a steady stream of attendees trickled toward the exits” well before Trump finished.

On the surface, Trump does seem like a failing figure so ludicrous that his defeat might seem guaranteed. This is wrong,  Yes, when he gives a typical speech he seems like a cover band that is a mere imitation of the real thing. But if you take all the people who attend a rally and remove those who follow him around the country like he’s the Grateful Dead, you realize that only the tiniest portion of his base will ever see him in person. What they know will come to them in snippets which, if they watch Fox News, make him seem like the guy they have always loved. According to most definitions, he is also still a fascist on the march.

Although it depends on who you may be hearing at the moment, people who have studied how dictators rise to power and maintain it, agree on certain defining characteristics including:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

·         Warnings about evil conspiracies – the Radical Left.”

·         Harkening back to a lost golden era – the days when America was “Great.”

·         Fear of those who are different – immigrants who are “not people.“

·         Machismo – Trump’s profanity

·         Reverence for those who take action – Trump’s praise for the jailed January 6  Capitol attackers.

Tired as he may be, 2024 Trump still reaches his supporters with a promise of one-man rule that will ease their fears and make a mythical past real today. The masses don’t know his delivery is faltering or that the laugh lines often fall flat. They don’t hear the repetition and stale slogans that make him sound like a pretender. All they know is that their man is trying to make a comeback and they can do their part come Election Day.

If you want proof of Trump’s dictatorial intentions, consider the plans being made by the activists and ideologues who will fill his administration. With the candidate’s approval, they plan to bring every agency, including those made to be independent and apolitical, under Trump’s control. His rival President Biden would be subject to a criminal investigation. Federal workers would lose job protections and the disloyal would be purged.

In the end, Trump’s backers intend to create a government in his image, which will regard his opponents as enemies to be vanquished, bring outsiders to heel, smash so-called conspiracies, and make America into a land of Trumpian fantasy. Say what you will about the weak, clownish pretender who you see on the campaign trail. Trump still wants the power of a dictator and his team is preparing to give it to him.