No. of Recommendations: 5
but what you think he might do with them that would result in him remaining President.
A military coup or declaration of marshal law is not off the table.
He’s purged the general and flag officer ranks of people opposed to him, and promoted supporters to fill in behind those purged. And the purge continues further down the ranks.
He’s tested the willingness of the military to do questionable things, such as kidnapping the leader of Venezuela and attacking Iran. Neither of these countries were posing any immediate threats to the US. I don’t recall any significant pushback from the military for these missions.
To remain in power, Trump doesn’t need to cancel elections or run for office again. He simply needs to use the military to put both candidates for President and VP in jail, or kill them in the process of arresting them, shortly after election. We have no real process for dealing with such a decapitation. He’ll declare himself President, and carry on, again using the military to remain in power.
It’s the basic authoritarian playbook.
—Peter
