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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Author: albaby1 SILVER
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Number: of 84359 
Subject: Re: Is This Fascism or Tyranny?
Date: 12/06/23 9:42 AM
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It's neither fascism or tyranny, but just delusion. Bannon has no idea what Trump will or will not do, and (as pointed out above) doesn't really understand that Kash Patel's fantasies about being CIA director don't correspond with bringing domestic prosecutions.

I have to say, though, that I think all of this continued discussion of how Trump is going to be an effective fascist tyrant upon election is probably a really dumb move on the part of Democrats. Part of Trump's political appeal is the projection of strength. That he's a strongman, that he can take charge, that if he's elected that he will have the power to "turn a battleship on a dime," that he will have the ability to deliver to Republicans results, rather than stalemates. IOW, that he actually has the skills and power and allies to turn the national government from an unwieldy amalgam of Democratic and Republican priorities into a purely Republican one.

That's almost certainly false. Trump probably learned some things from his first term in office, and he's more likely to staff power positions with loyalists than back then. But still - stacking his appointments with idiotic syncophants with little real ability to manage sprawling bureaucracies isn't going to suddenly make Trump super-effective in working his will. Trump might fancy himself a dictator, and he might even want to become a dictator, but being a dictator requires a strength and skill-set and willingness to take risks that Trump utterly lacks. He was ineffective at implementing his priorities as President not merely because he had some cabinet officials that weren't necessarily loyalist - he was ineffective at implementing his priorities as President because he is lazy, uncurious about how power actually works in Washington, and constantly trying to get other people to do risky things so that he wouldn't have to.

Democrats are doing a fantastic job at marketing Trump to Republican voters the way he wants to be perceived.
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This community has written 84,309 posts about US Policy. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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