The Day of Coronation

(Author’s Note: Due to health and a family emergency, I have been unable to complete as yet my planned series diagnosing the 2024 election. I still plan on finishing each part, but with political events unfolding as they are, this article is more timely.)

Today, former President Donald J. Trump (R) will become current President in what will be the first coronation ceremony after the position was transformed by the U.S. Supreme Court into a pseudo-monarchy, by holding that a sitting President is practically inviolable.

In 2022, Trump publicly called for the termination of the U.S. Constitution and he is well on his way in doing so. Months ago, I was asked by a relative as to how he could do this and provided her with the following short list of simultaneous political moves he would need to execute, in order to undermine the political and cultural underpinnings of American society to the point where termination would be feasible:

·       Packing the Executive Branch with sycophants. Constitutional, legal, and structural checks against abuses of power are only as effective as the people tasked with imposing such checks. To circumvent such checks, one does not need to change the law as much as one needs people willing to bend or ignore it. This requires not just people who are political allies, but who are also morally compromised. 

No example of this could be clearer than Trump’s pick for his Cabinet-level officers. Nearly all of them are woefully unqualified for their positions and nearly all of them are morally compromised to some degree, ranging from personal vices (e.g., utter cowards who discard principles in order to “stay ahead”) to borderline criminality (e.g., credibly accused of enabling or engaging in sexual abuse). 

Trump’s nominees have a track record of supporting whatever Trump wants them to support, no matter how contradictory or ludicrous. Moral bankruptcy breaks a person’s resolve (not to mention making them easy targets for threats and blackmail), thus making these nominees powerless to pushback against the worst. The pressures of handling positions which they are unqualified for just compounds this matter further. 

The first stage is to pack Cabinet-level positions with such people. If Project 2025 is successfully implemented and the President can purge large swaths of the Executive Branch, rest assured, he will continue the trend and pack it with the most loyal and morally compromised sycophants that can be found. 

·       Packing both the Legislative and Judicial Branches with sycophants. In the U.S. Federal system, there are two broad categories of checks upon each branch of the government: 

o   Horizontal (the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches checking each other based on their Constitutional roles and powers); and

o   Vertical (the Federal, State, and local governments checking each other with their Constitutional prerogatives and separate spheres of power).

To neutralize the checks on the horizontal level, both the Legislative and Judicial branches must be transformed into “rubber stamps” for Trump’s agenda. Most of the Republicans in Congress are “true believers” and will enable Trump to do whatever he wants. Those who are not are easily being pressured into acting as such by external threats, whether they be from Trump’s inner-circle itself (e.g., threats of losing their careers by being “primaried” with a well-financed “true believer”) or from the MAGA populace in general (e.g., threats of violence).

By the numbers, Trump’s agenda can easily be supported in the Senate, where he can afford to lose up to four Republican votes – and there are really only two or three who are independent enough to do so. The House of Representatives is much harder with the Republicans only holding a few seat majority in a body of 435, but members of the House are the easiest to threaten, since House races are relatively inexpensive (meaning that it would be extremely difficult for an incumbent to raise sufficient money to compete against Trump-supported primary opponent flushed with millions) and most are in hyper-partisan districts.

The Supreme Court has almost been transformed as well with its 6 – 3 conservative majority, with John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett bucking Trump from time to time. If Sonia Sotomayor is replaced during Trump’s reign (a good possibility, considering the combination of her age and poor health) with another sycophant, the composition of the Court will be 4 alt-right – 3 conservative – 2 liberal, which puts it dangerously close to being a “rubber stamp”.

·       Purging the military, Federal law enforcement agencies (such as the FBI and DHS), and Attorney General’s office. A government who can only issue orders and edicts is powerless without the necessary use of force and those willing to apply it. Replacing officers whose loyalties lie with the U.S. Constitution and replacing them with those whose loyalties are to Trump himself is necessary, not only in enacting his agenda, but also suppressing opposition. 

·       Remove “undesirables”. The first victims of any authoritarian regime are the “undesirables”. For the Soviet Union, this was the bourgeoisie and Russian aristocracy. For Nazi Germany, it was the Jews and Communists. For MAGA America, it will be immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community. There are already reports that Trump will issue a “flurry” of executive orders authorizing enforcement agencies to round up and deport illegal immigrants. 

The Trump administration will help to enable States to continue banning books, regulating curriculum, intimidating librarians and publishers, and reverse past Court decisions which support or are sympathetic to the LGBTQ+ lifestyles. It would not at all be surprising if the Trump administration expands Federal controls over these areas, to ensure that these actions are carried out in “blue” states. It also would be mildly surprising, yet predictable, if the detention centers which will be created for temporarily housing illegal immigrants would also be transformed into concentration camps for any “undesirables” (and before anyone criticizes the clear Nazi-analogy, remember that the United States had concentration camps for Japanese-Americans; it is not unprecedented). 

·       Consolidating power by suppressing the opposition. The second victim of any authoritarian regime is its opposition. Suppressing them will likely be done initially on multiple levels, such as threats of prosecution against opposing politicians, judges (like what is currently being done in Italy), the press (like what is currently being done in India), grassroots organizations (e.g., the ACLU), etc. Trump has already promised to implement the Insurrection Act of 1796 to deploy the military against the American people (under the guise of protecting them against illegal aliens, Marxists, Black Lives Matter anarchists, etc.). Coupled with the deadly force of the FBI and DHS, they could all be used to cajole and intimidate people into either not criticizing Trump’s government or simply removing them from society. 

Even more effective is the use of existing regulatory agencies to threaten and intimidate by use of the powers already given to them, such as fines, sanctions, revoking of license, etc. A prime example of this which is already occurring is the mad rush by social media companies and the press to curry favor with Trump after his election. They know the Trump administration will have the power to hurt or destroy them by litigation or prosecution, revoke their broadcasting licenses, and/or censure them if they oppose Trump’s will. 

·       Consolidation of the news. Not only do opposing voices need to be suppressed, but also facts. The public must be given a set of facts which are conducive to the agenda of the authoritarian, else it feeds opposition. The modern public gets its facts from social media, cable and broadcast television, and the press. Getting all the vendors of these to only present the “alternative facts” of the administration will go a long way in tampering dissent. 

This does not need to be done by nationalizing all the vendors (though we’re already seeing signs of this, with Trump’s suggestion yesterday to partially nationalize Tik-Tok), but by intimidation and threats to have them “voluntarily” bend to the administration’s will. This the trend in most of the despotic countries in the world right now (India and Russia being prime examples) and, so far, it has been working in Trump’s favor, as several of the social media companies remove the guardrails against the propagation of fake news. 

·       Scapegoating. Of course, all violations of individual rights must be “legitimately” done under the pretext of protecting them and scapegoating is one of the most effective tools for doing so. Trump has been doing this by marginalizing minority groups (e.g., immigrants, homosexuals, liberals, etc.) and successfully portraying them as the people who are causing all the miseries in the country. Coupled with fanatically religious followers, who believe that Trump was sent from God to save them from such evil people, Trump now has the backing of a near majority of the American people (around 45% of the voting populace) who will support him no matter what. 

And he will continue to have their unconditional support, so long as his actions against the “undesirables” are justified in “protecting” the rights of his supporters. To illustrate, if he can tie some (and not very many) crimes and the degeneration of society to immigrants (legal or illegal), he has enough political cover to declare something like this: 

“Our country is existentially threatened by murderers, rapists, Marxists, and people who hate our country. The danger is too great and Congress is working too slow to stop this madness, so I am temporarily suspending Constitutional protections in order to restore law and order.”

As long as a sizable part of the public buys into this, he can get away with it. Congress has already shown (twice) that it will not impeach and remove him from office for anything. Assuming even the courts were to hold that the President does not have the power to suspend the Constitution, he has the power to ignore them because they have no enforcement power. If anything, he can then declare that the courts have “betrayed America”, which could lead to the Judicial Branch losing any remaining credibility it has left in the eyes of the public (and credibility is the one thing which makes judicial decisions work).

·       Turning Militias into Government-Sponsored Enterprises. While not necessary to become an authoritarian state, the recipe is there for Trump to create his own para-military groups (equivalents to Nazi Germany’s SA and SS). These already somewhat exist in the form of the various right-wing militia groups. If Trump were to give them some sort of government recognition (not to mention funding, training, and weapons support), he could use them in a way similar to the SA or SS (e.g., suppressing voter turnout in “blue districts” if any elections are held). 

·       Suspending the Constitution. Most of what is described above could not work under the U.S. Constitution – which, of course, means it has to go. With a supportive Congress and Supreme Court, an administration packed with sycophants (especially in the military), coupled with “voluntary” conformity in traditional and social media, and a demoralized opposition, Trump could successfully “temporarily suspend” the Constitution – and by temporary, I mean “permanently”. 

Trump’s base reveres the Constitution (at least rhetorically), so he would have to couch such suspension in terms of being “temporary” and in order to “save” it. Such suspension/termination would allow Trump to do things which would normally be prohibited, such as prosecuting Democratic Congressmen (keeping them out of sessions gives him a larger margin of error in Congress), suspending habeas corpus and jailing dissenters or confiscating their property (especially if he invokes martial law in connection with any suspension), etc.

These are only some of the key moves and Trump is well on his way in making them. Later today will give more clues as to his plans when he issues his Executive Orders. It will take him some time to consolidate power, but if he is earnest, it should not take more than two years – especially since, at the latest, the 2026 midterms could give him the cover he needs to terminate the Constitution (e.g., declaring that the vote was rigged if Republicans lose the House of Representatives and that the military must take control of the voting machines, to ensure a “fair and accurate” vote).

There is still hope that such actions can be successfully countered (or that they may never take place), but that is a subject for another article.