Trump is King … For a Day

We need to admit the plain truth that Donald Trump has won. He has succeeded in becoming the dictator he promised he would be. He appears to enjoy absolute, unchallengeable power. He holds all the cards now. He’s the American Fuhrer. The King.

But not to worry. He’s already stumbling, and his ego-driven ignorance and ineptitude will soon cause him to self-destruct. That’s not just my opinion, but more about that later. First let’s look at what appears to be Trump’s undefeatable power, and why it is that way.

Suppose for a moment that the Supreme Court declares that some order Trump issued is unconstitutional, and Trump ignores it. Instead, he continues taking a wrecking ball to the Constitution. What’s going to stop him?

In normal times, there would be plenty of ways to stop such treason: the FBI, the Justice Department, Congress, the courts, even the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines if need be. But Trump owns all of those now, so, again, what’s left to stop him? What power exists that is anywhere near Trump’s political equal? Project 2025 is working like a charm for him, just like its authors said it would, and Trump is King – for a day, anyway.

That’s not an exaggeration. Trump moved to kill New York City’s new congestion pricing program and then wrote on his Truth Social network last Wednesday, “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” The White House recirculated it on Instagram and X, including an illustration of Trump — wearing a crown! — on a magazine cover resembling Time, but called Trump.

We know how Trump will keep behaving by looking at who trained him: Adolf Hitler. Remember that Trump’s first wife, Ivana, said Trump used to study Hitler’s Mein Kampf religiously every night, and when he wasn’t studying it he kept it locked in a bedside cabinet.

So Trump is Hitler’s star pupil, his shining protégé. Trump followed Hitler’s advice unrelentingly and to the T, and it worked like a charm for him. Now he’s the American Fuhrer. The dictator. The king — the evil king.

In at least one way, Trump is more evil than even Hitler was. Hitler started small and tried to work his way up, taking a country or two at a time and building outward. But Trump is starting big. He wants to start by ruling the world.

Trump soon will be making nice with Russian President – read that dictator – Vladimir Putin while sticking a middle finger up in Europe’s face (just like he’s doing to the American states, red and blue).

It’s not farfetched from there to imagine Trump warming up to Chinese President – read that dictator — Xi Jinping. Those three persons – Trump, Putin and Xi — working together could rule the world. (Well, four persons if you include Elon Musk as Trump’s co-king, which we must do.)

So it’s true that Trump holds all the cards now. He has all the power, and he will constantly remind us of that and make us think it would be fruitless of us to resist. He would love to make us believe it would be impossible for us to stop him.

But Americans are used to doing the impossible. Bernie Sanders recently reminded us of other impossibilities Americans have faced and overcome:

• Overthrowing the King of England to create a new nation and self-rule. Impossible.
• Establishing universal suffrage. Impossible.
• Ending slavery and segregation. Impossible.
• Granting workers the right to form unions and ending child labor. Impossible.
• Giving women control over their own bodies. Impossible.
• Passing legislation to establish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a minimum wage, clean air and water standards. Impossible.

But enough about Trump’s power. Let’s consider his weakness. His collapse has already begun, and a lot of people are seeing it. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal senses his impending doom.

The Journal said the first evidence of that happened during the presidential campaign when candidate Trump made brash promises to solve the problems with quick and big changes if he won the White House. But those brash promises – lower inflation, tax cuts for the middle class, lower food prices, lower prices on everything, etc. – are not happening, “so it is increasingly evident to anyone with political eyes — including people on the right — that Trump’s congressional majorities, especially the House, are likely to fail.”

After the first 100 days, the Journal said, “the GOP will have nothing to show voters as its political capital ebbs.”

David Brooks, a true Republican and an opinion columnist at The New York Times, also sees Trump failing.

Brooks said that the key to his failure is in his attempt to revisit a troubling time in American history, the 19th century, which was full of Manifest Destiny ideals, industrialization and, most important, slavery.

“The problem with populism and the whole 19th-century governmental framework is that it didn’t work,” Brooks wrote, implying that neither will it work now.

Juan Williams, an opinion contributor for the Hill, wrote that between appointing Elon Musk and repeatedly attacking politicians, at some point there’s bound to be issues within the GOP. He wrote:

“As a political ringmaster, Trump has shown he has the skill to distract the audience and convince them to believe in magical political solutions. But stay tuned as the circus performers — read that as Republican members of Congress — start attacking the ringmaster.”

Lucian K. Truscott IV of the National Memo wrote that the “fact that Donald Trump is incapable of loving anything other than himself will be deadly to his cause.”

So let’s not interrupt Trump’s march to self-destruction. In words attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, “When the enemy is making a false movement, we must take good care not to interrupt him.”

But let’s do help him along his way down. Our job today is to not forget the great struggles and sacrifices that millions of people have made over the centuries to create a more democratic, just and humane society. It’s our turn now and we must live up to their sacrifices.

We are facing the same people we defeated in the Civil War – the white-supremist racists, the white so-called Christian men, the richest among us whose greed makes them willing to deny food and medicine to hungry children if it means more money for themselves. We defeated their forebears in 1865 and we will defeat them again.

And the cracks in the king’s walls are already showing. Four major polls last week showed Trump’s popularity is plummeting, and Republican members of Congress are constantly commenting on how angry constituents are melting their phone lines. Sooner or later they will realize that if they want to keep their jobs they had better join the outcry.

But each of us must be part of the resistance, even if it’s only encouraging a discouraged neighbor. Not doing anything in this all-hands-on-deck moment is the same thing as not voting. People who don’t vote elect bad politicians to office, and people who do not resist keep them there. So please, make a point of doing something, anything, every day.

Never give up. Onward and Upward forever. We will win.