Are You Willing to Roll the Dice On Whether You Remain On the Winning Side?
People supporting Trump, thinking they’ll benefit from that, might find instead it leads to harm, a turning on them, that wouldn’t happen under Harris or any normal presidency.
Trump has said many things in his campaign, and done many things during his presidency, that make it clear he will not protect rights. He will act as a strong man and just get what he wants done, and the heck with rules and laws and standards and the constitution. To review: He has talked about using federal agencies to go after perceived enemies. His own actions have violated the rights of women. His stirring up of the January 6, 2021 insurrection was an effort to deny the rights of voters. (See here regarding “televised military tribunals” for people who merely opposed him, and here for efforts to block military voting overseas.)
This is a historically common pattern, of strong-arm rulers turning on their supporters when it suits them. Trump supporters are going for a trade-off. They are willing to give up securing rights as part of our culture and law, resulting in some losers and some winners, the winners gaining at the expense of the losers. A zero-sum world. They expect to be among those who gain. But when rights, and who the winners are, is the caprice of the top of the power pyramid, you never know when you might suddenly find yourself having become one of the losers.
Under a system that honors human rights we do our best to protect those, equally, and have systems to challenge infringements. Under a quasi-authoritarian system? Nah. That would be inconvenient for the top.
There are many historical examples but one of the clearest was the Night of the Long Knives. A weekend in which Hitler, having newly come to full power, had scores of his political supporters, ones he imagined some potential future threat from, killed. I’m not saying Trump would have people killed, just that there is a parallel as far as dropping supporters from favor, letting whatever bad consequences happen to them. Consider Rudy Giuliani, who has given his fortune and his reputation to support Trump, yet can’t even get paid for his services, much less helped with all his legal problems. Why? Because Trump can save some money and leave Giuliani to the wolves.
In the Night of the Long Knives Hitler had some killed because he thought they might someday rise to enough influence to be a challenger. Some were killed because two groups who supported him were rivals and he wanted to favor the group who could do him the most good, and so literally got rid of their opponents. He had some killed because their support for him was based on his claim to support their socialist agenda. But he had other plans than a big socialist transformation, so he knew those groups would cause trouble when they became dissatisfied with his lack of follow-through. This uncomfortably parallels what those who’ve created Project 2025 for Trump might find if he comes to power and then finds all that stuff a lot of work that won’t enrich him, so he won’t bother with it.
On the small scale, tables can be turned. If you’re in the military overseas but Trump finds that getting his appointed judges to squash those ballots serves his purpose of trying to challenge election results, well too bad for you and your vote. If you support him because you live near the border and are convinced he’ll be better on that issue, but then the cheapest place to build more of the wall, some of which is more for show than as an effective project, happens to run through your ranch, tough. And your challenge of improper eminent domain? Could get thrown out by one of his judges. Even if you should superficially seem to be part of his favored group, white, Christian, a man, there are endless ways you could suddenly find yourself in the way of what suits him. And then, since you’ve helped change to a system that has abandoned ways we guard against and correct such abuse, you have no option.
Supporting Trump means ripping up the guardrails that protect us all, and rolling the dice on whether you remain on the winning side.
I have to walk back and correct one thing. That Trump wouldn’t have people killed. That’s exactly what it seemed he would be fine with regarding Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, on January 6th.
Supporting a would-be strong man is a dangerous choice.
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