The idea that Trump would become a dictator is more fiction than fact–here’s why you can quit pearl clutching:
Start with the perverse incentives built into the basic media business model:
The reason the “Trump Dictator” claim has any resonance is a direct result of the standard media business model which is as follows:
- Media companies make words and pictures
- Those words and pictures are used to draw a crowd
- That crowd is rented to advertisers in exchange for money
- The words and pictures are the raw materials.
- The crowd is the product.
- The advertisers are the customers
The time proven method to draw a crowd is to use the words and pictures to elicit fear and greed or some combination of both. In this case manufacturing fear of a dictatorship that has virtually no chance of occurring will invariably draw a crowd of potential customers that both the media company and advertisers can monetize. While this imaginary dictatorship is lucrative to certain parties it is not a threat to our constitutional republic or representative democracy.
Throughout history all dictatorships have been based on implementing three fundamental policies.
First, is gun control. No aspiring tyrant can implement and maintain a dictatorship over an armed and hostile populace. A heavily armed populace will always rebel against any hostile , corrupt and oppressive regime. The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution was expressly ratified for the sole purpose of preventing the existence of tyranny.
Second, is government provided health care. People are existentially concerned about having access to high quality medical care when they are sick. This is especially true of families with children. The most powerful and effective way to coerce someone into a desired behavior is by threatening the health and well being of their child. People are generally willing to do anything to spare their child from pain or danger. By making the populace dependent on the government for health care a dictator can achieve complete physical and psychological control over the masses.
Third, is environmental legislation. The sole purpose of environmental regulations is to give the government control over the energy supply. Government control over energy supplies directly impacts people’s health and comfort; it also provides leverage over other essential activities (e.g. transportation, food production etc.).
Obviously the above policies are antithetical to the Republican Party platform and to every segment of the organization supporting that platform ( e.g. movement conservatives, libertarians, and right leaning populists).
Coversly those policies are perfectly correlated to the Democratic party platform (e.g. progressives, Kennedy Democrats, socialists, and communists).
Due to the structure of the U.S. system of government and the multiple interlocking safeguards in the U.S. constitution the odds of any kind of dictatorship are actually quite low especially compared to other countries. However, keeping the population unarmed, sick, cold, and hungry does provide an environment conducive to authoritarianism whereas the opposite does not.
Especially considering the overwhelming number of recent examples of hoaxes, exaggerations and outright lies (specious gun control narratives, Covid, police brutality) designed to manipulate people into supporting outlandish policies it’s clear that if one were to calculate the probability of a dictatorship occuring in the U.S. the odds are exponentially higher for a dictatorship to manifest itself under a Democrat party regime.
Media executives get their bonuses based on eyeballs, not Pinocchios. Fear and greed get you paid. Facts don’t.
