Highlighting Opinion | A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.

Robert Kagan, a Post Opinions contributing editor, is the author of “Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart — Again,” which will be published by Knopf in May.

Editor at large

WN: To the article highlighted below, I can only say: Maranatha!—Even so, come Lord Jesus.

After reading the highlighted article, you may see this in The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Second-Term Plans: Anti-‘Woke’ University, ‘Freedom Cities’–Former president wants more active government, upending GOP orthodoxy.

excerpt:

As perilous as it is for Republicans to say a negative word about Trump today, it will be impossible once he has sewn up the nomination.

Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination. In the RealClearPolitics poll average (for the period from Nov. 9 to 20), Trump leads his nearest competitor by 47 points and leads the rest of the field combined by 27 points. The idea that he is unelectable in the general election is nonsense — he is tied or ahead of President Biden in all the latest polls — stripping other Republican challengers of their own stated reasons for existence. The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.

Once he secures the nomination, he will loom over the country like a colossus, his every word and gesture chronicled endlessly.

For many months now, we have been living in a world of self-delusion, rich with imagined possibilities.

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To the degree there are structural advantages in the coming general election, in short, they are on Trump’s side.

The magical-thinking phase is ending. Barring some miracle, Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president. When that happens, there will be a swift and dramatic shift in the political power dynamic, in his favor. Until now, Republicans and conservatives have enjoyed relative freedom to express anti-Trump sentiments, to speak openly and positively about alternative candidates, to vent criticisms of Trump’s behavior past and present. Donors who find Trump distasteful have been free to spread their money around to help his competitors. Establishment Republicans have made no secret of their hope that Trump will be convicted and thus removed from the equation without their having to take a stand against him.

Trump will not be contained by the courts or the rule of law. On the contrary, he is going to use the trials to display his power.

All this will end once Trump wins Super Tuesday. Votes are the currency of power in our system, and money follows, and by those measures, Trump is about to become far more powerful than he already is. The hour of casting about for alternatives is closing. The next phase is about people falling into line.

Please click on: A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable.

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