Donald Trump wants to be worshiped as a Great Man — even as a Prophet or Savior; Which is why he Won’t become a Tyrant.

But he’ll definitely continue to be a spiteful and insufferable A**hole.

I admit to having gone back and forth for months about whether or not Donald Trump and his duma of depraved deputies are an existential threat to our national experiment in Democracy. I have shifted back and forth again just within the last few days —personally demonstrating how his unhinged mind, now completely immunized and unmoored from reality — can totally f**k with you.

I, like many others, have been shocked and awed by the unprecedented abandon and speed with which the Trump duma has commandeered the DOJ and other organs of state power, destroyed or disabled much of our infrastructure for governing, and launched hundreds of mostly unlawful executive orders and personal attacks on everything and everyone — domestically and internationally — that he perceives do not bow deeply enough to his delusions of unbridled grandeur.

And, unbelievably, here, in the United States of America, Trump and his goons have us now hearing regular reports about ‘the disappeared.’ Americans are being ‘disappeared’ as in so-called ‘Banana Republics’ — and, coincidentally, as is routine in Russia, China, and North Korea.

How much does anyone want to bet against the proposition that Trump is loving these ‘gulag grabs’ because they show the Really Bad Boys that he too is ‘A Boss?’

All of this is illegal.

It’s sadistic.

It’s despicable.

It’s inhumane.

It’s intolerable.

And until just a few months ago, it was all but inconceivable.

Over the last two weeks or so, my shock had begun to subside and I began to lean towards the likelihood that our republic will survive Trump. I began to sense that we are most likely to be able to look back on Trump 2.0 as a major ‘sh*t show,” but one from which we will — sooner or later — recover.

That’s because, in the past couple of weeks encouraging signs of resistance have emerged. Important elements of our democratic ecosystem have begun to regroup and re-assert themselves.

We’ve seen this especially in the federal courts, the universities (thanks to Harvard taking-up hard ball), in growing and ongoing nationwide demonstrations, from governors (I’m thinking particularly of Illinois’ Mike Pritzker and of Maine’s Janet Mills), from a few in Congress (Senators Corey Booker, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders; Representatives AOC, Jasmine Crocket, Jaimie Raskin. There are others.), and in some big law firms.

There have also been anonymous reports of a ‘Deep Throat 2’ campaign being waged in the Pentagon against the apparently widely despised Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

And then there is much of the rest of the world — near and far — recoiling and then fighting back from the incoherence and irresponsibility pouring out of the Trump duma’s lazy brutishness.

And the reason there is increasingly serious and growing opposition is that Trump continues to be Trump.

Trump is and always has been an insufferable A**hole (note the capital ‘A’).

But we actually got a bit lucky with Trump . . .

In fact, our nation and our world are very lucky that it is ‘The Donald’ who uncovered such extensive and endemic weaknesses in our nation’s world-historical experiment in democratic governance. We’re lucky because Donald Trump is about the dumbest, laziest, and unappealing ‘wannabe’ dictator one could hope to have to face.

Trump is ignorant, arrogant, reckless, and depraved. Trump is his own biggest liability.

And here’s his biggest self-own: Trump is not a real leader.

He has play-acted his fantasies about leadership in many contexts, including on his own ‘reality TV’ show and now as the president. But he’s never actually led anything successfully in his entire life.

On the other hand, to give credit where credit is due, while Donald Trump is a poor leader, he’s a pretty good showman — a master in the tradition of the almost mythic American carnival barker. He knows how to entertain — how to gin-up a crowd — and, especially, how to sell the snake oil that will cure you of all of your ills.

In other words, Trump has an exceptional gift for grift.

One might say he’s a master grifter.

And, he’s also a great host — of certain things.

He’s quite capable of hosting simple, delimited events: like a golf tournament, an hours-long whiny rant rally, a room full of sycophantic direct-reports, a $250,000/plate dinner, or even a WWE wrestling extravaganza.

And apparently, he’s now planning to go even bigger and host a 79th Birthday extravaganza featuring a grand military parade through the streets of the nation’s Capital. And he’s promising even more grandee parades to celebrate what he himself will designate as ‘great American victories.’

But hosting, let alone leading, something as demanding as an Oval Office ‘presser’ with a world leader fighting a brutal war in defense of democracy?

Not so much.

The truth is that,

Donald Trump is constitutionally incapable of the complexity of thought and the strength of character needed to be a great leader.

Donald Trump cannot manage or play a leading role in more than simple performative political, self-aggrandizing theatre, whether for fun or profit.

Trump is Dangerous But . . .

Despite all of his performative bravado and the real damage his duma is inflicting on our nation and the world, I do believe that Trump is not the person who can lead or march us into dictatorship or some such imperious new type of American nation. He simply doesn’t have it in him to think that hard, focus that well, or work that hard.

And I don’t think Trump actually harbors anything like the sheer depths of inhumanity required of the truly despicable despots. He does not acknowledge that anything he or his consiglieri do is harmful. As much as possible, he avoids unpleasantness beyond some essentially performative ‘I’d like to see them roughed-up a bit.’ (I’m not suggesting that sending blood-thirsty mobs to assault the Capitol, summarily kidnapping and deporting people, or hoping paramilitaries and police will ‘deal’ with some people is not horrible and despicable.)

I’m only suggesting that, thankfully, Trump’s narcissistic life-force depends on being liked, if not worshipped. He needs simplicity. He needs to feel coddled and safe. He needs to be able to retreat into the totally immersive gold-plated luxury of Lording it over the simple perks and pleasures of Mar-a-Lago.

Trump knows that the bloodthirsty tyrants like Putin or Kim Jung Il are despised and in many ways prisoners of their own totalitarian states. Always at odds with their world, always on guard, always having (and wanting!) to execute the next example of their terrorizing power.

Trump has not ‘risen’ to this point in his life by terrorizing people but by using them and grifting them.

As is his way, he has managed to surround himself with the sorts of weak-minded people that George Lukas warned us about in Star Wars and through Darth Vader. Trump has, indeed, ‘turned’ many weak-minded, ideologically blindered people into consiglieri and has put them in charge of our various institutions and functions of government and ‘law and order.’

Only a couple of them have any subject-matter expertise. All these consiglieri (Musk, Hegseth, Kennedy, et al.) can do is all that anyone has ever done via clumsy, dumb thuggery:

Case in point: The bilious billionaire bro, Elon Musk.

Musk’s increasingly unhinged, callous, and cruel persona has became so unpopular that his noxiousness eclipsed the intended impacts of his DOGE of destruction and his personal attempt to fund and win a critical battleground state election.

Trump has sidelined Musk — why? — only because Trump desperately craves popular adulation for everything he says or claims — and does.

Point of the story:

Following Trump’s lead (after all, he’s the one who carelessly unleashed Musk and his Muskreants), the rest of his consiglieri, too, will screw-up enough things and piss-off enough people that the Trump Show will steadily lose significant market and audience share.

And as they do, the vast majority of Americans will rally to ‘toss the bums out’ — and turn the lights out on the Trump Show.

I do believe this — and hope you will see all around you the evidence of Trump’s many and major vulnerabilities and of our opposition’s growing strengths.

Our job is to hasten the Trump Show’s decline by fighting tooth and nail to ‘un-popularize’ all of his illegal, immoral, indecent, and otherwise pernicious actions and aspirations.

You can’t always get what you want, but you can get what you need . . .

Inevitably, of course, Trump will throw all of his acolytes under the bus, pocket a huge windfall of contraband and tribute, avoid accountability, and retreat to his favorite earthly oasis, whether in Florida or on the former Gaza Strip and West Bank.

There, he can live out his depraved life — making sh*t up, cheating at golf, and lording it over the sorts of weak-minded people who come and go on planet Mar-a-Lago.

A note to readers:

I’ve been writing this newsletter for about 18 months now and it’s a labor of love. But it’s also a project to understand what’s happening and what to do about it.

Even if you are just a casual reader, you will note that I’m not a reporter or a bombasticator. I am an analyst drawn to understanding and clarifying political currents, signals, and strategy.

I’d love to engage with more readers. I think I often appeal to people trying to get a handle on the dynamics behind political developments or actions.

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‘Liking,’ and/or ‘Re-stacking’ are really helpful and encouraging.

Commenting is just nirvana. All of this thinking and work we all put in is about connecting, supporting and learning from one another, and working for the common good.

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Thanks!

Jon