Will He Be a Dictator or Music Man?

“That [i.e., President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Great Gatsby-themed party on Halloween as food assistance benefits were cut off for millions, including millions of children] once and for all shows that Donald Trump doesn’t give a f—k about even looking like he gives a f—k.  He doesn’t give a f—k – at all.”

• Jon Stewart; Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; Emphasis provided by Mr. Stewart’s tone.

You and I know:  I will never achieve that level of insight or eloquence.   

After over a year of consistently pessimistic notes, let me put forward at least a ray of optimism – at least of a type – at the end of this note.

The chances that our democracy will survive exist in a two-word paradox:  Donald Trump.

While those of us who are sufficiently economically secure have been pondering the dangers that the MAGA movement presents to our republic, the vast majority of our fellow citizens continue to confront daily financial pressures.  The political ramifications arising from the challenges they face are perhaps best captured in the axiom famously expressed over thirty years ago by former President Bill Clinton’s legendary campaign advisor, James Carville:  It’s the Economy, Stupid.  For too long, I didn’t viscerally appreciate how the decisive segment of 2024 Trump voters, who had no autocratic sympathies or dominant prejudices while seemingly having an inkling of the danger that Mr. Trump presented to our democracy, could vote for him over “the price of eggs.”  Now, belatedly, I get it.  (I know – it frequently takes me a while to catch on.)  (At the same time, I have noted that the progressive media that was stressing the overall strength of the American economy while President Joe Biden was in office is now focused exclusively on the economic plight of the American majority. 😉)

The painful irony for the current MAGA Administration – of which its cohort is undoubtedly privately well aware — is that the economy is, practically speaking, in exactly the same place as it was during the last half of the Biden Administration:  Inflation about 3%; the most-advantaged 20% of Americans ever richer; the other 80% of Americans ever poorer; a “real” unemployment rate that I’ve seen one economist place closer to 25% (due to millions receiving inadequate compensation for less-than-full-time work) than to the federal-government-reported 4% (the latter figure derived from decades-old, arguably no-longer-relevant methodologies); and generally rising stock market indices, driven by a few stocks whose core – the advance of Artificial Intelligence – seems poised to deprive as wide a swath of Americans of jobs as did manufacturing outsourcing during the last half-century.  During its first ten months in office, the Trump Administration has done nothing to improve the American majority’s economic struggles.  Since it is still relatively early in the term, I would guess that if the Administration had thus far positioned itself differently, a significant segment of our citizens would have been willing to provide Mr. Trump a longer runway on affordability issues, but as Mr. Stewart has noted, the President hasn’t even tried to look like he’s doing anything about the majority’s financial difficulties.

From a purely political handicapping perspective, I have frankly been shocked by the scope and breadth of Mr. Trump’s political blunders during his second term (here let’s put aside the more important perspectives, such as humanity, morality, and the rule of law).  While his ICE agents’ Nazi Sturmabteilung-like activities, his stationing National Guard and active duty military in American cities whose local officials didn’t want them, his aggressive tariff policies, and his blowing up small boats in international waters without due process might sit equably with his most ardent and ill-informed supporters, they have clearly offended a larger swath of Americans; and it certainly appears that he has touched nerves across the political spectrum by literally ripping down part of the White House to build what wags are aptly calling a “Marie Antoinette” ballroom, staging a Great Gatsby party as his Administration was denying food assistance to millions of children and adults (including Trump supporters); ramrodding through the law extending tax breaks for the wealthy while cutting health care assistance to millions (including Trump supporters); and aiding a right-wing Argentinian government to the detriment of overwhelmingly Trump-supporting western cattle ranchers.  These are the kinds of oblivious botches that a first-time Town Council candidate would know enough to avoid. The President’s missteps have been particularly stunning given his heretofore impeccable political instincts.  It has seemed as if he wants to antagonize as many Americans as he can.

The resoundingly anti-Trump voting results occurring in early November – buttressed by many Trump Latino voters’ evident recognition and repudiation of the Regime’s fascist designs – indicate that the majority of Americans are deeply distressed by one or more Trump actions.  I recall a report on Americans’ political preferences from not so long ago that our citizens now currently divide themselves into thirds:  about 33% Democrat, 33% Republican, and 34% Independent.  There has been a widely reported recent poll that placed Mr. Trump’s approval rating around 37%.  If those respective reports are reasonably accurate, even I can do the math:  as of right now – a key qualifier — Mr. Trump has lost the support of roughly 90% of independents.  I will venture further:  as election analysts decided in retrospect that they underestimated Mr. Trump’s popularity in 2016 because many poll respondents were embarrassed to admit that they were going to vote for him, I sense that a percentage of those respondents who today tell pollsters that they approve of Mr. Trump’s presidency are unwilling to admit publicly that their support is wavering.  The President is arguably teetering on becoming a lame duck – at least under the patterns of traditional American democracy — less than a year into his term.  The issue is how Mr. Trump proceeds from here – both tactically and substantively.

This is where the paradoxes begin.  If Mr. Trump still cares what his supporters (if not the majority of Americans) think, he may want to do something to satisfy them – and given his past political track record, one cannot count him out — but I would submit that it is not within his compass to actually help them.  All along, his rank-and-file MAGA supporters have believed that because Mr. Trump hates the same people and movements they hate, that he cares about them.  He doesn’t.  This may — finally – be starting to dawn on them. 

The Administration is accordingly attempting to run plays from the old play book – falsehood, distraction, and denial. 

“It was a con job.  It was a con job – affordability they call it – was a con job by the Democrats. … The reason I don’t wat to talk about affordability is because everybody knows that it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden.  And the prices are way down.”

• Mr. Trump; November 7, 2025

They’re not.

I understand that Vice President J.D. Vance has recently blamed rising real estate prices on illegal immigrants, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has blamed rising beef prices on mass migration.  Mr. Trump has ordered his Justice Department to investigate Mr. Clinton’s ties to Child Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

I don’t think it’s going to fly.  When you’re in charge, and your supporters are still struggling, trying to satisfy them by inciting old prejudices will only work on the most gullible.  Mr. Clinton has been out of office 25 years, and I seriously doubt that the vast majority of Americans care what any DOJ investigation uncovers about him.  They will certainly not be deterred by any revelations regarding Mr. Clinton from thoroughly exploring Mr. Epstein’s ties to Mr. Trump, who’s still here.

In a couple of posts over the last year, I have noted TLOML’s observation, based upon her years providing therapy to seniors, that one’s core characteristics do not soften with age, but instead become more evident while one’s capacity to temper regrettable tendencies diminishes.  This will be even more pronounced in Mr. Trump, who has arguably never attempted to temper his distasteful characteristics.  Throughout his life, he has been obsessed with appearance, prestige, and riches.  He’s going to be 80.  He’s reverting to his unvarnished core – the gilded Oval Office, his love as a builder of ostentatious renovation (the ballroom, posting pictures of the gold fixtures in the Lincoln Bedroom), grand parties with himself as the guest of honor.  Our experience over the last 45 years seemingly indicates that he cannot improve the economic fortunes of struggling Americans without significantly altering the current American economic and tax structure favoring our well off.  He won’t.

If Mr. Trump’s apparent current unpopularity continues and/or increases, he will perhaps soon be left with one of two choices:  to become a Dictator, or a Music Man.  Either fits within his visceral profile.

The first option is obvious, and has been described here in numbing detail in past posts:  The President clearly believes that everyone who opposes him, no matter how loyal in the past, is his enemy; he declared at the memorial service of MAGA Activist Charlie Kirk that he hates his opponents; he strikes back at, and seeks to destroy, his enemies.  Under this scenario, Mr. Trump will seek to install a de facto autocracy by fabricating an emergency and usurping greater power to himself than he already has, manipulate election laws and procedures, put more military on the streets of “Blue Cities,” intimidate opponents, limit his adversaries’ access to the ballot box in the upcoming midterm elections, perhaps invoke Martial Law and/or suspend elections.

My response to anyone who considers this option unthinkable:  You’ve been asleep for the last decade.

On the other hand, there is a rosier scenario, which I would submit is also in keeping with Mr. Trump’s psyche:  that in the last analysis, he was simply the Music Man.

All will well recall Professor Harold Hill, made immortal by the late Robert Preston (and if you don’t, your time will be better spent watching the film, The Music Man, than reading this note 😊), who enters River City, Iowa (of course, “Eye-oh-way”) and persuades its worthy citizens that its pool hall will lead its youth astray – that the pool hall means Trouble — right there in River City – Trouble with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for “Pool.”  Prof. Hill persuades the River City residents to pay for instruments and uniforms to start a youth band, which will keep them on the straight and narrow.  He declares that the youth will learn to play their instruments through his revolutionary “Think Method.”  His plan – without giving away the plot for the one person continuing to read this who doesn’t know the story – is to leave town on the last train after he collects the money for the uniforms and instruments before the River City citizens realize … that the kids can’t play.

Mr. Stewart’s observation brought me back to what I believed about Mr. Trump back in 2015 and early 2016:  that he launched his presidential campaign as a branding exercise; that his campaign was a con all along; that he neither expected nor wanted to win.  His 2020 campaign was about fragile ego; he mustn’t lose.  His 2024 campaign was about avoiding jail, making money, and retribution.  Maybe he doesn’t want to be a dictator.  Under this interpretation, although Mr. Trump shares the sentiments of true MAGA believers like Stephen Bannon, he doesn’t care about policy, or about the tens of millions he has scammed into believing in him, or about the Republican officeholders and officials whose party he has hijacked and careers he has ruined, or about what happens when he’s departed to his rabid disciples such as White House Deputy Chief of Staff (and de facto Anti-Brown-Immigration Czar) Stephen Miller, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, or to the truly hapless lickspittles he’s kept around for amusement such as Mr. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.  His Supreme Court has rendered him almost immune from any action he takes while in office.  His first two impeachment proceedings have proven that there will never be 67 Senate votes to remove him from office no matter what he does.  When he takes Marine One out of Washington, D.C. in January, 2029, he’ll have Secret Service protection and health care for the rest of his life, a taxpayer-funded bunkerlike Mar-a Lago to live in, friends from Saudi Arabia to Moscow, and the riches he has always claimed but didn’t have.

Not a bad result for a branding exercise.

This is my Rosy Scenario, you say?  Really?

I do.  I am terribly concerned about what Mr. Trump and his cohort have already wrought for the generations of our children and grandchildren – irretrievable loss to American global standing and influence, a majority of our people remaining terribly economically challenged, a worsening environment, the AI challenge, lost intellectual capital, a spiraling deficit, the enhanced danger to democracies across the world, etc., etc., etc.  Even if Mr. Trump doesn’t attempt to install an autocracy, another three years of his generally retrogressive policies will place our future in even greater peril than it already is.  That said, if we emerge from this nightmare with our democracy intact, perhaps with the most strident segments of our citizenry on both ends of the political spectrum a bit chastened, focusing on issues of equality and economic prosperity for our citizens, we’ll still be the United States of America, and we’ll still have a better chance of righting ourselves than any nation in the history of the world.  We can always scrape the garish gilt off the walls of the Oval Office.

I concede that you may well have concluded that I have succumbed to Prof. Hill’s Think Method 😉.  Even if so, the notion that Mr. Trump might simply take the money and run provides me with some solace.  In any event, perhaps this note’s reference to a classic American film has brought you a smile – and made you register a mental note to enjoy it again in the near future.  😊