Donald Trump is quickly consolidating and expanding his power. Trump has promised to be a dictator on “day one” of his administration. Trump has also demonstrated, repeatedly, that he will rule as an autocrat who will crush all those individuals and groups that he and his MAGA agents and other allies deem to be “the enemy within.” Trump has been remarkably transparent and direct about how his rule will be driven by revenge, retribution and corrupt unlimited power.

The Democrats, the mainstream news media and others who are searching for some desperate hope in this time of extreme dread and peril are currently fixated on whether Trump has a “mandate” for his agenda because he did not win 50 percent of the popular vote. Ultimately, Trump and his MAGA forces do not care about democratic legitimacy and the popular will. They are autocrats and authoritarians (and fascists) who impose their will on the public.

To that end, Trump is selecting people for his Cabinet and other senior administration positions whose first qualification is loyalty to him. Their professional qualifications, competence and belief (or lack thereof) in the basic tenets of real democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law are of little, if any, importance.

The manifestly incompetent Trump 2.0 Cabinet members and other senior appointees are being joined by very serious and very dangerous ideologues. As shown by Project 2025, Agenda 47 and other documents and planning, these people have spent years and decades studying how to destroy the American government and democracy as a way of advancing their revolutionary and reactionary project to tear down the social safety net, social democracy and “the bureaucratic/deep state” with the goal of bringing the country back to the Gilded Age (if not before) when rich white men, big business, White Christianity and other antidemocratic forces ruled largely uncontested. The grossly unqualified Trump officials will be the camouflage and distraction — to aid and enable — the work of the second, smaller group of ideologues. Both groups will be extensions of Trump’s will and the worst aspects of his personality, impulses, emotions and mind.

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Those Americans who voted against Donald Trump and MAGA are collectively shell-shocked and wounded emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. This is especially true for “the resistance” and their news media and opinion leaders who got high on the “hopium”, having convinced themselves, contrary to the abundance of the evidence, that there would be some great groundswell of support for Kamala Harris and the Democrats. Trump would be stopped because “the American people are fundamentally decent” or “American Exceptionalism” would kick in or “suburban white women and the Dobbs decision!” would spark a backlash or, at the very least, “how could anyone possibly want to return to the Trump years?” Of course, none of this happened.

"If there is a silver lining to defeat, it’s that we have a chance to dig deep, learn lessons and make major course corrections that may aid us in the future."

In all, these fantasies and fictions about America and the character of its people have collided with the reality of what America actually is, with all of its historical........

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