Will Trump End Up Being the “Robespierre” of the MAGA Mob?
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The Frenchman Robespierre advocated “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” for the French lower classes in 1789 (and against the elitist Royalty and Upper Classes). Unfortunately, the lower classes became a mob that took off Robespierre’s head after he achieved their goals. The MAGA mob may ultimately be less interested in Anti-Vax, Anti-Abortion, and squelching minority rights than plundering the wealth of “elites” and getting revenge, gobbling up even the Trumpster. With apologies to the 1935 Sinclair Lewis book “It Can’t Happen Here”, this is how it may happen.
Robespierre and the French Revolution: Most currently see Donald Trump as an emerging Hitler. I would say he’s more of an emerging Franco (who had the high complicity of the Catholic Church), or even poor Robespierre (who was destroyed by the movement he helped create). Briefly, Robespierre was born in 1758, and in 1792 became a leader of the Montagnards, a radical left-wing faction seeking large changes in the French government (remember here that “right” and “left” labels have had little consistency in history when applied to class wars). Robespierre was initially trying to work within the system, and could be compared to our Thomas Jefferson. The initial goals of the Montagnards was to assure voting rights for all French citizens, and many of their ideals were based upon the recent American Revolution. Robespierre became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, which started using heavy-handed methods to protect against “enemies” of the First French Republic (during what came to be known as the Reign of Terror). He called for the Insurrection of 1793 to purge perceived enemies of his increasingly dictatorial leadership. Robespierre became disillusioned with the growing violence of the Montagnards (who thought he had selfishly sequestered too much power). The Montagnard mob ran wild, and Robespierre was eventually guillotined without a trial in July 1794. The Reign of Terror eventually killed over 16,000 people, while ignoring any church or state (or even internal) authority.
Why Trump May Become Similar to Robespierre: As much as we all think of Trump as equivalent to MAGA, there is evidence MAGA is growing independently of him. Trump sometimes takes actions that the MAGA mob hates (like creating a Covid vaccine, softening on abortion), while trying to backfill MAGA mob actions taken without his involvement (ie QAnon, Proud Boys). He also acts coyly ignorant of Christian Nationalist Manifestos (ie “Project 2025”), perhaps to later “approve” or “disapprove” (after all, Trump is most of all a political chameleon and opportunist). To date, Trump is the face of MAGA, and its hard to think of anyone effectively taking his place (DeSantis? Ramaswamy? Donald Jr? Oh please!). However, Trump is getting old, enduring a few indictments, and frankly losing it. Its easy to see how the MAGA mob may morph into its “Reign of Terror” phase, if Trump wins the election then is forced to give way to a larger movement. As a matter of fact, did you ever wonder how Trump happened to lead the MAGA mob against the “elites” and the ”swamp” when he was obviously a MEMBER OF BOTH? This is in the tradition of Robespierre (who was an “elite” leading a mob against “elites”), the MAGA mob may be using Trump as a means to an end, then disposing of him.
What the MAGA Mob Really Wants: In the tradition of mindless mobs, what the MAGA mob really wants is your money and your head, not much else. Anyone who has dealt with the MAGA Mob knows they can spout a bunch of political or conspiratorial terms, without really knowing what they all mean. About 70% of our business and media culture really does consist of clever college educated people that make the MAGA mob feel inferior. Unfortunately, this has gotten to the level where there is probably no placating the mob, while violence, plunder, revenge may become the order of the day.
Court Stacking, Jan 6th Insurrections, Fake Electors: Unfortunately, these three things (which have already happened, on a relatively small scale) may be a sort of dress rehearsal for what is to come. A reading of “Project 2025” reveals a kind of cross between “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Putin’s Russia. There may be BIGGER insurrections and fake elector schemes (or at least extensive heavy voter-role trimming in swing-states, along with continual accusations of vote counting “irregularities”, as a means to win elections, or kick lost elections up to favorable courts). Intimidation and threats of violence against those who do not cooperate will become more common. The violence may even turn against Trump, if the MAGA mob decides he is no longer needed, or relatively uncooperative. Trump will likely encourage or even mastermind all of this initially, at some point realizing that he’s created a MAGA mob monster.
1935 Novel “It Can’t Happen Here”: Sinclair Lewis wrote an excellent dystopian novel in 1935 called “It Can’t Happen Here”, about “Buzz” Windrip, who engineers a “self coup”, after being elected legally. By illegal and totalitarian means, he becomes our Country’s first dictator, by creating a paramilitary wing and abolishing (jailing actually) the legislative branch. When you think about it, this may almost be a template for Donald Trump. He already has at least three MAGA Supreme Court judges (Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch) and three that sit on the fence (Roberts, Coney-Barrett, Kavanaugh). Trump may be trying to serve up a “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario, where either way, he creates fake uncertainties which are a pretext to violence and the creation of a “safety committee” (actually a kind of personal police, or even branch of our military assigned to policing “domestic violence”…actually immigrants, minorities, LGBT, and “liberal” media). The key is that he needs a pretext for overcoming the legislative branch (which would be highly undemocratic of course, but with a violent pretext and court justification, he might succeed). A foreshadowing of Trump’s strategy may have been Gen. Michael Flynn’s 2020 comments “suspend the Constitution, silence the press, and hold a new election under military authority”
What Happens to Trump Next: There are various wild-cards here, such as foreign complicity (most likely from Trump’s friend, Vladmir Putin), but let’s suffice to say that Trump is able to jail his enemies (first freezing their bank accounts), controlling all media, remaking the civil service with his allies, and unleashing the aforementioned goons (personal police). At this point, he would be at the Putin level of dictatorship. He would likely keep the loyal oligarchs (like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk) close, boosting things like crypto and oil, while squelching all clean energy, LGBT/BLM, “liberal media” (CNN, NY Times, etc) presence. The problem for Trump in all this is finding a successor, which is where it could unravel for him.
Enter Joe Rogan and MAGA II?: At this point, perhaps Donald Jr and Eric are vying to replace their father. However, even those two have some minimal sense of propriety (remember Donald Jr’s “We’re better than this” during the Jan 6 riots) The MAGA mob, who has moved on to ever more twisted conspiracy theories indicting ALL “rich elitists”, decide that Donald Jr and Eric are “apostates”. In the tradition of fascist machismo, they begin looking for a more charismatic leader with muscles. Enter Joe Rogan? The forces of Rogan clash with the forces of Donald Jr and Eric, who are easily overcome by a massive assault on Mar-a-Lago and Trump Towers (which are then looted). Donald Sr is by this time feeble and in some offshore villa, held as some kind of harmless icon of the MAGA movement (or replaced by an AI avatar, but safely out of the way, like Napoleon at Elba). Rogan takes over the “safety committee” goon squads which continue to terrorize the “educated elites” (by now, gulags are full). Soon frozen bank accounts are seized (including the Trump’s) and “redistributed” to loyal MAGA party members. An underground movement (with help from Europeans, now fighting for their lives against a Sino-Russian invasion made possible by this MAGA coup) gains momentum.
And Finally?: During all this, the Catholic/Evangelical alliance is left behind, as they discover they were only used to achieve MAGA power, not to participate. Disillusioned, they begin joining the underground resistance, under a more “tolerant” flag (actually returning to roots of church/state separation, tolerance, service to the poor and disenfranchised). Rogan, who has by now been forced to fight a few wars against countries seeking to exploit our weaknesses (chiefly the Sino-Latin American Pact, or SLAP) becomes a sort of Napoleon Bonaparte with unquestioned power. Eventually though, his forces are depleted, and the Religious-Elite Alliance Movement (or REAM) manages to regain power, defeating MAGA and SLAP. A sort of Democracy 2.0 ensues, in which elections are secured, fake news is squelched, private weapons are monitored, and judges not following the revised constitution are given electric shocks. The new President is held liable for all non-constitutional actions (in or out of office), Supreme Court judges are given 12 year term limits (plus a probationary period), and the legislative branch loses its salary if a balanced budget is not passed.
Finally, the Trump AI Avatar (which by now has what’s left of MAGA believing he is 102 years old, still with a tan and orange hair, even though the real Trump was “disposed of” 20 years prior), has its power source destroyed, never to return. Somewhere, Robespierre is laughing, maniacally.
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