Conflation Nation

The media seems shocked at the recent cordial meeting between New York mayor elect Zohran Mamdani and President Trump. A raucous shouting match with insults and deadly threat would have been much better for their business. But I was not surprised. Our political leaders have moved far beyond what we used to know as Republicans and Democrats. It is clear that Mr. Trump does not believe in capitalism. His philosophy (to the extent that you can call it that) even goes beyond mercantilism as he uses tariffs as a weapon of war. I guess we have to call it Trumpism. And Mr. Mamdani is an avowed democratic socialist (keeping in mind that socialists are only democratic for one election). Both Mr. Mamdani and President Trump believe in the usefulness of a powerful government even if it comes at the expense of the liberty to which the Founders pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. So I am not surprised Mamdani and Trump got along.

Despite the friendly atmosphere at the Trump/Mamdani lovefest many Democrats as well as some of the more traditional Republicans (RINOs if you will) have concerns about President Trump trying to become a dictator or king. I have some ideas about that but why should you listen to me?

Well, I lived and worked for many years in Mexico during the single party domination of that country by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional or PRI. I also worked in Chile during Pinochet’s dictatorship. I lived and worked in Nigeria during the dictatorship of Ibraham Babangida (and actually met his even worse successor, Sani Abacha). I have been through five attempted coup d’etats (one of which was successful) in three different countries where I lived. Terrorists tried to kidnap my boss’s wife in Ecuador which she survived after a gun battle on the streets of Quito (after which I had guards at my house that were trained by the military police and armed with riot guns). So I am probably a bit more experienced in dictatorial power and political violence than your average American.

President Trump exhibits many traits similar to dictators around the world. He tries to concentrate power in his executive office by issuing edicts with the power of law as a hapless legislature stands by and watches. He attacks institutions that might oppose him such as universities and the media. The mere fact that he was elected in a free and fair election does not give him a mandate to change the nature of American politics. Many dictators were popularly elected including Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Juan Peron, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega, Vladimir Putin and too many to count in Africa (which is why we also need protection from too much democracy).

Mr. Trump admires the efficiency of dictatorial government. Putin gives an order and like lightning it is done. Xi gives an order and zap it is done. President Trump is accustomed to this kind of power. In his privately owned company he had that kind of power. If he wanted something done it was done. But there is a problem with that kind of power. Bad ideas are just as efficiently implemented as good ideas. None of his generals or political advisors told Vladimir Putin that it was a bad idea to invade Ukraine. No one told Xi Jinping that without domestic demand his manufacturing powerhouse is just as vulnerable to the actions of its customers as those customers are vulnerable to his grip on critical supply chains.

Putin and Xi demand absolute loyalty of their subordinates as does Mr. Trump. But loyalty for these men only goes one way. Just ask Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ooops. Sorry, his plane got knocked out of the sky before he could reach St. Petersburg. Or you could ask Hu Jintao after he got yanked out of the 20^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, if you can find him. Or you could ask former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg now that he’s been released from Riker’s Island after taking a fall for Trump.

These dictators conflate their own persona with that of the country. They think their will is the peoples’ will. Defiance of their will is treason. That’s how Marjorie Taylor Greene became Marjorie Traitor Greene according to President Trump for demanding the release of the Epstein files (which actually was the will of the people). She was among the MAGAest of the MAGA until somehow she decided that Epstein’s victims deserved justice. She is gone now.

And Mr. Trump probably laments the fact that he does not have the firing squads to handle dissidents that are readily available to Putin and Xi. He accuses Democrats of sedition for advising soldiers not to obey unlawful orders. Sedition is generally considered stirring up discontent or resistance against a government and is usually not punishable by death as President Trump asserts. However, soldiers are already forbidden to follow unlawful orders under the Uniform Code of Military Justice so advising soldiers to follow the law is hardly sedition. It might just be President Trump’s orders that don’t follow the law. When asked if he is required to uphold the Constitution President Trump replied, “I don’t know.” Service members, on the other hand, are required to follow the Constitution.

But in Mr. Trump’s conflated view, any act against him and his policies is not just seditious but treasonous. The United States of America stops being our country and becomes his country. He is the personification of the country. Acting against his wishes is acting against the country. The US Constitution is no longer the law of the land but just some sort of guideline.

In these cases we have to hope that our governmental and civic institutions can withstand this onslaught against constitutional order. Putin, Xi and the other dictators have few, if any, institutions capable of withstanding their dictatorial powers. But the United States, unlike those other countries, has 250 years of constitutional precedence to fall back on. And while those organizations and institutions have been under attack, not only from the MAGA right but also from the progressive left, we can only hope that they retain sufficient strength to get us through this unsettling period. And ultimately it is up to us – We, the People – to hold our leaders accountable. If we give our loyalty to a man (or any person) instead of to our country and its Constitution, we will get the government we deserve.