For Trump, Chaos is a Ladder
MAGA's Leader Doesn't Want Normal, and it Doesn't Want Him
By Reed Galen and Joe Trippi
Donald Trump is not intelligent. That’s not to say he’s stupid, in a traditional sense. Nor does it mean he’s not dangerous to the country and the world. His narcissism, sociopathy, and power to exploit the weakness in others were not barriers to his climb to the White House, but features of it.
For nearly 80 years, Trump’s ability to incite chaos, anywhere and everywhere he treads have caused normal people to back away, to let him have what he wants, to assume he’s smarter than he is, simply because the idea of confronting him seemed too expensive, not worth the trouble, or hard to imagine.
Now, just under a year until Election Day 2024, chaos is again Trump’s friend and ally. Without it, his people wouldn’t demand his return. In a world of calm, Trump is more trouble than he’s worth. In a world on fire, however, this would-be tinpot dictator sees opportunity.
Trump left division, death, and destruction in the wake of his first term. Half a million dead Americans, a wrecked economy, a psychically divided country were what he’ll be remembered for. Some of the wounds have healed. Most bear some scars. Much of the damage persists today. Americans are not just divided, too many see their political opponents as enemies. A once pro-democracy Republican Party is now a zombified version of itself; marching mindlessly toward Trump, obeying his every command. It is a nest of racism, misogyny, nationalism, and anti-Semitism.
Trump revels in all of it.
It’s not an overstatement to say that Donald Trump left President Joe Biden with a broken country and a world unmoored. In under three years, Biden has led America to historic legislative victories and record low unemployment here at home. Abroad, the president has returned the United States to its place as the leader of the democratic world.
Let’s go back to Trump’s first (and God willing, only) term. The man didn’t want the job. He didn’t think he was going to win. He was a one-man marketing campaign gone haywire. When he took office many people believed the gravity of the job would take hold. It did not. Instead, from his first day in office until his last, the 45th president stumbled blindly from one invented (or spiraling) crisis to another.
He lied about the crowd size of his inauguration. He threatened our NATO allies. He went to Helsinki and bent the knee to Vladimir Putin. He instigated a trade war with China that hurt American farmers. He said the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were ‘very fine people.’ He denied aide to a democratic ally (Ukraine) because President Volodmyr Zelensky wouldn’t investigate Joe Biden.
That was just the first three years.
At the beginning of 2020, he ignored warnings from America’s intelligence and infectious disease communities about the threat of Covid-19. We’ve now lost more than a million souls. In response to mass demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Trump tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” echoing the likes of Bull Conor. He had peaceful demonstrators gassed for a photo op.
Before Election Day 2020, Donald Trump said he could only lose if the race was stolen from him. After losing, he claimed the election was rigged and spent the next two months attempting to overturn the will of the American people, culminating with the violent insurrection undertaken at Trump’s direction, on January 6th, 2021.
Past is prologue.
The roots of Trump’s chaos are still viable. His actions opened the door for Russia’s butchery in Ukraine. Young men across the country have carried out mass shootings after being radicalized online with the same conspiracy theories that Trump has happily driven further into his base.
A dysfunctional Republican House of Representatives helps Trump make the case that democracy is broken and ‘he alone can fix it.’ His regular attacks on federal law enforcement and the Justice Department are preparation for his return. His Hilterian statements about his political opponents are…Hitlerian.
Trump has no shortage of willing participants in the chaos chorus. For Vladimir Putin, Trump’s victory may well be an existential event. A second Biden term means more assistance for Ukraine and a united NATO. Saudi Arabia paid two billion good dollars to try and get Trump back.
The Saudis (along with Russia) are keeping oil prices high, betting pain at the pump will hurt Biden’s prospects. The Iranians (with the Russians and Hamas) are inciting war in the Middle East, adding one more crisis to Biden’s long list. China watches and waits, but knows that an incompetent Trump is better for them than a resolute Joe Biden.
Here at home, ‘moderate’ Republican leaders and mega donors are getting in line. The likes of No Labels, Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornell West, Jill Stein, Dean Phillips, Joe Manchin, and Larry Hogan are knowingly or ignorantly helping Trump’s prospects next fall.
As Republican primaries take place early next year, Trump will be sitting in courtrooms up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Much like Adolf Hitler during his trial following the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, Trump will use these trials to draw our collective attention back to him.
He will grandstand every morning and every afternoon. His behavior (such as it is) will continue to deteriorate. His willingness to incite his supporters to violence will become louder, clearer, and more urgent. In 1924 Hitler declared, “Our prisons will open and a time will come when today’s accused become the accusers!” We can hear Trump say it, can’t you?
Think about this for a moment: Donald Trump needs all of these people, countries, factors, and luck to have any shot of being reelected next year. He and his team know he is fundamentally unpopular with a majority of the country. Only the collective chaos this matrix can create can return Trump to the White House. Even then, millions more Americans will have voted for someone not named Donald Trump.
The good news? All of the things we’ve listed above must go perfectly for Trump. We know what the pro-democracy coalition needs to do: Make the case for the future - for why Joe Biden is the president we need in this time, and remind voters the choice they’re making: A country calmed by a steady hand, or a world inflamed by a man only running for president to keep himself out of prison.
We like our odds.
I’ll be honest, his Nazi talk is very threatening dangerous - the press should be putting it front and center and ringing all the alarms. This man MUST be stopped.
Chaos should be the single word used to describe Trump and the GOP for the foreseeable future. Why? 1. Everyone knows it’s true, even on the right. 2. Everyone in the middle HATES chaos. If Trump wins it will be because these people have been able to tell themselves a lie that he won’t be chaotic this time. Don’t let them lie to themselves.