OPart 4. Trump Will Refuse to Leave Office
Clinical Perspective: Stormtroopers
— “Are you saying you’re not prepared to…commit to that principle…of the peaceful transition of power?” “What I’m saying is that I’ll tell you at the time. (taunting) I’ll keep you in suspense, Okay!” — Trump responding to Chris Wallace, October 19, 2016.
— “Will you accept the results of the election?” “I have to see. Look…you…I have to see. No, I’m not just going to say yes. I’m not going to say no. And I didn’t the last time either.” — Trump responding to Chris Wallace, July 19, 2020.
Secret Police
Last week, I urged Americans to begin to imagine the unimaginable. With the speed of rubber bullets whizzing at peaceful protesters, the notion that Donald Trump will refuse to leave office when he loses in November has moved from unimaginable to plausible, with evidence piling up by the hour that it is likely.
Videos posted from Portland, OR show unidentified camo-clad federal troops “snatching” peaceful protesters, muscling them into unmarked vehicles and speeding away, arousing epic public outcry. We hoped we’d seen the end of this singularly un-American secret police force last month when Lafayette Square was blitzkrieged to clear the way for Trump to have a preposterous photo-op. Portland’s mayor and Oregon’s governor and senators have vehemently insisted, not only that the troops were uninvited and must leave immediately, but that they have wildly inflamed, rather than defused, confrontations with peaceful protesters, whose numbers have swelled and whose actions become much more aggressive since the arrival of the troops.
Then on Sunday’s already legendary, bold interview by Chris Wallace, Trump flat-out proclaimed (“admitted” would only apply if someone feels the least bit embarrassed or guilty) that “he’d have to see,” that “I’m not just going to say yes” to conceding defeat, claiming for himself the monarchical authority of the ultimate arbiter of legitimacy. He then reminded us that he “didn’t say last time either.”
Trump has a history of accusations that every single election was a fraud in which his favored candidate lost. Laughably, he is notorious, year after year, for loudly whining that the Emmy Awards is a con game rigged by insiders when he did not receive recognition he felt he was due. Stories and a book have been written about his staggering, incredible level of blatant cheating in golf (e.g., surreptitiously tossing an opponent’s ball into a sand trap). All of this is entirely consistent with his delusional solipsism (Part 2.) in which he alone exists, incomparably magnificent; all others are merely ornaments or obstacles comparable to pieces of furniture that either adorn or obstruct.
2016 Election
As a prelude to the current election, Trump has reminded us of the frightening events that transpired in the run-up to the 2016 election, too much of which has been forgotten.
Well behind in the polls, with a campaign in chaos led by Paul Manafort, Trump repeatedly incited his red meat rallies to a frenetic pitch. In August, 2016 he bellowed that Hillary would appoint judges to abolish the Second Amendment, instigating the crowd with, “Nothing you can do folks” before quickly adding, “Although the Second Amendment people? Maybe there is, I don’t know.”
In rally after feverish rally, he urged violence against hecklers in the audience (“Knock the crap out of him!”) and fomented mob chants “lock her up,” “kill the bitch,” and “hang the n….r.” The press in attendance were constantly vilified to a point where their safety was imperiled, often having to be escorted away by security.
As his polls continued to slide, in the October 19th debate against Clinton, he railed that the election was “rigged,” especially by mail-in voting, and he’d have to “keep us in suspense” as to whether he’d concede defeat. An exact replica of where we are today.
And then the election was turned on its head.
Comey Letter
FBI Director James Comey, in an act of supreme arrogance, defied Justice Department directives prohibiting any action that might influence an election in its late stages by writing a letter eleven days before voting day, informing Congress that a tranche of unseen emails from Hillary Clinton had surfaced. Two days before the election, he wrote a second letter indicating that nothing untoward had been found; but irreparable damage had been inflicted on Clinton while bringing the Trump campaign back from the dead. All other things being equal, many share my conviction that the hubris of James Comey threw the election to Trump.
Fully resurrected, Trump raged around the country in the last ten days from stadium to stadium, continuing to roil the crowds, inflaming suspicions that the election was rigged, and urging his Bikers for Trump and other supporters, to infiltrate polling places in “certain communities” (code for urban minorities) “to watch for fraudulence. And when I say watch, you know what I’m talking about, right?”
Although there are very clear parallels between the last election and 2020, it goes without saying that an incumbent president can do much more damage with the tools at his disposal than the dark horse demagogue of 2016, especially one whose mental health has badly deteriorated
Alarmingly, here in Chicago, we await the arrival of 150 federal agents to our city deployed by Trump. Mayor Lightfoot is vehement that their role will not include enforcing laws on the streets, but only be used for investigative work in tracing gun traffickers, gathering intelligence, etc. Similar deployment is happening in other cities, all of which have democratic mayors.
How long before the suits of FBI agents are traded for camouflage military uniforms with no badges, unmarked cars, tear gas, and “less-lethal” weapons? The foothold is being established for far more nefarious force to be brought to bear across the nation, with Portland and Lafayette Square as the models.
We must never forget the heavily armed military force, deployed against American citizens, to clear Lafayette Square last month.
The Rise of Fascism
Unless political leaders of both parties take a firm stand to contain Trump, we run a serious risk that he will attempt to install himself as dictator. Although he will likely not succeed, he will most certainly try. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, a magnificent patriot, has written a very disturbing book (Fascism: A Warning, 2018) chronicling how fascist tyrants come to power. She cites the post-war testimony of a German citizen on the rise of the Third Reich:
“To live in the process is absolutely not to be able to notice it — please try to believe me…Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted’…that one no more saw it developing from day to day…any more than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. And one day, too late…some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jew swine’…and you see that everything, everything, has changed completely, and completely under your nose” (pp. 235–236).
Albright, herself a childhood survivor of Nazi Germany, asked a graduate student from her class whether a fascist movement could take root in America, to which he immediately replied, “Yes, it can. Why? Because we’re so sure it can’t.”
My colleague, psychologist Elizabeth Mika, who grew up in Poland before emigrating to America as a young adult, hauntingly expresses the same point:
“…we don’t recognize tyranny’s marching boots, which can be heard from miles away and months away, until they show up on our doorstep.”(The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, 2017).
Prominent Republicans in Congress are beginning to show signs of distancing themselves from the president. Notably, former Ohio governor John Kasich, who ran in the 2016 Republican primary, has committed to speak at the Democratic National Convention. As Trump finds himself increasingly isolated from his erstwhile Republican enablers, his psychological meltdown will become increasingly dangerous, a nightmare to be discussed in Part 5.
Chicago, IL
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