Don't be fooled by Trump's dictatorship jokes

Don’t be fooled by Trump’s dictatorship jokes
Will the president who believes he has unlimited power seize the moment?

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published August 29, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Lest anyone think that Donald Trump is the only president to muse about the benefits of a dictatorship, recall that the previous Republican president, George W. Bush, did as well. Following a meeting with congressional leaders days after the Supreme Court essentially declared him the winner of the 2000 presidential election, Bush said, “I told [them] that there are going to be some times where we don’t agree with each other, but that’s OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier — just so long as I’m the dictator.”

....(snip)....

Bush pushed the limits of presidential authority many times, from leading (and lying) the country into war to legalizing torture. Both the elder Bush and Reagan were implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, which was a direct usurpation of congressional authority. We don’t even have to mention Nixon. He wrote the book on GOP scandal.

During the Reagan administration, the conservative legal intelligentsia promoted their belief in the unitary executive theory, which holds that under the vesting clause of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the president has total control over all officials in the executive branch. One of the administration’s staffers who pushed this theory of presidential supremacy was a young lawyer named John Roberts, and in 2020, the Roberts Court affirmed that interpretation in a 5-4 decision. Considering this history, it should not surprise us that we would eventually get a GOP president who would seize the moment.

....(snip)....

The president is firing people left and right, his Justice Department is “investigating” his political rivals and there are arcane legal arguments over whether he has the right to close departments in the executive branch unilaterally. This is all a huge departure from government norms, and the mechanics might seem confusing to people who are going about their everyday lives and only casually follow the news coming out of Washington, D.C. In fact, Trump and his MAGA acolytes are counting on such disorientation, which creates a smokescreen for the president’s misuse and abuse of power. He has taken his “right to do anything I want” to previously unimagined lengths — and the Republican establishment, particularly congressional and state leaders, are aiding and abetting his attacks. ........................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/08/29/dont-be-fooled-by-trumps-dictatorship-jokes/