After weeks of authoritarian threats to crush protests with the military, cancel elections, conquer foreign countries, and send masked agents door-to-door to round up anyone who can’t prove their citizenship, Trump on Wednesday told an already uneasy room full of world leaders that “sometimes you need a dictator.”
The offhanded comment came in the middle of a rambling speech at the reception dinner for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, in which Trump congratulated himself on a different rambling speech he’d given earlier that day at the summit.
“We had a good speech, we got great reviews. I can’t believe it, we got good reviews on that speech,” Trump said of the widely mocked address in which he continued to demand the US take over Greenland (which he repeatedly referred to as “Iceland”) and made new tariff threats against Canada and Europe if they resist the annexation.
He looks so small and weak, he should suffer
Can you imagine how different the world would have been if trump didn’t move his head a ¼ of a second earlier
I see no reason you’d ever want a dictator, but I admit that sometimes, I wish I could unilaterally amend the US Constitution. I’d be able to fix campaign finance, voting methods, gerrymandering, looting the government by the rich, and a whole bunch of other crap all at once.
Dictators are more efficient and agile than democratic governments. That’s why the Romans originally had them. In the early Roman republic dictators were appointed to fix a specific problem and given significant power to do specifically and only that. So for example you could have a “fix gerrymandering dictator” that would be able to sidestep normal processes to fix gerrymandering, and then disappear.
There’s A Robert A. Heinlein book about how and why to be involved in politics called Take Back Your Government. At one point he talks about sharing his concerns that fascism was in fact more efficient than democracy with a person who had escaped Hitler’s Germany. The friend asserts that fascism is less efficient, because under fascism, everyone is afraid of the boss, so no one wants to admit when anything isn’t going according to plan, so problems pile up. Democracy, on the other hand, expects and encourages constant complaint, so the problems tend to get discovered and fixed sooner than under fascism.
You can see this process taking place right now: everyone is afraid of displeasing boss Trump, and as a result you’ve got all these clearly fucked up decisions being made while nobody is being honest about how bad of an effect they are going to have. In a functional democracy, representatives would be afraid of the consequences and do something to stem the damage to avoid being tossed out in the next election. In our current reality… we’ll see, I guess?
You’ve got to watch that impulse. Anyone can have it, and things never go as you expect.
The mythos of Cincinnatus, the idea of a temporary dictator who acts benevolently and then gladly cedes power, has a strong presence in the founding of the US. Washington was regarded as one (his contemporaries were quite surprised when he willingly stepped down, it was felt that after his success in the war of independence he could have easily claimed power). That civic virtue is eminent enough to be the namesake of one of their cities. Pity it’s in Ohio, of all places. I probably can’t blame Ohio for the decline in American civic virtue, but I wish I could.
Tbf, most of us don’t really count ourselves as Ohioans. Cincinnati really stands apart from the state.
Also James K Polk, Republican of the stump – promised to be a 1 term pres and stuck to it.
Can you imagine how great that would feel? To be trusted with such authority in service of your people, and to have kept your promise? I’d be a living legend, for the rest of my life I’d feel confident in having lived my ethos to its fullest. I cannot fathom why it does not appeal to some.
I honestly can’t imagine a better peak experience. Like, I’ve made choices that proved my ethics even at personal cost and felt extra good just not telling anyone for years about them. I still feel pride for some I engaged in as a child. It’s straight up the exact opposite feeling of remembering something cringe you did (of which I have many more examples). I sincerely wish that experience on everyone, though I hope most don’t get the martyrdom urge that led to it.
The world needs more people who feel this. The sense of being a valued and irreplaceable part of a world worth living in.
It’s not even being valued or irreplaceable, it’s just knowing you’ve done the right thing even when nobody would have blamed you for not. It’s the fundamental dignity and pride associated with knowing that you have shown integrity and the understanding that when presented with an opportunity to display it that it’s absolutely worth it.
Being able to live with yourself feels much better than always trying to hide from your own misdeeds.
As an American, honestly I feel like anticommunism was a huge factor in the decline of our civic virtue. When you start praising and empowering wealth over mutual benefit you weed the ethical and the dutiful from the leadership pool, both politically and culturally. Many left wing movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in America prioritized civic duty separate from the state (left wing) or through it (liberal).
I think the other big damage to it was the American civic religion. The country went from a huge machine we each had to play a part in, built on philosophies that everyone was supposed to understand, to a golden calf. The constitution went from the foundational rules meant to steward us towards the goals stated in the preamble it became a holy text thats name is cited, but its goals are not cherished. People often don’t actually think about how what they want fits in to a reasonable interpretation of say, the 4th-8th amendments.
Idk, sometimes I feel massively outnumbered here as someone who takes her civil duties seriously.
Well said.
I think you might be onto something blaming ohio actually.
Unfortunately I grew up in the Cincinnati area and developed a strong sense of civic duty. Is there a way we could blame Kentucky?
Cincinnatian here. Somehow this has to be Newport’s fault.
It’s a land that God forgot, and it belongs on no map.
Hey I know it’s just a funny Internet meme to shit on Ohio, but any time someone does (especially in the current times where we need to find allies more than ever) I feel obligated to remind them that Ohio is actually not a hell hole, it just has backward rednecks in the rural areas, just like any other state with rural areas. Cincinnati is a beautiful city, Ohio is a beautiful state, and a huge chunk of the ~12 million people that live here are in fact not shit people.
Columbus on the other hand
What did Flavortown ever do to you?
It was a dark and stormy night, 2011. My mother and I were driving my deceased grandmother’s old Mazda MPV van, loaded to the gills with the contents of her life, back across the country from Arizona when we pulled off the highway in Columbus to find a hotel. The rest is history.
I feel like that part was also history.
Of course, it’s only in jest. I’ve even dated someone from Ohio, and not even one of the nice parts.
Which part of them did you date then? Just out of curiosity…
The whole shebang, as it were.
Just the taint.
If there was a way of ensuring a truly benevolent dictator I think it would be great, however any dictator we could pick realistically would be inherently flawed.
I don’t even think a benevolent dictator would be all that great. Dictators are always at the mercy of the information they receive, so you’d also need a cabinet full of benevolent secretaries, who in turn would need agencies full of benevolent directors, who’d need benevolent managers, etc. I just don’t think autocracy is an efficient form of government regardless of intent. Checks on power exist to limit the damage that those entrusted with power can do, regardless of their intentions.
Didn’t he help depose a dictator recently?
Ironic.
Not really. The regime he ran is still in power under his Vice President, so it’s business as usual.
And sometimes you always don’t.
Some of us said this would happen. You called us “gloom-and-doomers.”
I’m particularly fond of the “alarmist” accusations, implying we shouldn’t be wholly and completely alarmed.
At this point, you should be wholly and completely armed.
I heard that the sheer volume of shitty ideas that come out of his mouth means he never even has to poop.
The diaper proves he has enough shit to spare, even so
Sometimes a country needs a political assassination.
He had two attempts and both were fools. Seriously, the first guy got too damn close and… used iron sights and cheap target ammo? Also his motive was random violence. He wanted to go on a rampage and start by killing the closest political figure He could find… who just so happened to be Trump who was having a rally nearby. No fucking joke, that was the reason.
Why are assassins often the most unstable nutcase who win through sheer luck instead of actual planning?
First, you’re assuming that most successful assassins are the unstable nutcases. It could just be that it’s more memorable when the motivation is “make jodi foster love me” than “stop an expansionist imperialist who’s destroying the lives of the common man”.
You’re also more likely to be a lone assassin if you don’t conform to social norms because social norms say not to kill people.
The most prolific assassins are just common soldiers whose names we don’t even record.
Because someone who isn’t a nutcase likely doesn’t wanna spend the rest of their life in prison???
Man that shit was fake anyway. I remember the day it happened my “moderate republican” buddy said. “He’s going to win the election now for sure”
That assassination attempt was just a planned part of the campaign rally.
That’s exactly how I felt that too.
I thought it was common knowledge at this point that he faked his own assassination and then swept that shit under the rug so quickly that no evidence would be found
Oh, I wouldn’t know, I’m not from the US. I certainly wouldn’t put it past him.
“It’s just crazy enough to work!”
Sadly, it did.
*This is my attempt at writing a small short story depicting only a moment or two in real time. The author I am emulating is James Thurber. He was a master of the short story/essay. He had very dry sense of wit and was funny as fuck. I do a hope he would approve of my theft of inspiration. Here is my attempt at a modern version of his style.
January in Dayton is not preferable for very many people. The reasons are varied yet common. It truly sucks. Occasionally a wandering soul seeks more like minded individuals that aren’t part of the fundamentalist evangelical type community that dominate local cultural scope . This crowd is often difficult to intentionally avoid. Something something (mumbling sounds) *Checks notes, lowers reader glasses slamming down a stack of documents that provided the incentive. The patron was relaxed but owned a dash of anxiety while holding court at the local dive bar. That was until a small pour of Pappy Van Winkle with a single cube was thrown back & then gleefully announced that “Third time is a charm. Provided the good lord willin’ & the creek don’t rise. Can I get an Amen?” Someone nearby asked the bartender to change the channel to see if the game was on. Not half a second later there was some breaking news flashing across the screen The patron looked up at the television & smiled. “No fucking way, third time really is a charm”.
I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
I would like to conduct a poll of the US military to determine exactly how many believe anything Trump has done has ever been constitutional, and at what point they feel they would need to defend the Constitution from him, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like the answer.
To water the tree of liberty with?
Fertilize*
Sometimes you need a massive stroke
-the world says
👐people say, I need a stroke, a tremendous beautiful stroke, like you’ve never seen before 👀 in the history of people, with a shovel .
The biggest stroke! The stroke to end all strokes! The likes of which have never been seen! 🫲🍊🫱
A dictator can try to bury his Epstein crimes.
So this is when the revolt happens right? Surely this is the last straw, right America?
Or is he just joking again? Because words don’t matter and he tweets his policy notes.
I’ll sit and wait for the spineless Americans to rise up against tyranny, 2a and all the other self-aggrandizing bullshit you bootlickers spew.
The 2A Americans were only interested in rising up if it was a democrat who wanted to give them free Healthcare and school lunches. Not people would hire them as death camp guards.
Nailed it.
All I could think about while watching Carney’s speech, aside from how much I’d forgotten what a real leader sounded like, was what kind of bullshit word salad the orange asshole would belch out of his McDonalds hole.
It was a joke and the cover up even worse!
Oh I know. That and the next speech when he said the first one “got great reviews.” I genuinely hate this timeline.
Nobody EVER needs a dictator. That rotten orange shit pile refuses to see that.
