Maximum Leader of the United States

Or, How Progressives Might Legally Achieve a Permanent Dictatorship

Trump is working hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Having successfully alienated isolationists, pro-lifers, and America Firsters, he has now trying to drive off nativists and anti-immigration voters. Some of his most diehard supporters have privately told me they now expect Kamala Harris to win in November. I will refrain from such prognostication. Three months is an eternity in politics and there is plenty of time for something to go wrong for Harris or go right for Trump. In any case, abler minds than I watch such trends like war-hawks.

Instead I want to discuss what could happen should the Democrats win the White House and Congress. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey, famously declared “Democracy is a train. Once you reach your destination, you get off the train.” What if the governing elite ever decided it were time for Americans to get off the train? How could they make us disembark?