Just how much of a threat to democracy is Donald Trump? This question has been hanging over American politics since he first descended his golden escalator in August 2015. From the very beginning one answer to this question was clear: “Enough of a threat that no one who cares about American democracy should ever vote for him.” Early policy pronouncements like his campaign to ban Muslims from travelling to the US showed that he either did not understand or did not respect the Constitution enough to merit high office.
Myriad actions and pronouncements he made and took after being sworn in for his first term in 2017, culminating in his attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, proved that he is irredeemably an enemy to democracy. The fact that enough people to re-elect him either did not understand or did not care about his proven hostility to democracy is one of the most freakish phenomena in recorded history, an act of collective civic malpractice virtually without parallel or precedent. Actions he has taken in his second term (for example, declaring that Iran’s nuclear program has been “obliterated” while we have no certain knowledge that such is the case) show that he has as much contempt for his oath of office as ever.
The question we are confronted with is thus not really “how much,” but “what kind” of threat to democracy does Trump pose? He has proven himself capable of taking a wrecking ball to our constitutional order. What we need to know, both as individual citizens planning for our future security and as a society trying to preserve itself from ruin, is: under what circumstances would Trump destroy democracy, and along which path are we likely to be propelled as a nation in the wake of a Trumpocalypse?
Trump himself gives very few clues that would help answer this question. His constantly shifting positions, his radical reversals, his complete corruption, and his utter disregard for the truth show that he has no values whatsoever. He is motivated by appetite and ego, but what will gratify those impulses at any given moment is subject to shifting whims.
Trying to get a sense of where the Trumpocalypse will trend from the people in his inner circle is likewise a complex game. The fact that figures from the lunatic fringe of American politics like Nick Fuentes, Laura Loomer, Kash Patel, Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller (and others too legion to list) all have Trump’s confidence paints a very dark prospect. Fulfillment of the expressed desires of the Toxic Posse would replace our current liberal democracy with a nightmarish neo-fascist oligarchy. But getting from where we are now to where Nick Fuentes or Laura Loomer would like to take us would require sustained effort and hard work, neither of which come naturally to Trump. As the weeks and months of Trump’s second term wear on, it seems less and less likely that any of his fascist minions will be able to catch and hold his attention long enough to wage an effective campaign for true authoritarian capture.
The clearest clue of what the Trumpocalypse will look like is afforded by the recent scandal surrounding the Epstein files. Trump’s power is rooted most concretely in the loyalty of the MAGA diehard base. Their aspirations and desires form the greatest constraint on Trump’s actions, thus any sign of what they ultimately want gives us the best predictor of Trump’s future choices, and the Epstein scandal is the clearest indication of what MAGA wants to emerge from the murky waters of American politics in a long while.
Why does MAGA care so much about the Epstein case? The base of Trump’s support is drawn from two sources. Half of his diehard support flows from religious conviction. Tens of millions want to see the US become a more “godly” country, and even if they do not believe that Trump himself is a godly individual, achievements like the repeal of Roe v. Wade have convinced them that he is God’s instrument.
The other wellspring of MAGA passion derives from justified economic anger and very real social grievance. As wealth inequality has expanded and an ever-larger share of the economy’s purchasing power has been captured by the richest 0.1%, an ever-widening segment of American society has seen life get harder and opportunity diminish. Services provided by the government dwindle as taxes on the working poor and middle class rise. Access to health care and education are restricted while people find they have to work longer and longer hours to make ends meet. Young people graduating from college find that employment is difficult to find and that housing has been priced out of reach.
Whether motivated by religious passion, economic grievance, or both at once, all of the MAGA faithful share one thing in common: a deep-seated resentment of the status quo. They understand that Trump will break the system as it is currently constituted, and they welcome the Trumpocalypse. They are, to varying degrees and following narratives that differ from one-another in particular details, convinced that their grievances are caused by the control of an evil cabal that has forced the US to travel down the wrong path for many decades. They may not all clearly understand or believe that Trump is an enemy of democracy (though some of them clearly do, and wish democracy good riddance), but they see Trump as the champion who will liberate society from the irredeemably immoral power dynamic in which it is trapped.
What the Epstein File controversy shows us is the nature of the solution that, in aggregate, MAGA expects from Trump. Jeffrey Epstein looms large in MAGA politics because the strange facts of his life and death dovetail so well with MAGA mythology. It is not clear how Epstein became so wealthy, why he had so many powerful friends, why he was dealt with so leniently by law enforcement authorities for so long, or why he was able to commit suicide in jail while being one of the most closely monitored prisoners in the federal penal system. All of this lends itself to conspiratorial theorizing. MAGA is convinced that Epstein was a key broker working for the evil cabal that is strangling America, that he was charged with and rewarded for supplying them with a steady stream of children to exploit, abuse, or (in the darkest QAnon versions of MAGA lore) ritually sacrifice in bizarre Satanic rites.
As Ezra KIein noted in a recent episode of his podcast, the force of this belief is a measure of the desperate passion behind basic MAGA grievances. Both the religiously motivated and economically disenfranchised members of the MAGA base feel unbearably oppressed. They need to hope that there is a quick remedy for their torment. The Epstein case holds out that hope. Trump’s diehard supporters are not foolish enough to expect a detailed set of policies or a nuanced analysis from him. They understand that he does not do complexity or sustained long-term effort.
The Epstein case holds out the possibility of a remedy that is within Trump’s capacities and suited to his temperament. Since Epstein was obviously so well-connected to the evil cabal, his records must contain a road map of its scope and membership, and all of the evidence necessary to expose their criminal depravity. Once Trump makes the Epstein files public, he will be empowered to round up the wrongdoers and set the nation to rights, reversing the malignant effects of the evil cabal’s control and alleviating the suffering of the MAGA faithful.
The sheer speed of this anticipated “Storm (as QAnon labeled the climactic triumph toward which Trump’s presidency must build)” necessitates violence of some kind, either on the part of law enforcement or righteous vigilantes. A sense of what the Storm looks like in the imagination of the broad MAGA movement can be gathered from the events of January 6. Many of the participants in that terrorist attack, when interviewed by journalists or law enforcement agencies in its aftermath, reported that at the time they believed that they were participating in the Storm.
Given all these circumstances taken together, the recent scandal surrounding the Epstein files affords cause for both comfort and alarm to observers from outside the MAGA movement. The fact that Trump and his minions are caught so completely at sea shows the profound lack of coordination, foresight, planning, discipline, and basic competence endemic to the entire MAGA political machine. The Trump campaign goaded MAGA voters to chase the Epstein bus for years…that they had no plan for what to do when the bus was caught is astounding. The fact that no one inside the Trump team paused to consider that the single person for whom the facts of the Epstein case might be most embarrassing is Trump himself defies explanation. It is difficult to imagine this crew getting its act together enough to dismantle our constitutional Republic and build a one-party state or theocracy in its place (if they could ever agree which of those two, or some third or fourth alternative, should be pursued).
Comforting as Trump’s feckless handling of the Epstein case may be to those concerned for the fate of American democracy, its continued prominence on our political scene is also cause for alarm. MAGA voters desire a violent moment of catharsis, they will press Trump to make “heads roll.” Indeed, many of them may perfectly understand or expect that there is no “Epstein client’s list” in reality, but wonder why Trump has not simply made one up and begun to jail or execute the villains that “we all know” are poisoning America.
Trump got one thing wrong- his followers would not merely tolerate his “shooting someone on Fifth Avenue,” on some level they are counting on it. He is not a stupid man, he intuits that his followers want a simple solution to complex problems, and like the cunning grifter he is, he has succeeded at shining them on with teases and hints (trapping Muslim travelers at airports, torturing migrant children, sending random undocumented migrants to a gulag in El Salvador, arresting foreign students for the exercise of their First Amendment rights, etc.). The current furor surrounding the Epstein case shows that these diversionary tactics may be losing their effectiveness, and that MAGA voters’ patience at delays of the Storm may not be infinitely elastic.
Trump doesn’t seem to have any more interest in the Storm than he has in anything else apart from sex, food, and money. But he has no scruples against it, either. If the volcanic forces behind his followers’ desire for the Storm reaches the point of boiling over, or if Trump’s own political interests require an appeal to mob violence (or if both vectors converge, as they did on 1/6), a new moment of violence akin to that for which Trump was impeached a second time will erupt. We can’t know exactly what such a moment would look like, but we can be certain that, as was true of what transpired on 1/6, if this second Storm succeeded it would set off a constitutional crisis that our democracy might not survive.
The last paragraph contains a lot of “ifs.” It thus brings us only marginally closer to an assessment of what kind of threat Trump poses to democracy. But here Trump’s proven qualities of character and observable MO can bring us a bit further. Laziness and cowardice are two of Trump’s most consistently predictable proclivities. No amount of pressure from his base is likely to convince Trump to drum up a “Storm” at any time when he might face negative consequences. If he attempts to raise a Storm, it is likely to be at a point when the system itself is most vulnerable and the personal risks to him the least.
That moment would be located during the same interval in which the last attempted Storm transpired. As the machinations surrounding 1/6 demonstrated, the transition period between one administration and the next is fraught with procedural mechanisms that can be sabotaged and ceremonial functions that are easily corrupted, impeded, or subverted. Depending upon the mood of the electorate as a whole in response to Trump’s policies (tax cuts, spending cuts, tariffs, and deregulation), the transition is also the moment in which Trump himself is likely to be most disappointed, aggrieved or politically desperate. If the nation has passed over Trump’s preferred successor, or has elected someone that he fears may hold him legally accountable, he will almost certainly maneuver to undo the results of the election as he did in 2020.
The interval between November 7, 2028 and January 20, 2029 is thus the period in which Trump will pose the greatest threat to democracy. He is likely to use a combination of corrupt collusion among members of his own administration and party-affiliated lawmakers and incitements to mob violence to undo the results of the 2028 election. Such a maneuver is much more likely to succeed than the terrorist action of 1/6. Trump has surrounded himself with much more dependable loyalists than he could count on in 2020, and those lackeys have the lessons of prior experience to draw upon in formulating Storm 2.0.
One other factor will be different, however, which holds out hope for our democracy to survive. No one can be surprised anymore if Trump attempts an antidemocratic coup…we will all be expecting it. If Trump unleashes a “Storm,” those who care about democracy, will almost certainly bring forth a “counter-Storm.” This would not entail fighting violence with violence, but mobilizing concerned citizens to engage in conscientious, non-violent civil activism and civil resistance on a mass scale. If millions of patriotic Americans of all party affiliations come out to stand between our democratic institutions and those who would destroy them, our Republic can be preserved.
An attempted Trumpocalypse is likely, but its success is not inevitable. The desperation of the MAGA faithful is very real, and can be a powerful force. But the courage born of civic devotion and true patriotism is even more powerful.
