The only reason America hasn't been plunged into a constitutional crisis at this point is that nobody takes Trump seriously. If George W Bush or Barack Obama had said and done the things Trump has said and done, there would be blood in the streets by now. Fortunately (I guess), everybody understands that Trump is a complete fucking idiot, somebody driven by desperate emotional needs and pathetically infantile motives who has no understanding or interest in politics. He seeks absolute power, but only because he wants to stop people from saying mean things about him.
It's amusing on some level, but I'm disturbed by the thought that this might be how authoritarian rulers rise and pursue totalitarianism. Does totalitarianism begin as comedy? Is totalitarianism the slapstick nexus between institutional dysfunction and personality dysfunction? Is it what happens when a greedy, needy, narcissistic egomaniac is enabled by malfunctioning political processes to make the transition to megalomania?
I've read about the rise of Lenin and Hitler, but most of what I read was written long after they had established themselves as serious historical figures. There are some indications that people found them ridiculous before they made their big play.
However, both of those men were more serious as political actors. Both were deeply ideological. Trump, on the other hand, is shallow and silly -- infantile, weak, and easily manipulated. Steve Bannon is an ideologue, and Trump appears to be relying on him to provide a rationalization for the Trump presidency. But Bannon's ideology is also shallow and silly. I'm almost done reading The Fourth Turning, and it's not lunacy, but it's goofy pseudoscience. If it really is the structure upon which Bannon hangs his muddled conspiracies, it isn't a solid or well-defined structure.
Trump is ignorant, undisciplined, and childish. Those who continue to support him are adopting those characteristics, from what I've seen, and so he's enervating his own base, dragging his supporters down the rabbit hole further from reality and deeper into flustered confusion. His policies are based on stupid things he said as a campaigning demagogue, so we will be wasting money on things like harassing undocumented immigrants which will solve no problem. He will continue to hold rallies to boast about what a great job he's doing while he accomplishes nothing but providing cover for the Republicans in Congress who will do what they always do: make rich people even richer by fucking up everything for everyone else.
Nothing new, I expect, beyond the further debasement of our political culture and our culture in general. Some people will get hurt, but they will be the same people Republicans always hurt. What's important is that Trump fail in his comical attempt at being a dictator. I predict he will.
But there is one thing Trump has taught me: My predictive powers suck, especially when it comes to predictions about Trump.