This Thanksgiving my family passionately debated the similarities between President-elect Donald Trump and the rise of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Over dessert, I offered a $1,000 bet to any takers that America will have a legitimate, democratic election on Nov. 7, 2028.
None of my Democratic family members took me up on the offer.
Republicans survived President Joe Biden’s calamitous tenure in office. I’m confident Democrats will weather yet another Trump administration.
America voted for change, not for authoritarianism
President-elect Donald Trump mimics a golf swing onstage while speaking at the annual AmericaFest in Phoenix on Dec. 22, 2024.
The concerns about Trump as an emerging fascist dictator aren’t simply the feverish nightmare of the politically paranoid.
Weeks before the presidential election, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, voiced his concerns about his former boss to The New York Times.
“Certainly, the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators – he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said. “He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
According to the Pew Research Center, the Democratic Party now holds a “13-point advantage (55% vs. 42%) among those with a bachelor’s degree or more formal education.”
Then-President Donald Trump and White House chief of staff John Kelly in 2017. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, now says Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascists.”
Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce finds, “Higher education promotes independent thought, respect for diversity, and inquisitive assessment of evidence – all of which can counteract the unquestioning deference to authority that is characteristic of authoritarianism.”
It’s also true that inflation in Austria and Germany during the 1920s provided fertile ground for Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Inflation in the United States has been a tremendous economic and political pain point for the past several years.
“They have promised military roundup. They’ve promised the gates of hell will reign on the enemies,” Democratic pundit James Carville warned in October. “The Supreme Court has greenlighted it.”
The obvious conclusion is that Trump’s return can only mean America will be helmed by the next Mussolini, Hitler or worse. More important, those who allowed such a travesty to happen by voting for Trump in November are either overtly evil or too uneducated to understand the immense danger they’ve foisted upon our nation. For some of us, America has failed.
Trump’s own words undermine the dictator narrative
If you’re nodding your head in agreement, you should come back to reality and consider not leaving the country.
Assuming the victors of an election are uniformly evil or too dumb to agree with your politics is the height of arrogance and demonstrably false.
Since Trump arrived on the political scene, Democrats have said America must believe everything Trump says as undisputed fact and simultaneously know that he doesn’t mean much of what he says. We’ve actually had the experience of a prior Trump presidency and an intervening presidency that really undermines the authoritarian dictator narrative.
For all the years I’ve worked in and around politics, I have yet to meet a politician who didn’t want his or her way on every issue. Some have the ability to reach a compromise, but most of them would rather not if given the option.
Trump has said … a lot. Many of his comments have been hyperbolic, hurtful, untruthful and unnecessary. I’m not going to even begin defending such behavior. Nevertheless, Democrats have used Trump’s extreme bluster as an excuse to engage in their own breathless fearmongering.
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Americans will not be “rounded up” by our military regardless of their politics, sexual orientation or race. Our military officers swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that (they) will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”
None is under obligation to obey orders that are facially unconstitutional. Never mind the reality that sweeping roundups are logistically insane and would be quite easy to identify and thwart in our real-time media environment.
Abortion, immigration enforcement key issues for voters
America will indeed hold future consequential democratic elections. The Constitution and the civil liberties it protects will not be terminated.
Americans will speak truth to power no matter how much the political class hates it. We actually have more channels to do so than we have at any time in human history.
Vice President Kamala Harris embraces President Joe Biden prior to speaking during the Democratic National Committee’s Holiday Reception in Washington, DC, Dec. 15, 2024.
Hyperbole aside, Democrats lost an election for control of the federal government. Americans rejected the status quo in favor of material policy changes. Trump and Republicans must deliver on their campaign promises, and liberals will not enjoy it.
Democrats campaigned heavily on a one-policy-fits-all abortion approach at the federal level. They failed to capitalize politically even as abortion proponents repeatedly find success among the states. Americans clearly disagree on the existential question of when life is worth protecting.
The Constitution doesn’t grant specific authority for the federal government to regulate the practice. Democrats will continue to clamor for centralized federal control of American life until they finally realize voters disagree.
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Immigration is another point of contention between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats ran on largely maintaining the Biden administration’s failed immigration policies, and, again, lost the issue.
Guidance from both the prior Trump and Biden administrations explicitly prohibits race-based immigration law enforcement, including race or ethnic “roundups,” but nothing prevents the incoming administration from enforcing immigration law as written.
In spite of tough enforcement rhetoric, Trump has already signaled a willingness to work with Democrats on a permanent solution for so-called Dreamers who were brought illegally to in the United States as children.
“Dreamers are going to come later, and we have to do something about the Dreamers,” Trump said in a “Meet the Press” interview, “because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age. And many of these are middle-aged people now, they don’t even speak the language of their country.”
Democrats also seem uniquely concerned that Trump and Republicans may reduce the size and power of the federal government.
“There’s been nothing like what Trump is suggesting to do,” presidential historian Doug Brinkley told The Associated Press this month. “We’re talking about dismantling the federal government.”
Don’t tempt me with a good time.
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American patriots won’t stand for stripping some citizens’ rights
According to Pew, “22% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right ‘just about always’ (2%) or ‘most of the time’ (21%).”
What’s crazy is those numbers are actually up from seven-decade lows in 2023. America must rein in the federal bureaucracy if only for the reason that the current trajectory is economically unsustainable and practically ungovernable.
Whether it’s the Department of Government Efficiency, the Government Accountability Office or enterprising Americans with good ideas, the federal government is due for an overhaul. Republicans and Democrats alike should turn over the rocks, ask tough questions and do a better job with the public’s trust and resources.
Cameron Smith, columnist for The Tennessean and the USA TODAY Network Tennessee
Democrats won’t love a Trump administration. I certainly couldn’t stand the Biden-Harris administration, and I’m glad to see it come to an end. That doesn’t mean I won’t stand shoulder to shoulder with Democrats to protect their rights, including their ability to disagree with me.
If Trump, Vice President JD Vance or any Republican starts trampling on the Constitution, I’ll be the first in line to fight them.
Until then, Democrats, those of us on the other side of the political aisle don’t want to hurt you or your families. We’re not too stupid to fully appreciate Trump’s virtues and vices.
We do want to chart a different course at the federal level. Hopefully, Trump, Republicans and a few Democrats will do just that. In two years, we’ll see those of you who don’t leave the country at the polls for an electoral performance review. I’d bet at least $500 that election is real, too.
USA TODAY Network Tennessee Columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney who worked for conservative Republicans. He and his wife, Justine, are raising three boys in Nolensville. Direct outrage or agreement to smith.david.cameron@gmail.com or @DCameronSmith on X, formerly known as Twitter. This column originally appeared in The Tennessean.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Trump presidency won’t be terrible. We’ve already had one | Opinion