President Trump, still to be the dominant figure in 2026, is at a crossroad: He is poised to become either the new George Washington or a repeat of King Charles I of England.
As the new George Washington (1732-1799), the winner, he will be revered and celebrated as the founder of the “New America” (if the name stays the same) who led the fight for a new nation and won. As the repeat of Charles I (1600-1649), the loser, Trump loses the new American Civil War and everything else that he cherishes.
The way President Trump is waging political war in America leaves no third option for the issue to be resolved: It’s total victory or total defeat. Trumpsters must fight for their beliefs about making America great again and win the revolution or they must face the Democrats’ guillotine. No such drastic crossroad has ever been seen in American politics since 1776 in which the signers of the Declaration stared at their own executions if the revolution failed. Hence both the revolutionary Trumpsters and traditional Democrats must win their war —just to live.
Trumpsters have burned all the bridges they crossed. They will create a new nation of America in which nothing political will remain the same: To accomplish this, they must disable every known social-political-legal-cultural remnant of America and eliminate all known enemies of Trumpism, openly and dramatically, until no threat or irritation remains: Reuter (Jan 6) reports that Trump told Republicans that “he will get impeached” if Democrats” win midterms. For their own safety, Trumpsters must eliminate America’s liberal democracy.
Their opponents — the now-conservative, tradition-pushing Democrats — must prevent such an onslaught by Trumpsters. Democrats know that their fate, both private and public, is about to be decided by the outcome. If Trumpsters win, these Democrats will face an oblivion into an historical black hole from which they are unlikely to reemerge as a political force. In their own reckoning, if Trumpsters get their way, Americans will never see their liberal “freedom” again. Conversely, if Democrats win their battle against Trumpsters, America’s constitutional legal system will kick in and most of the Trumpsters, led by Donald Trump himself, will crowd up federal courts and prisons to await their own oblivion.
Historically observed, America’s 250-year-old liberal democracy (an “anything-goes” experiment) was already on its last leg even before Trumpism: American citizens and voters had already become too fat, lazy and selfish to defend their own liberalism. In history’s ultimate irony, it was their market-consumer liberalism which had made them all fat, lazy and selfish in the first place.
In historical perspective, American-style liberal democracy is an impossible system to maintain anywhere outside the U.S. It worked miraculously in America for 250 years simply because we in America — as a nation of abundance in everything — didn’t need a competent political system to manage our society. America was so naturally spacious and well-provided that everything eventually worked out on its own even in such an impossibly individualistic nation. Aside from the times of economic depressions and wars, we hardly needed a “political” system to manage or defend America as a nation. Politicians were singularly corrupt and their voters mostly cared about themselves. But America was too big, too affluent and too self-sustaining to be troubled by such inept leaders and followers. Economically, even the breadcrumbs thrown from the rich were good enough for most working Americans to enjoy the day with full stomachs and tickled funny bones.
At this crossroad, Trumpsters recognize that the great “woke-liberalism” experiment had already been exhausted. In their reckoning, Americans as a whole, with few exceptions, are too satisfied with their daily “bread and circuses” to worry about what a TIME magazine editorial once called “America’s national death wish.”
Although public opinion polls show there are more Trump opponents than Trump supporters, Trump has three more years of absolute presidency with all the federal compliments of power: For political control, he owns Congress, SCOTUS, the news media and classrooms, and what people read, watch and think. For physical coercion, the military — ever professional and disciplined — can be relied on to obey its unpredictable commander in chief. In the last election, 78 million people voted for Trump to make sure he prevails. In the last “no-king” protest, only 7 million showed up (less than 10 percent of Trump voters) to make sure he doesn’t.
At this point, the game is still in progress and either side can win: Donald Trump could build a completely new kind of country, perhaps with himself as king, and the American spectators can switch and welcome their new Founding Father with the golden hair and winning smile. His fame would be celebrated everywhere — in the national anthem, on buildings and schools, with his visage on dollar bills and Mount Rushmore, and at the entrance to all YMCAs, wherever there is a space. Our daily rituals can begin with a prayer to our new Father of the Nation in the White House. (In fact, such a ritual is common already among certain segments of America).
If Democrats win, the opposite will be true: The name “Trump” will have become so terrifyingly evil that a “Trump-Is-Coming” whisper will stop a crying child. Mention of Trumpsters, as a national memory, will be forever banned in respectable society. His political (mis)fortunes will resemble those of Charles I who lost his crown after losing the war against the Parliament (equivalent to our Congress). His crime? “Tyranny and Treason.”
Except that our “national death wish” is at stake, ours is certainly the most exciting of times, exceeding the greatest of the Super Bowls.
Jon Huer, retired professor and columnist for the Recorder, lives in Greenfield and writes for posterity.