In 1938, Adolf Hitler, the popular chancellor of Germany, rushed to build a monument to the greatness of Nazi Germany, the Reich Chancellery, and completed it in one year. But Hitler got to enjoy the new building only briefly, not the 1,000 years he had envisioned: It was destroyed in the ensuing World War II.
Curiously, a similar story is brewing in Donald Trump’s ballroom at the White House: A New York Times column says President Trump is “obsessed” with the ballroom, formerly the East Wing. Scheduled to be completed late in 2028, there is hardly time for him to enjoy the glittering edifice he designed. Surely, by the time it is ready for him, Trump would be out of the White House. Why is he so “obsessed” with something that he can’t enjoy at all? Well, maybe he is going to enjoy it a lot longer than we imagine, maybe forever. Maybe Trump is planning to stay at the White House long after his eligibility expires.
How is he going to stay in power long after his presidential term? Trump must make sure that the United States will not have its “normal” midterm elections on Nov. 3, a possibility mostly unmentioned but darkly anticipated by many political observers. Unlike the traditional elections in which we vote and winners are declared, Trump has every reason to disrupt the midterm elections, resorting to every known (and yet unknown) method: Once the 2026 elections are dissolved, 2028 is a cakewalk.
In his second term, as the tension at home and abroad rises to a critical point, Trump has been under two of the most impossible-to-resist temptations as his standby cure-all. One is the nuclear bomb. The other is martial law. (Selling presidential pardons comes close). He wakes up with these two temptations and he goes to sleep (if he ever does) with one of them. He told Axios, “I am always thinking about it.” The nuclear bomb if the displeasure is foreign and martial law if it is domestic.
Every time his critics, political opponents, or foreign powers challenge him, his mind immediately races back to these two temptations. They whisper in his ears: “Just push the button. Just declare it. All your troubles will be over.” Of course, they are Trump’s last temptations: He will have to go down with the world and the nation that he sets on the course of total destruction, one physical and the other political. In ultimate irony, the most powerful man on Earth since Alexander is actually caught in the worst career dilemma he himself cannot survive: He has to die with them.
With Iran almost forgotten today by both the president and the American public, Trump can now concentrate on one single issue: the domestic threat to his hard-fought ballroom at the White House. In a possible Democratic landslide come Tuesday, Trump could face a catastrophic consequence personally: what awaits him, sooner or later if he loses the midterms, is a certain trip to federal courts and prisons. He has committed numerous “criminal” acts, so many of them in plain view of the daily front pages that there is no way he can escape the long arms of the avengers: not just for himself, but also for many of his family members and his officials. He desperately needs a solution (“October surprise”) to prevent his existential doom.
Given what he has sowed, no other harvest is possible. Either Trump wins his permanent power, or America escapes Trump’s permanent power. Just now, with rising prices and sliding popularity, his isolation and fear increase, as does the temptation of martial law (and federal troops) as his last-ditch solution. Would he really do it? When asked directly by reporters recently, The Atlantic says that “the president played coy.” But his close martial law supporter Peter Ticktin was not coy at all, declaring “Believe me, our armed forces are a lot bigger than they [citizens] are” in their killing capacities.
Some legal experts say that the president alone can’t just declare martial law. But if it were so difficult to do, why would his ardent supporters urge him to do it? Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and he has all the physical and legal powers — civil and military — in his own hands. He has routinely pooh-poohed court orders and flouted the laws with absolutely no ill consequences. For Trump, the temptation is perhaps greater than the one faced by Eve in the garden of Eden.
Trumpsters came to power as revolutionaries, not as routine administrators of government who would peacefully leave power when their turn came. Their do-or-die goal is nothing short of a totally “new America.” For Trump, staying in power is a dire necessity. He has no other choice. Imprisonment or deprivation is not an acceptable future for him. It would almost be foolish for him not to do such an easy thing — call in the military and nullify the elections. As Peter Ticktin implied, just shoot the first row of protesters and the rest will scatter.
We can perhaps escape Trump’s corruption with a huge electoral win, but we cannot escape our own corruption that predates (and will certainly outlast) Trump. As told in America’s civil rights history, only Black people know the value of shedding blood for freedom. For the rest of us, drowning in the abundance of choices and pleasures all around, it’s Trumpist poison or capitalist corruption that awaits, even if Democrats bring back liberal democracy.
Amazingly, our Constitution still obeys its paranoid man-child commander in chief with an almost-loaded gun — both thrilled and scared while playing Russian roulette.
Soon enough, we will know what happens to our Republic.
Jon Huer, retired professor and columnist for the Recorder, lives in Greenfield.