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If only. But on a more serious note, it’s been a few weeks. The legitimacy of Orban, Putin and Erdogan rested on real, huge economic growth and improvement in the prosperity of the average American. Trump can’t offer that and couldn’t achieve it even if he wanted to, and his current policies only make it even less likely. The sensibilities of the vast majority of the domestic elite still run contrary to him. He has no substantive personal ideological program.
As I have long said, the only real test is immigration. Trump will be a dictator when he can deport 15 million illegal migrants, by any means necessary, and get away with it. Until then, he is merely playing in a sandbox carefully maintained by those who have constrained the realm of political possibility.
I think the chance of Trump and Musk making a serious attempt to do something like this is about 60% (being deliberately vague about the meaning of serious attempt) and if they my wild-ass guess outcome prediction is:
Unfortunately, the test that matters is the 2028 election, and by the time you get there it is too late. Think about Trump's first term - whichever side wins and gets to write the history, the main thing that gets written about will be the disputed 2020 election. (The pandemic response will be glossed over because the events that happened, in particular the Trump administration being much more Covidian than the MAGA base wanted it to be, don't fit into either side's preferred narrative).
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