A frequent mistake people make in evaluating political leaders is failing to take them at their word: if they say something, especially more than once, assume they mean it. For years before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russia-focused historians like Yale's Timothy Snyder tried to get people pay attention to what Vladimir Putin and other Russian thought leaders were writing and saying vis-a-vis Ukraine. But the tendency was to pooh-pooh the warning signs. Donald Trump is the likely Republican nominee for President in 2024. What have Trump and his inner circle been saying about his plans if he returns to the Presidency? In the last few weeks, Trump has argued that the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff should be executed for treason, that the greatest threat to the United States is "from within," and that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country"; he referred to leftists and other political opponents as "vermin," and his campaign spokesman said "their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House." In a long piece in The Washington Post last weekend, U.S. historian Robert Kagan wrote, "There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day." Kagan lays out his argument here: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/ Last night on a Fox News "town hall," in response to Kagan's piece, Sean Hannity asked Trump directly if he would be a dictator; at first, Trump did not answer. When Hannity repeated the question, Trump said he would not be, "except on day one" while smiling and laughing. (Trump quotes, other than the Fox News quote, all appear in www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/us/politics/trump-vermin-rhetoric-fascists.html.)
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