Trump, Hannity, Dictator-for-a-Day, and the Constitution of The United States

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)

Hannity; always playing second fiddle, but, so far at least, he is still in the orchestra.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The recent "Trump-Hannity-Dictator-for-a-day" TV "interview" has become widely noted and much commented upon. As The Guardian put it: "Trump says he will be a dictator only [emphasis added] on 'day one' if elected president." Indeed, regardless of whether he's a dictator, even for only one day only, Trump and the Trumpers, as is widely known, are planning for a significant expansion of Presidential power, should he be re-elected, which could hardly be accomplished in one day. Of course, given what we have seen about that proposed expansion so far, there is no provision in the Constitution, Article II or elsewhere, that could cover it. But that is another matter.

This total restructuring of the operations and functions of the U.S. government is being promoted not only by the Trump campaign and its spokespeople like Steve Bannon, Kash Patel, and Steven Miller, but also by supposedly echt organizations like the Heritage Foundation. What they are promoting does sound an awful lot like the imposition of a fascist dictatorship. (At the end of this column, see my definition of the term, which definition will be very familiar to regular readers of mine.)

It is well-known that Sean Hannity is a leading right-wing propagandist for FoxNews. It is also well-known that he is a leading admirer of Trump (or at least of his policies), and that in addition to hosting him for interviews on a regular basis on Fox, he is also a policy-program advisor from Trump, off-line. So, Hannity brought to the interview not only a regular interviewer's perspective, but also an agenda as a Trump-policy advisor. As it happens, anti-fascist reactions have been swirling around Trump and his plans for a complete restructuring of the U.S. government into a fascist mode for some time now.

And so, as it happened in the interview, Hannity was trying really hard to get Trump to say that no, that is not his plan. Goal not achieved.

"Fox News' Sean Hannity asked former President Trump to promise to the American people during a town hall event on Tuesday night that he would not abuse his power if he is elected president.

"The comments during the town hall in Davenport, Iowa, come as multiple media outlets have published stories in recent days warning of a 'Trump dictatorship' if he is elected a second term.

"Hannity asked Trump: 'Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?' 'Except for day one,' Trump said. 'I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.'

" 'That's not retribution,' Hannity said. (Hannity was obviously trying to change the subject from "dictatorship" to something equally not in the Constitutional definition of the powers of the President [see Article II], but at this time not being spoken about too much. Nevertheless - going on with the quote --- Trump would have none of it.)

"Indeed, Trump replied: 'I love this guy [referring to Hannity], he says, you're not going to be a dictator, are you?' I said no, no, no, other than day one [emphasis added]. We're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator,' Trump said."

First in an analysis of what Trump (and Hannity) said and didn't say, the "drill, drill, drill" thing was really odd as Trump's second objective for a "One Day Dictatorship." As it happens, U.S. oil drilling and production have never been at a higher level. (That that is so despite UN climate goals is a matter for another discussion.) So why did Trump throw that line in there? Well, some folks think that Trump is a) totally ignorant of what he is about, and b) would thus be totally ignorant of what real U.S. oil production is. Trump is ignorant about important issues that he faces much of the time. But in this case, I don't think that that is the case at all. In terms of establishing a dictatorship Trump knows exactly what he is doing and exactly what he is after. Indeed. He knew exactly where Hannity was going, and he didn't want to go there. Plus, there are plenty of MAGA folks, plus Big Oil, who just love "drill, drill, drill," regardless of what the reality is.

And so, Trump used throwaway campaign lines, and Hannity was indeed thrown off what at least appeared to be his objective, that is to get Trump to agree that "Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?" Further, when Trump went to the "only for one-day" line, Hannity did not follow up.

However, giving Hannity some credit, at least for propaganda purposes he did want Trump to disavow any plans for dictatorship, either for one day, or for many of them. But Trump wouldn't do that, and, as noted, for whatever reason Hannity did not follow up. For example, Hannity did not ask Trump where the "one-day-dictatorship" power for the President could be found in the Constitution. (As is well-known, it cannot be found anywhere in that document.) Hannity likely has read it, but Trump almost surely has not. But regardless, as was seen many times during his Presidency, paying attention to the Constitution is just not Trump's thing.

Nevertheless, for the sake of argument just what might such a follow-up have been? Hannity could have asked him words to the effect of "so, let me get this straight, if you win you really do want to establish a dictatorship, even if only one day?" Hannity also could have asked Trump where in Article II of the Constitution could be found the attribution of dictatorial powers to the President in one circumstance or another. But he did neither. Hannity is a far-rightist, but dumb and uninformed he is not. He was simply not going to get into the weeds with Trump on this one, especially since it was abundantly clear that Trump means it when he says "Dictator-for-a-Day." (And what he means is rather different from the old radio, then TV, program "Queen-for-a-Day," that was very popular when I was a youngster.)

OK. So where do we go from here? For now, to two places. The first is, of course, that what he is proposing to do, "The One-Day Dictatorship," totally un-Constitutional. Since, if Trump is the Republican nominee (and regular readers of mine know that I don't think that that will be the case --- as the legal walls close in on him, with whatever money he has left, he will flee the country --- but of course I could be entirely wrong and he could be), this election is fundamentally about the maintenance of Constitutional government, no matter how flawed this system in this modern age might presently be.

The second consideration is what exactly could he do, or try to do, in "just one day?" Plenty. First of all, since he would become President at 12:01PM on January 20, 2025 he would likely declare that his "first day" would actually begin at 12:01AM on Jan. 21, 2025 and extend to 11:59PM on that day, giving himself 36 hours to begin transforming the United States of America into a fascist dictatorship. And he and his fellow-fascists would be very busy.

First, to help them enforce their new-rule they would have assembled a private militia which would make the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers look like amateurs. (They would be more like the Nazi's Sturm Abteilung, the S.A., but that is another story.) This would have been done with as much secrecy as possible. If that secrecy had been breached it would have been met with a "left-wing propaganda" charge. Second, as soon as he was sworn in as President he would have command of the nation's Armed Forces, and if they were by then not being led in the way Sen. Tommy Tuberville would prefer, Trump would simply order them to stand down. (That of course would be the first major inflection point: would such orders be obeyed by holdover service commanders?) And remember, for Trump, it is all personal. None of it is ideological.

Third, Trump would issue an order to disband the Congress. We have already seen what some Trumpists were ready to do to the Congress when Trump was still President, but had not (except according to themselves) won a second term. Key members of Congress would likely be arrested by Trump's orders on his "one-day only" (36hr.) dictatorship. How soon other arrests, such as of known Trump opponents in the political, judicial, legal, and communications arenas would begin, and how many people would be swept up right at the beginning is anybody's guess. In Nazi Germany, the arrests began the night of the day, Jan. 30, 1933, that Hitler was appointed Chancellor (Prime Minister) by President Paul von Hindenburg, the arrestees being locked up in a pre-built camp just outside of the leafy village of Dachau, about 12 miles from Munich.

And so on, and so forth. And so, what Trump would do with his "one day dictatorship" as President, if he were actually be able to create it, is quite obvious. Once he got his hands on such a dictatorship, he would simply extend it. The Trump Program, such as disbanding the Federal Civil Service and making the Justice Department and the F.B.I. branches of the White House and under its direct control, have already been laid out by the Trumpers in general and the Heritage Foundation in particular, and discussed in some detail by their opponents. We will be coming back to that subject in this space in the future.

We will also be coming back to such matters as: the role of the national armed forces; the roles of 50 state National Guards, especially in reliably Democratic states; and of course the very real possibility for secession(s) and a Second Civil War.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Definition of Fascism:

"There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of a capitalist ruling class that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using the big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."

(Article changed on Dec 14, 2023 at 3:48 PM EST)

(Article changed on Dec 14, 2023 at 9:48 PM EST)

(Article changed on Dec 14, 2023 at 9:51 PM EST)