"...With his own survival on the line, Trump has now embraced a Presidential-campaign platform of do-or-die-ism. There is a chilling urgency to his words as he calls on his followers to show up for 'the final battle,' a phrase I first noticed him using earlier this year. 'We will get reëlected,' he said in his speech this week. 'We have no choice.'
"Trump’s 2024 campaign is turning out to be a master class in fear, his own and that which he seeks to inspire in his supporters. His doom-casting is designed not only to provoke their emotions but to lead his audience to the inescapable conclusion that radical action is required. 'Republicans all, you must finally get tough,' Trump said on Tuesday night. 'You’ve got to get tough and you’ve got to show them, when you arrest your leading political opponent, we no longer have a democracy.' He concluded with a promise to 'obliterate' his enemies in the 'deep state,' and to appoint a 'real' special prosecutor to go after Biden, 'the most corrupt President in the history of the United States of America,' and Biden’s family, too—the very politicization of justice of which Trump claims to be a victim.
"The speech ended on the dictatorial note that has become the chilling, messianic signature of his 2024 campaign: 'I am the only one that can save this nation,' he said. L’état, c’est Trump." -- Susan B. Glasser, in The New Yorker, on the dark turn the increasingly threatened fascist Malignant Loser is taking. A master, too, of gaslighting and projection, rather than the nation's savior, he's uniquely positioned to destroy it. He's even more of an existential threat now with indictments and convictions looming than he was when he came down his golden escalator 8 years ago to this day, June 16, 2015, to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination.
(Photo: The Malignant Loser rides his golden escalator, June 16, 2015/ Christopher Gregory, Getty Images)
