Trump’s Quick-Step Accelerated March Towards On-Man Rule

Trump’s Quick-Step Accelerated March Towards One-Man Rule

“And I’m really good at predicting things, you know? They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat: ‘Trump was right about everything.’ And I don’t say that in a braggadocious way, but it’s true.”

Donald Trump’s addressing the UN General Assembly, September 23rd.

“I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m going to fire him right on the spot."

Trump leaving the White House for Quantico, VA to address waiting Generals/Admirals assembled to listen to a planned harangue from DOW head, Pete Hegseth, September 30th.

“It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country, in the world, it’s a bad look… It all starts with physical fitness and appearance… If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT [physical training], so can every member of our joint force…. Today at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required … [to] meet height and weight requirements twice a year every year.” 

 Hegseth addressing the above flag rank officers at Quantico, September 30th.

Trump’s control of the government is personal, completely under his individual control, as he derides, demonizes, fires and even criminally prosecutes his critics (as “radical leftwing extremists”), stating that the danger is not foreign threats but the “invasion” and destruction of American values “from within.” As federal military personnel rolled into “war ravaged” Portland, Oregon (actually extremely peaceful), a description and effort decried by Portland mayor and Oregon’s governor as completely false and unwanted, Trump amped up his attack on Democrats.

To Trump, every part of the federal government is directly under his personal control, and loyalty to him “trumps” any other factors, including the Constitution. He has converted the MAGA majority in Congress into a lockstep implementation of his demands, and a pliable, Trump-stacked Supreme Court has set aside precedents and the plain wording of the Constitution, becoming nothing more than a rubber stamp to his authoritarian agenda.

Trumps tools: meritless criminal prosecutions, deep fake online postings like the above showing Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing AI-impose sombrero and a fake Emiliano Zapata mustache and executive orders including his National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, signed September 25, 2025, which transforms the basic political positions of roughly half the country into pre-terrorism indicators requiring federal monitoring of groups, individuals and sponsors, at all levels. Effectively, under that order, the federal government officially considers “hostility towards traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” as warranting investigation by 4,000 Joint Terrorism Task Force members across 200 offices. To Trump, this means Democrats, labeling his opposition directly as “antifa” (short for antifascist), even though no such group formally exists.

Trump’s recent online post, directed at Attorney General Pam Bondi, seemed to be a direct order to seek and indictment against former FBI director, James Comey, came only a few days before his newly appointed acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in fact secured that indictment, notwithstanding a uniform analysis from her former, Trump-appointed predecessor and his senior staff that this was an unwinnable prosecution. His unambiguous online excoriation of Comey, his assertion of guilt and his online statements against other state and federal officials who opposed or investigated him as the appropriate “next” targets of similar federal indictments, became an effective intimidation of dissent. His “freedom of speech” campaign pledged morphed rapidly into a definition of unprotected “hate speech” that seemed only to apply to Democrats. Instead, his “I am your retribution” autocratic mandate prevailed.

Every facet of Trump’s rule is based on personal whim, from posting tariffs, refusing to honor congressional budget allocations to whim-directed control of the military. Per the above quote: “Trump’s open threat to fire military leaders based on personal preference rather than performance metrics or protocol reflects a growing emphasis on loyalty and ideological alignment within his administration. The comments come as his administration pursues an aggressive reorientation of Pentagon priorities, including public efforts to sideline what officials call ‘woke’ policies in favor of a more rigid and martial ethos.” Newsweek, September 30th.

Trump’s speech at Quantico (post-Hegseth’s ego laced harangue) was just another rant, perhaps the speech of a man struggling with dementia. It was a political rally – railing at Biden, the use of the “autopen,” that the 2020 election was rigged, suggesting that old world battleships should perhaps be built for the future – just the embarrassing and mendacious face of a rising autocrat. Not what you would expect from a president addressing his highest military command.

What is particularly disturbing is the rapidity of our transition to full-on autocracy, occurring at a pace that blows away the incremental processes in other, modern elected autocrats. Nicholas Riccardi, writing for the Associated Press, September 30th, explains: “In 2007, eight years after becoming Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez revoked the license of the country’s oldest private television station. Eight months into his second term, President Trump suggested revoking the licenses of U.S. television stations he believes are overly critical of him.

Since he returned to office in January, Trump’s remaking of the federal government into an instrument of his personal will has drawn comparisons to elected strongmen in other countries who used the levers of government to consolidate power, punish their enemies and stifle dissent… But those familiar with other countries where that has happened, including Hungary and Turkey, say there is one striking difference: Trump appears to be moving more rapidly, and more overtly, than others did… ‘The only difference is the speed with which it is happening,’ said David Smilde, who lived in Venezuela during Chavez’s rise and is now a professor at Tulane University…

“Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of the book ‘How Democracies Die,’ said he is constantly asked by foreign journalists how the U.S. can let Trump take such actions… ‘If you talk to Brazilians, South Koreans, Germans, they have better antennae for authoritarians,’ he said. ‘They experienced, or were taught by their parents, or the schools, the danger of losing a democracy.’… Of the United States, he said: ‘This is not a society that is prepared for authoritarianism.’… U.S. ‘has become little Turkey’… Eroding democracy was slower abroad… Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has often been cited as a model for Trump. Orbán has become an icon to some U.S. conservatives for cracking down on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. Like Trump, he lost an election and spent his years out of office planning his return.”

And still the entire elected Republican Party enforces this exploding autocracy, empowered by a deer-in-the-headlights Democratic Party, only recently figuring out what is happening… and… most of all… a complacent general public that is so used to living in a democracy that they focus mostly on kitchen table issues, even though those kitchen table issues will soon explode… as the quality of their lives is sacrificed to Trump’s donor oligarchy… unless they take these events as an existential threat to their hopes, dreams, and well-being.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am still bewildered by the lemming-like march of too many Americans off the cliffs at the edge of democracy down to the deadly rocky shoals of autocracy below.