Column: Listen to Trump’s Former Aides: He Is a Danger to Democracy

WASHINGTON —

Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, retired Marine General John F. Kelly, broke his long silence and denounced his former boss as someone who fits the “common definition of a fascist.”

A normally taciturn conservative, Kelly was forced to speak out after Trump denounced former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam B. Schiff and other Democrats as “enemies from within” and said he would send troops into the country’s streets to suppress opposition.

“Using the military to persecute American citizens is … very, very bad,” Kelly told the New York Times. “Even saying that for political purposes to get elected, I think that’s very, very bad.”

Kelly wasn’t the only former Trump aide to warn that the GOP candidate couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. Dozens of people who served in senior positions in the Trump administration supported the idea. Gen. Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called him “a fascist to the core… the most dangerous man to the country.” ” Former national security adviser John Bolton said he was “unfit to be president.”

Trump “never accepted the fact that he was not the most powerful man in the world – and by power I mean the ability to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants,” Kelly said.

Have these warnings from reputable sources—prominent figures whom Trump once appointed to high-ranking positions—have any impact on his voters as Election Day approaches?

Not as far as anyone can tell.

Readers of this column will not be surprised to learn that I completely agree with Kelly, Milley, Bolton and their colleagues: Trump is a danger to our democracy.

He does not understand or respect the Constitution. He seeks to rule openly, much like China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as an autocrat accountable to no one. “He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist,” he said admiringly of Xi Jinping.

Trump revels in division and violence. And his economic “program,” which amounts to huge tariffs on imports plus unlimited oil and gas drilling, will have catastrophic consequences.

Why are millions of voters—many of them, as Trump might put it, very good people—ignoring the warnings of figures like Kelly, Milley, and Bolton?

Over the past year, I’ve heard dozens of Trump voters describe the reasons they stayed with him.

Some of his supporters agree with everything the former president says, even the grossest insults.

Others admit they have doubts about Trump’s style but say they support him because they hope he can restore the low-inflation prosperity that characterized his first two years in office.

But the third group, which includes many independents as well as moderate Republicans, is the most perplexing. Not only do they dislike Trump’s style, they are bothered by some of his positions: his desire to destroy Obamacare, his threats to deploy the military against domestic opponents, his indiscriminate tariffs, his plan to fire thousands of government workers and replace them with MAGA supporters. .

But many say they don’t think Trump would (or couldn’t) make it happen.

For example, in a focus group last week for NBC News by the consulting firm Engagious, an Atlanta home inspector named Kevin expressed concern that Trump’s tariffs would lead to higher consumer prices.

“This is a bad idea,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s really going anywhere. I think it will cost too much money. It will be too difficult politically.” He said he would probably vote for Trump anyway.

Social scientists called this Trump’s “credibility gap.” Voters hear what he says but don’t take it into account – they think “he’s just talking” or that someone will definitely stop his more outlandish ideas.

But there are two problems with Trump voters’ self-congratulatory explanations.

First, Trump has a history of trying to do most of these things. He tried to repeal Obamacare but was thwarted by a handful of moderate Republican senators. He issued a decree that would have allowed him to replace civil servants with political appointees, but his term expired before he could use it.

And when demonstrators gathered across the street from the White House, he called on the military to deploy troops and shoot protesters in the legs, but General Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper stopped him.

“When he starts talking about using the military against people … I think we have to take it very seriously,” Olivia Troy, who was an aide to Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence, recently told my colleague Noah Bierman. “He was actually talking about shooting Americans. I was there… I witnessed it.”

The second problem with the “credibility gap” is that if Trump returns to the White House, he will have a better chance of getting his way.

He often complained that he had made a mistake in his first term by appointing aides like Kelly, Milley and Bolton who felt it was their duty to restrain the president’s rash impulses. If he gets a second term, he will surround himself with more people who will do his bidding without asking pesky questions.

It will also face less resistance from other institutions.

Republicans in Congress, who at times held Trump in check while he was president, have removed most moderates from their ranks. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah is resigning. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, an occasional critic of Trump, will no longer serve as his party’s leader in the Senate.

The federal courts may also prove more hospitable thanks to the judges Trump appointed in his first term.

So moderate Republicans and independents who are tempted to vote for Trump because they hope he will cut taxes or improve the economy should think long and hard about the risks of this deal.

When Trump says he will order prosecutors to go after Joe Biden and Pelosis, he means it. When Trump says he will punish companies like Amazon if he doesn’t like their owners’ views, he means it. When Trump says he believes the Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want as President,” he means it.

And this time he will know better how to make his desires come true. Trump’s second term will not be a harmless repetition of the first version. As his former aides are at pains to warn us, things will get much worse.