Alan Zendell, June 12, 2025

Donald Trump loves symbols. Gold toilets, trophy wives, private jets, things most of us live happily without. He also loves alternate realities, like the one in which he lights a match to the Constitution and no one rushes in to douse the flames. Ten years of Trump’s politics have America in shock. In addition to his attempts to dismantle our democracy and government, we’re essentially living in a one-party country, since Democrats have yet to find a leader to coalesce around. That’s a lot more serious than it sounds, because without organized resistance by the opposition party, there’s little hope of stopping Trump without doing serious damage to the country.

Many Americans walk around shaking their heads in confusion and dismay. I do it myself, saying things like, “Did you ever imagine this could happen in America?” But I’ve come to realize that the answer to that question is “Yes.” We all have, whether or not we acknowledge it. I know because of the surprising popularity of dystopian books and films. We can thank the great Demon Hollywood for that. Hollywood has always had its finger on the pulse of the nightmares Americans dream. It displays them on the silver screen, and we devour them.

During the Cold War, films like Seven Days in May and The Manchurian Candidate were huge successes. Obviously, in order for that to have been true, Americans must have been harboring fears that such things might happen at some level. Dystopian stories only grab our attention if they contain grains of truth and credibility. We watched them, horrified inside, and once outside the theater in the light of day, reassured each other that that could never happen in America, but in 2025, anyone not in a coma knows it can.

There are a lot of smart, talented people behind Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump 2025. They understand history and they understand power and wealth, and how the latter has always dominated former. They studied how Adolf Hitler took down the Weimar Republic in only four months, how the Bolsheviks overturned a revolution that ended centuries of monarchical rule in Russia, and lately, they understand the world-wide shift toward populism and away from democracy.

They also understand that they only have a narrow window to achieve their goal of turning America into Gilead, Oceania, or Hungary. Our system is robust enough, our media still free enough, and most of us are still moral and decent enough, that they can only succeed by deceit, intimidation, and enough money to hire armies of sycophants and lawyers. Because the window is small, they understand that they must take desperate measures to win. They salivate over the Nazi blitzkrieg that re-wrote the map of Europe in a few blinks of an eye.

Thus, the lightning strikes against every aspect of American democracy. It really makes no sense to declare war on everyone at once – that’s usually a losing strategy. But Trump 2025 doesn’t have the luxury of restraint even if he were capable of it. His people understood that it wouldn’t take long for voters to realize how they were being screwed by Trump, and turn on him. They knew that if his approval rating dropped below forty percent, House members in swing districts would feel empowered to vote against him, and with the slimmest of margins, it would only take a handful to turn the majority back to Democrats. Today, Trump’s approval rating is 38%.

The only way they could win was to launch an all-out attack on everything Americans hold dear, and that is exactly what they’ve been doing since January 20^th. Trump knows that to win, he must neutralize the courts, the media, the Congress, our scientists and educators, and every opposing political movement, and he only has the rest of 2025 to do it. He is narcissistic and insane enough to be willing to put everything on the line. He is the most dangerous person on Earth.

Essential to his plan is the cooperation of the military. It’s illegal, in America, to use active duty soldiers and marines to suppress free speech and protests, unless they pose a clear threat to the nation. Every officer in our armed forces was taught that they must refuse any presidential order that is clearly illegal or unconstitutional. Yet, that is exactly what Trump intends. If he subverts the military into serving as his Gestapo, we’re doomed.

When we strip away all the BS and emotion, all the political, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric, what we face for the rest of 2025 is really simple. Trump is engaged in a winner-take-all gambit to turn America into a fascist oligarchy. He won’t quit until someone stops him, and if that doesn’t happen in the Courts or the Congress, it will happen between armed factions in our streets. Trump is willing to foment civil war to get what he wants.

We can’t hide  or pretend. That’s what’s coming if Americans don’t rise up in huge numbers and let our representatives and judges know we won’t stand for it. Next year is America’s 250^th anniversary. We can either celebrate it or mourn its passing.