Former President Donald Trump is making a dire prediction about the future of the country if he does not win re-election.
During an event in Michigan Tuesday, Trump said, “If we don’t win on November 5th, I think our country is going to cease to exist.”
“It could be the last election we ever have. I actually mean that. If we don’t win, I think this could be the last election we ever have. That’s where our country is going,” he added.
Watch the video below:
Well, for one, that’s not how the country is supposed to work.
We don’t have dictators like the Roman Republic. And the Founders didn’t want candidates for president to be seen as some kind of messiah figure riding in to save the country from certain destruction. Yes, the Federalists did believe in a strong, unitary executive who could respond quickly to emergencies, and be held responsible for their decisions. But Biden’s presidency is not an emergency on the level of the Civil War or World War II.
If you tell voters that if they don’t vote for you, the country will be no more, and they start to believe it, they’re likely to overlook any kind of flaw or crime to support you because the perceived stakes of the election are so high.
But the fact of the matter is, there will in all likelihood be another election if Trump doesn’t win in 2024. Conservatives have been fond of making the claim this is the last election, but they don’t really explain why it would be the last. Do they think an 86-year-old President Joe Biden would try to cling to office at the end of a second term or the country would simply accept Vice President Kamala Harris staying in office without an election? Do they think there will be some war?
They don’t say, and they don’t provide any reason to believe it will be the last. This country has survived a lot. It survived the British burning the nation’s capital, it survived a Civil War, and it survived the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. It has made it through deaths of presidents in office and presidential assassinations. It’s pretty resilient and stable.
But if you tell voters as a perceived insightful, smart politician or commentator could be coming to an end, eventually voters will believe it. And it, frankly, that message does set up a dangerous scenario for the days after the election if Trump loses and his supporters believe the clock is ticking for the country.
Even if you accept the concept that this is the last election if Trump loses and America is over, then you should really be disappointed with him for acting like a barbarian and at the very least creating the illusion of criminal behavior that invited the criminal probes. If he is really the only champion who can save the country from destruction, then he should have been acting above reproach. Yet, because of his massive ego and inability to accept losing the 2020 election, that is not how he behaved.
And the election will probably be a lot closer than it should be given Biden’s weaknesses.
