Donald Trump has flitted erratically from one position to another on a variety of political beliefs, but he has hewed with remarkable consistency to one: Dictators are good. Trump has maintained this belief throughout his long public career, and he asserted it once again in a speech in New Hampshire Saturday.
In the address, Trump cited Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and North Korean hereditary communist monarch Kim Jong-un as authorities on his own superiority. “Viktor Orbán, the highly respected prime minister of Hungary, said Trump is the man who can save the western world,” exclaimed Trump. Putin “says that Biden’s, and this is a quote, politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.” As for Kim, “He’s not so fond of this administration, but he’s fond of me.”
Trump is not merely making a Kissingerian argument that these foreign leaders maintained peaceful international relations with him as president. He is citing them specifically as experts on domestic American governance. They know how to run a society, Trump boasts, and they see in Trump a strong leader in the same mold.
An enlightened despot is the best form of governance, but it has issues:
Finding a dictator in the first place who’s morally good and wants to help people.
There’s no guarantee that subsequent leaders will be even close to them.
Everything else about a dictatorship.
The arguments and roadblocks we run into in Congress are the cost of not having a single person with absolute power. And I’m fine with that.
If you look through history, you’ll find leaders who seemed to care about their people, but their changes didn’t last. Catherine the Great is the example I remember from world history, and we’re well aware of how Russia’s done.
Aaanndd thats laughable.
It’s completely unrealistic. You’d need a paragon to have absolute control and act morally correct. There isn’t any red tape to gum things up this way, nor any conservatives to stop it.