The Left has ramped up its crusade to paint former president Donald Trump as a dictator wannabe. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, writer Robert Kagan attempted to lay out a "solution" to this alleged problem. And apparently, it involves rallying around Nikki Haley. But Glenn has a few issues with Kagan's argument. For example, Glenn argues, the real "dictator" the Left should fear is the Deep State, not Donald Trump: "It is the biggest violation of individual rights and the Constitution in the history of our country. And that should be frightening to both Left and Right."

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So Robert Kagan wrote an op-ed. I just want to read it to you. In an essay I wrote last week, I painted a grim picture of the prospects for a dictatorship in the United States.

Well, some readers were unhappy that I didn't offer a solution.

What follows is an attempt at one. And if it seems like a long shot, it is. Because our options today are harder and fewer, because we passed up so many better and easier alternatives in the past.

So, in other words, it's like, hey, we should cut the budget now. Before we don't have any options left.

Is that what you're saying, Robert?

I want to make sure. Nor was it for a lack of knowing what needed to get done. It wouldn't have taken a miracle for Republicans to unite around a single non-Trump candidate in 2016, or for ten more Republican senators to vote to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial.

Got it?

The problem has never been knowing what to do. It's been doing it.

In the past, stopping Trump has required people taking risks, and making sacrifices, that they didn't want to make.

Whether out of selfishness, father or ambition.

Or the fact that they thought they were right. You know, that does exist.

I just want to take a moment here. And point out that some did. When they that thought Trump was going to be, you know, everything that I guess you would want him to be. Some of us did speak out. And you know what happened? We were proven wrong by the facts. Now, others out of selfishness, fear, spiritual, political, or historic blindness, or simply because they benefit from business as usual, or perhaps they think it's true, they still to this day, remain in denial.

Those Never Trumpers.

And, you know, many times, it's not even because it's a conscious choice. It's the result of mass delusion.

Cognitive grooming. Or self-imposed ignorance.

Usually. Now, some people don't like Donald Trump. Some people don't like the way he handles things.

However, most people will agree, if it wasn't Donald Trump, wow!

He's a lot better than this last guy.

Huh?

Now, he goes on. Today, the challenges are even greater. But there's little evidence that the people we need to rise to the indication, are any more likely to do so, than they have for the past eight years. Here's several things people could do to save the country, but most certainly won't do.

Because they selfishly refuse to put their own ambitions at risk, to save our democracy.

It's not a democracy! Know the difference. The first step is to consolidate all of the anti-Trump forces into the Republican Party behind a single candidate.

And right now, it is obvious, that that candidate should be Nikki Haley.

And not because she's pro-Ukraine. Definitely not that. Did I say that out loud?

Definitely not that. But because she's clearly the most capable politician, among the best remaining candidates. And the performer with a real chance. However slim, of challenging Trump.

Okay. Now, let me ask you this:

Well, first of all. Let me point out. She's not the obvious candidate, for most Republicans. She's the obvious candidate for 19 percent of the Republicans. That's the latest poll.

The problem that Nikki has, that Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis do not have. Is that they are standing up for what people, the vast majority of Republicans, actually believe.

They have also both proven themselves as the advisory of the Deep State. And the end of politics, as usual, in the G.O.P.

So the real numbers of Trump supporters, at this time, is Trump plus DeSantis.

You fail to recognize that.

He goes.

All the money and endorsement should shift to hers, as quickly as possible. Yes. Ron DeSantis is likely too selfish and ambitious to drop out of the race.

Really? Or he thinks he's rate.

But if everybody else does and the remaining money and support all flow to Haley, he will quickly become irrelevant.

Now, I'm wondering if this is why the Democrats are beginning to back Nikki Haley's campaign. Will they continue to back that campaign, or is that just for the primary?

It won't be enough, however, to rally the forces behinds Haley. Even if she were to get every vote that is now spread among the other Trump candidates. And she won't. It won't be close to enough to challenge Trump.

Why? Why?

Until now, she's been gathering support at the expense of other non-Trump candidates.

To make a serious run for the nomination, she'll also have to cut into the more 50 percent of the party that now seem solidly behind Trump.

Okay. The only way she could do this, is if she was the nominee. But even then, I'm not sure of those, that have been mocked, feel they've been lied to.

Ignored by the G.O.P. establishment.

All of those people -- again, Trump plus DeSantis, that's probably about 70 percent.

I don't know if any of those people would vote for somebody who even had the hint of establishment. Or someone, you guys wanted.

See, this is the real problem.

50 to 72 percent of Republicans, know what is happening isn't right.

We know that our spending is out of control.

And we know that the G.O.P. was part of it. Is part of it.

We know that these wars will never end.

If we leave it up to the parties and military-industrial complex. They will never end.

And the G.O.P. is part of it. We know that Washington is on the take. Not just Joe Biden and the Democrats. Although, that's a pretty stunning case.

But many of the G.O.P. leaders as well. We know that last or right. Bush, Clinton, or Biden.

If you're a globalist, you can get away with murder.

If you're not, look out, because others may be plotting to murder you. Seventy plus percent of Republicans, know that Trump is now, and this is no exaggeration.

The most investigated man in all of human history. And this is what you've got? To stop him, they result to victimless crime.

Meaning, he inflated his worth for a loan. At Deutsche Bank.

Really? When does Deutsche Bank become this little innocent victim?

By the way, Deutsche Bank testified, they weren't a victim in this.

They knew that. Russia, Clinton, well, Russia. Clinton actually started. The NSA, CIA ran it. The Deep state executed that whole thing.

Then Ukraine, and if you want to go to January 6th, there seems to be mounting evidence now, that hmm. That isn't all that there is.

The left did an incredible job keeping this quiet for as long as they could.

But the truth will always set you free.

Meanwhile, actual money, in the millions, has gone into the hands of our president, and family.

And they're not hearing anything about that.

By the way, that 70 percent, I think would be open to a candidate, to another candidate.

If other people were treated the way, that you treat Donald Trump.

Or better yet, you treat Donald Trump, like you treat everyone else.

For some reason, those who see what the FBI, NSA. Deep State have done to Donald Trump.

And is currently doing under this administration.

Is the biggest violation of individual rights. And the Constitution, in the history of our country.

And that should be frightening to both left and right.

And even those who are politically agnostic.

Yet, those people are called fascists. While those who champion illegal wiretapping, silencing free speech.

Now with new cognitive security, they silence dissent, and work to destroy those who disagree. And literally cognitive security.

Brainwash. And those people are somehow called by you, the defenders of democracy?

Well, I mean, perhaps they are. As democracy always end with a strong man.

But that's why we have a republic. But when those elected represent the people over and over again.

When those people come in, they're elected to represent the people. Over their own gain and interests.

When they don't look for anything, but their own gain, and their own interests, people look for somebody who will listen and act in their children's behalf.

But if the power that is in Washington, that movement, if it crushes those people, history shows us, that the cycle and the pattern repeat, until a strong man is found. And most Americans, and I would say at least 70 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents and maybe -- maybe polls show 60 percent of Democrats? Don't want a strong man. On either side.

Now, he continues. The Trump supporters will fall roughly into three categories.

The great majority are just completely committed to what the former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman has called, the cult of Trump.

And they are out of reach for Haley.

Another smaller group has no problem with Trump. So long as he can beat President Biden and the Democrats next year.

Oh, it's kind of like you, having no problem voting for a guy you know is incapable of running the -- the country.

Just because it's Donald Trump. I know it's so different, isn't it?

By the way, it's not a cult. A cult is brainwashed. Trump supporters, many of them only see the reality they're living in.

They see clearly, what those on the left refuse to see.

And they see clearly, the things that most, if not all elite Never Trumpers will never admit to seeing.

This faction has undoubtedly been reassured by polls that say Trump can win, so the -- so the possibility that Haley can also beat Biden is irrelevant to them.

They prefer Trump, and there's no reason for them to rethink their position. So long as Trump remains clearly electable. Wow, you know what, this paragraph really reveals who the author is.

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Wow. This -- this faction, he writes, is undoubtedly reassured by polls that say Trump can win. So the possibility that Haley can also beat bide citizen irrelevant to them.

They prefer Trump. And there's no reason for them to rethink their position. So long as Trump remains clearly electable.

Wow. So what you're saying, unless we can come up with a crime, we can convict him of.

This is your problem, on the left.

There is no difference between causation, and correlation.

In the case of Trump. Only getting stronger, every time, the left charges him with another bogus crime.

I mean, honestly, the media -- you know, should have learned this in 2016.

Would have been better if you just ignored him.

But you can't help yourself. Which only makes him stronger, as -- as -- as you keep saying, he's got to be stopped.

For what?

For what?

Stopped for what. Because fascism is already here.

It's why you can smear in the press, with the help of government agencies.

It's why you only want PC judges to hear your case against Trump.

It's why you have to go to social media to get them to silence anyone who disagrees with you.

It's fascism.

And, by the way, you're telling us, you fear him the most.

Any American who is awake may not even like Trump's style or what he's done. But if you fear him, well, he's the right guy for me, huh?

He's the right guy for people who believe in fairness or the Bill of Rights.

Now, the problem with this, is your lefty school teacher unions. And your lefty universities. Have so corrupted the education regarding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

To further your goal of a communist, fascist, or some sort of totalitarian state. That those who are on the right, many of us, who are now fighting for the opposite of you, may not even be fighting for liberty and justice from all.

Because they don't even know what that means. You failed to teach the Bill of Rights.

And how it's supposed to apply, to all people.

Finally, he says, there's a small percentage of Republicans who say, they will support Trump, unless he's convicted.

Wow.

Haley, therefore, has no chance of getting more than a small fraction of Trump's current supporters to add to her collection of Trump's skeptical Republicans.

She might make a respectable showing as number two. Thus, setting her up to be Trump's vice presidential nominee, if he will have her.

In which case, her entire campaign will have been largely for show. Indeed, it will have served chiefly as a conveyer belt for Trump skeptics, to get on board with the Trump train in the end.

Now, wouldn't that be rich?

If that happens, you on the left, will have to change from Nikki can save us, to Nikki is worse than Trump.

Now, how can I predict that?

Well, George Bush was Hitler, if you remember. Well, so was Ronald Reagan.

But George Bush was Hitler. And then John McCain was worse.

Men Mitt Romney was worse than Hitler and John McCain combined. Then Trump once again was returned to Hitler.

And you have already announced that Ron DeSantis is worse than Hitler/Trump.

So, I mean, what's really funny. The only people that are worse in real life than Hitler, were Stalin and Mao.

One of which, you and your universities completely ignore his atrocities. And the other, had a president glorify and even hang a Christmas ball with Mao's face on it, at the White House Christmas tree.

Anyway, this author goes on to the Washington Post. If that's what she's up to, then the joke will be on the Koch Network, JP Morgan Chase, and Jamie Dimon and others who have looked up to her as the last hope for stopping Trump.

Oh, well. You know, in that list, you failed to mention BlackRock.

Proving the point of 70 percent of voters, nothing will change.

You're clearly for her. But you won't be in the general.

How do I know?

Just look at your track record.

Of John McCain.

Who you loved! Was the ultimate bipartisan guy. But the minute he was the candidate, this guy, who you love, most Republicans didn't. You went crazy on him.

He's Hitler.