The Trump Era May Be Over
There are signs
When dictators and wannabe dictators fall, the end sometimes comes quickly.
Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th U.S. president, believed he was above the law and that anything a president does could not be illegal. The Watergate burglary Nixon planned occurred on June 17, 1972. By November 17, 1973, Nixon was still able to get away with “Your president is not a crook.” On August 9, 1974, the crook resigned. That’s 783 days from what the New York Times called a “presidential dictatorship” to sitting for hours in his home office twiddling his pardoned thumbs.
For other dictators, the end comes even more quickly. Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, for example, went from “father of fascism” up until July 23, 1943, to being deposed, shot dead, and hung upside down on April 29, 1945. That’s 646 days.
Then there’s the more traditional deposing of dictators, for whom the time period from rule to revolution can be almost instantaneous. Like the Russian Romanov family.” Nicholas II wore his crown right up until a particular time of day on July 16, 1918, at which time Bolsheviks shot and bayonetted him, his wife, and their five children. Let’s call this 10 minutes to account for the time it takes to kill seven people with single-shot and single-blade weapons and the rest of the day to clean up the mess. One…
