More than two years after he tried to establish himself as a dictator, Donald Trump remained free.

And he was still repeating “The Big Lie”: That he won the 2020 Presidential election but was cheated of victory by widespread voter fraud.         

This was on a par with “The Big Lie” that had gripped Nazi Germany after World War 1: That the nation had been “stabbed in the back” by civilian Communists and Jews.

The result: Two-thirds of Republicans still rejected the legitimacy of the 2020 election of Joe Biden.

Facing 91 criminal charges in four criminal cases, Trump—unlike any other criminal defendant—was not even required to post bond.

In Florida, he faced 40 felony counts for illegally withholding highly classified government documents. Yet a judge he had appointed—Aileen Cannon—repeatedly delayed the start of his trial.

According to former United States Attorney Joyce Vance, her goal was clearly to delay the trial past the November, 2024, Presidential election.

Aileen Cannon

Trump repeatedly slandered—and even threatened—prosecutors, witnesses, judges and jurors in the four cases he faced. He claimed he was simply exercising his right to “freedom of speech” as a Presidential candidate.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was overseeing Trump’s election interference case, imposed a limited gag order on Trump in October, 2023. But this was lifted by the U.S. Court of Appeals while it heard appeals from Trump’s lawyers, who wanted it removed completely.

Most ominously, an August 29, 2023 story by the Associated Press reported: Right-wing “think tanks”—led by the long-established Heritage Foundation—were plotting to remake the federal government into a Fascist dictatorship:  

“With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own….

Heritage Foundation

Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

“Trump-era conservatives want to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.

“Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired.”

Meanwhile, Trump openly called for ending Constitutionally-granted freedoms: 

On December 3, 2022, he wrote in a Truth Social post:

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” 

A November 14, 2023 analysis by CNN’s Stephen Collinson warned:

“The former and possibly future commander in chief aspires to strongman power if he wins back the White House next year. He believes his authority would be absolute. He wants vengeance against his political enemies. He’d pose the greatest challenge to the rule of law and the Constitution in modern times, seek to crush press freedoms and gut the machinery of government.

“None of this is speculation. Trump is saying and showing exactly what he would do in his rallies, social media posts, interviews, lawyers’ filings and even appearances in court that he uses to stigmatize the legal system. And Trump’s ambitions should be taken seriously because one year from the election, President Joe Biden’s reelection hopes are far from secure.”

As an example of Trump’s rhetoric, Ruth Ben-Ghiat  professor of history at New York University and author of the bestselling book, Strongmen, cites the former President’s address on Veterans Day, 2023:

“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible, they will do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.” 

Speaking on the November 13, 2023 edition of The PBS Newshour, Ben-Ghiat said:

“Since the fascists, authoritarians always want to do two things—they want to change the way that people see violence, making it into something necessary and patriotic and even morally righteous, and they want to change the way people see their targets. And so they use dehumanizing language. And former President Trump is doing both.

“He’s been using his rallies since 2015 to shift the idea of violence into something positive. And now he’s starting to use dehumanizing rhetoric, all these groups who live like vermin. And this is what the original fascists did.

“Hitler started talking about Jews as parasites in 1920. So by the time he got in 1933, Germans had been exposed to this dehumanizing rhetoric for 13 years.

“And Mussolini literally talked about rats. After he had become dictator in 1927, he said, we need to kill rats who are bringing infectious diseases and Bolshevism from the east. And so this matches up with Trump talking about immigrants bringing disease and other such things.

“So this is very dangerous rhetoric with a very precise fascist history.”

On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump appeared at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House fence and north of Constitution Avenue and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  

A stage had been set up for him to address tens of thousands of his supporters, who eagerly awaited him.         

Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol building to express their anger at the voting process and to intimidate their elected officials to reject the results of the 2020 Presidential election.

The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.

Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers

• One attacker was shot as protesters forced their way toward the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place.
• Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes.
• A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
• Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
• Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
• Shouts of “Hang Pence!” often rang out.
• Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
• Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.

Stormtrumpers inside the Capitol Building

More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.

And Trump?  

• After giving his inflammatory speech, he returned to the White House—to watch his handiwork on television and rage-tweet against Vice President Mike Pence.
• He was “delighted” at the attack—and surprised that others weren’t, as angry Republican Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said later. 
• He initially denied requests to mobilize the National Guard. 
• Six hours after the rioting began, Pat A. Cipollone, the White House Counsel and other officials intervened and deployed the National Guard.
• While the rioting was still erupting, Trump posted a video on Twitter: “I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us….But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order….So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”  

His administration was closing with the same contempt for law and democracy that had characterized it from its outset.

Joseph R. Biden legitimately assumed the Presidency on January 20, 2021.

Yet it was only on November 22, 2022, that his handpicked Attorney General, Merrick Garland, appointed Jack Smith as independent special counsel.

Smith had served in the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. attorney, acting U.S. attorney and head of the agency’s Public Integrity Section.

From 2008 to 2010, Smith worked as investigation coordinator for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. He thus oversaw cases against government officials and militia members accused of war crimes and genocide.

Jack Smith

He now became responsible for overseeing two preexisting Justice Department criminal investigations into Trump. 

On June 8, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on seven federal criminal charges related to his handling of classified documents. This marked the first time in American history that a serving or former president had been indicted on a federal criminal charge.

On August 1, a second grand jury indicted Trump on four more federal felony counts for attempting to overturn the 2020 Presidential election and inciting a riot against Congress on January 6, 2021.

Meanwhile, Trump publicly attacked Smith as even notorious Mafia bosses like John Gotti never dared attack their prosecutors. 

Trump attacked Smith as “deranged” and a “Trump-hating prosecutor,” adding that “his wife and family despise me much more than he does.” 

A typical Trump post on his website, Truth Social, exploded on August 28, 2023: 

“It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING.

“If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they ‘knew nothing.” 

Such attacks led the Justice Department to increase the security detail for Smith from two to at least four deputy U.S. marshals on a 24-hour basis.

Many of Trump’s supporters believed that Smith was acting on behalf of President Biden to deprive Trump of the chance to run for the White House a third time.

The January 6 coup attempt proved beyond doubt his followers’ capacity for violence.

On November 14, 2023, the Justice Department urged a Washington, DC, appeals court to uphold the gag order against Trump in his federal election subversion criminal case. Prosecutors charged that Trump’s attacks on Smith and his family demonstrated why restrictions on Trump’s speech were necessary. 

“There has never been a criminal case in which a court has granted a defendant an unfettered right to try his case in the media, malign the prosecutor and his family, and …target specific witnesses with attacks on their character and credibility,” Smith’s team told the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing.

On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.     

About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen. 

Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.

Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.

At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.

Hitler used his time in prison to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—including the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of the Soviet Union. 

Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924

Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic. 

Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.

Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental 2016 biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….   

“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.” 

Thus, it isn’t just what happens that can influence the course of history. Often, it’s what doesn’t happen that has at least as great a result.

Consider:

It’s June 6, 1944, and the Allies have launched their long-expected attack on the French coast of Normandy. This is an all-out assault on Adolf Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall” to drive German armies out of the European countries they had conquered in 1940. 

“We can’t take any chances. I want the reserve panzers moved forward,” says Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of all German forces in France, to his subordinate commander, Major General Gunther Blumentritt. 

    Gunther Blumentritt       

“But we need permission from the Fuhrer’s headquarters,” replies Blumentritt.

And just as Blumentritt fears, permission is denied.

Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff of the Wehrmacht, refuses the request. He will not release the panzers without Hitler’s approval.

And the Fuhrer—who stayed up late at night and slept during much of the day—is still sleeping.

“This is history,” says Blumentritt to an aide. “We are living an historical moment. We are going to lose the war because our glorious Fuhrer has taken a sleeping pill and is not to be awakened. 

“Think of it, Kurt. We are witnessing something which historians will say is completely improbable. And yet it is true.”

And just as Bluemtritt predicted, defeat comes soon for the German forces in France. 

Future historians may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in destroying Constitutional government—and democracy—in the United States as what did.

Donald Trump

On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 81,283,495 votes, or 51.4% of the vote, compared to 74,223,755 votes, or 46.9% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.

In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.

From the moment Biden was declared the winner, Trump set out to overturn that verdict.

For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt. 

States ignored his demand and kept counting.

Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, falsely charging electoral fraud. Specifically:

• Illegal aliens had been allowed to vote.
• Trump ballots were systematically destroyed.
• A sinister computer program turned Trump votes into Biden ones.

Throughout November and December, 2020, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. None were supported by evidence of fraud—as even Trump’s lawyers admitted when questioned by judges.

On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.

In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots. 

By November 21, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.

Ultimately, from November 3 to December 14, 2020, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.