Concerns that a second Donald Trump term could take an iron-fisted turn have been amplified by Trump himself. Instead of refuting reports that have warned of his authoritarian aspirations for a return to the White House, Trump has now declared twice that he’ll act as a “dictator” — clarifying he’d only need such powers on “Day One.”
The former president’s dictator shtick has generated an enthusiastic response from his right-wing boosters — ranging from those who insist the president is just trolling the left, to others who have revealed that they are strongman-curious, to extremist voices who are now clamoring for Trump to use such powers to take bloody vengeance on his enemies — or as one denizen of online forum TheDonald put it: “RETRIBUTION MOTHERFUCKERS.”
Several prominent Trump loyalists have insisted Trump’s “dictator” remarks were cleverly designed to send liberals into twist. MAGA columnist Raheem Kassam wrote that Trump’s original remarks to Sean Hannity broke the back of a narrative intended to smear the former president. “In one fell swoop, thousands of lines of text, dozens of headlines, hours of television … and days of ‘brainstorming’ at editorial meetings were turned on their head,” Kassam wrote. “The idea that Trump could become a dictator? A joke. ‘Only on day one.’”
This take was promoted by the pardoned former general and prospective second-term White House insider, Mike Flynn, who posted Kassam’s column on Telegram, writing: “We’re winning, they’re losing.” In a similar vein, ex-congressman and Trump ally Devin Nunes put the cheeky hashtag “#dictator” on a Truth Social post promoting a piece in the publication American Greatness purporting to dismantle “The Liberal Media’s Desperate New ‘Trump Will be a Dictator’ Narrative.”
On Monday afternoon, Trump himself encouraged this interpretation, posting on Truth Social that he was just joshing. He rebuked the “failing” New York Times for coverage of his dictator remarks that didn’t capture his “joking manner” or his vow to use such powers “only for a day, because I’m going to close the Border, and DRILL, DRILL, DRILL.’” Trump suggested that a these twists gave the remarks “a much different attitude and meaning!”
But in our sarcastic age, jokes about fascism have a tendency to provide cover for the real thing. “Irony has a strategic function,” the researcher Alice Marwick has argued of contemporary extremism. “It allows people to disclaim a real commitment to far-right ideas while still espousing them.” Indeed, Trump has made similar “jokes” in the past — including about flouting the Constitution’s presidential term limits — which likewise provoked alarm about his contempt for America’s checks and balances.
If Trump was in fact joking, the jest landed on a slippery slope with several members of the MAGA commentariat. These figures toyed with the idea that an American authoritarian might not be such a bad thing. In a Truth Social post, Trump loyalist Laura Loomer first insisted “‘Dictator Trump’ is nothing more than a MEME.” But upon reflection she added: “I was thinking about it, and ‘Dictator Trump’ doesn’t sound so bad. I honestly wouldn’t mind. Sounds like a good way to Make America American again.”
Jack Posobiec, another Trump influencer, also toyed with the virtue of a short-term Term dictatorship, tweeting: “One day is all he needs. Just 24 hours. Is that so much to ask?” Gavin Wax, the executive director of the New York Young Republicans gala, where Trump repeated his call for dictatorship on Saturday, insisted he was “fully supportive of President Trump becoming dictator for one day” as long as Trump would continue to work with Wax’s group “on getting the best staging and optics.”
If these prominent pro-Trump voices were treating a MAGA dictatorship as a playful thought experiment, Trump’s fiercest boosters in the online fever swamps were salivating at the kind of violent retribution a true dictatorship could enable.
TheDonald is a fiercely pro-Trump forum, founded on (and later banned from) Reddit. Now hosted at Patriots.win, it bills itself as “the community of choice for President Donald J. Trump” — and a place for “high energy” boosterism of the MAGA movement. In practice, TheDonald serves to surface the darkest expressions of the MAGA will to power.
On a trio of threads about Trump’s dictatorial ambitions, commenters from TheDonald were bloodthirsty and hyped. “I’m so delighted that they’re already so terrified,” wrote user “Cozette” of left-leaning critics of Trump’s authoritarianism — insisting these Americans are “vampires” with “nowhere to hide” and imploring Trump to “Stake ‘em Dono.”
A commentator named “Goose_Goose” wrote on another thread: “They know they deserve his wrath,” to which user “HugeChimp” rejoined: “RETRIBUTION MOTHERFUCKERS.” A third thread featured poster “JustYourImagation” insisting of Trump: “At this point, he’s earned the right to do some dictating,” leading “NonbinaryPotatohead” to reply: “I’m all for retribution.”
Such dark comments escalated quickly. One user suggested that if Trump “really wanted to go nuclear,” he could invoke the Militia Act to call up fighting-aged men “against domestic enemies.” User “JoeBidensDementia1” then insisted: “He could also start arresting, imprisoning, and executing people, and I’d be okay with it.”
Finally, user “NASDAQ” doubled down on this call to state violence — advocating an even more sweeping solution for Trump’s enemies. “I wish he would embrace it” — that is, being a dictator — “and bulldoze them all into a ditch, and bury them alive.”
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