Bad news, people: President Trump is plotting to become dictator for life. Maybe.
At least, that was the theory floated this week by NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who claims the U.S. president may have plans to split the world three ways with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
What a downer:
Beschloss’ theory is based partly on Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Putin this week as well as the president’s frequent jokes about seizing more power.
“[W]e always have to be suspicious” when presidents kid about embracing authoritarianism, the historian told MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow. “Maybe in his mind, it is not such a joke.”
In reference to the White House staffer who apparently leaked that Trump was told by his team not to congratulate Putin, Maddow said, “There is at least one person in the White House in a national security role who is basically trying to pull the fire alarm here. To alert the public to his actions.”
Beschloss argued further that there’s a big difference between having a good relationship with a foreign dictator, like former President Franklin Roosevelt had with Joseph Stalin, and recognizing an extremely dubious sham election, like Russia’s 2018 presidential race.
“Even if you have presidents like FDR dealing with someone like Stalin, with whom he didn’t exactly all the time disagree … He wasn’t always in lockstep saying Stalin was wonderful all the time. Donald Trump never criticizes Putin,” Beschloss said, adding that Trump is, “so pro-Russian he can barely even see.”
“We always have to ask why is this happening, some people say maybe Putin has something, the Russians have something on Trump. I think it may be something else,” he added. “This is a month when two leaders became leaders for life.”
He is referring, of course, to China moving to remove term limits and Putin scoring his fourth consecutive six-year term.
“President Trump also talks about this ‘America First,’ with this idea that maybe the Chinese will have a sphere of influence, the Russians will have their sphere of influence, and we’ll have ours,” Beschloss said. “He joked about being president for life, Donald Trump did, said it was a joke. I think we always have to be suspicious that maybe in his mind, it is not such a joke.”
“That is dark,” Maddow said, nodding solemnly.
It is indeed dark. It also doesn’t speak well to one’s confidence in the system of governance established by the Founding Fathers when one entertains the possibility that a man as politically illiterate as Trump could actually wrestle control from the other two branches.
Then again, Trump appears to have made everyone crazy.
