Yes, earlier this year, Donald Trump suggested that he might indeed run for a third term in office. There are methods which you could do it, he said, and when it came to considering the possibility, insisted he was not joking.
More recently, hes acknowledged the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which doesn't allow a president to run for a third term. As he put it, If you read it, its pretty clear, I'm not allowed to run. Its too bad. Still, even having said that, he added, Based on what I read, I guess I'm not allowed to run. So, well see what happens. Yes, indeed, I guess we will indeed see what happens. After all, you can still buy a red Trump 2028 baseball cap at the Trump store for a mere $50. (It has this sales line: The future looks bright! Rewrite the rules with the Trump 2028 high crown hat. Fully embroidered with a snap closure in the back, this will become your new go-to hat.) And he did proudly post photos of two of those hats sitting on his desk during a meeting with congressional leaders in the Oval Office while negotiating over the recent government shutdown.
And yes (as well), we still have more than three years to go in the second term in office of the man who might be considered the most unpredictable president, moment by moment, in American history. So, in truth, anything might still happen. And were such a thing to happen or, for that matter, were JD Vance to run and win the presidency the next time around, I wouldn't want to predict what kind of America we might find ourselves in, except to say that it would undoubtedly be unnervingly, disturbingly unpredictable. And with that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino consider this country in 2025 in the context of her past experiences in a land, Russia, that under Vladimir Putin had indeed gone truly autocratic.
Her piece is a good (if grim) reminder of how much it matters that we Americans who fear such a third term go into the streets of this country regularly to ensure that an American president never becomes yes! a king. Tom
Welcome to Donald Trumps U.S.A.
On Being Female in a Potentially Fascist Country
Its strange so many years later, in the United States of America, to feel as if Im living in a country threatening to become like the Russia of Vladimir Putin that I spent years experiencing earlier in this century.To start, let me tell you a little something about that.
For decades as a young adult, I lived and traveled in Russia. I was an anthropology doctoral student and human rights worker, studying the effects of President Vladimir Putin's centralizing policies and that country's Christian nationalist media on the everyday lives of Russians. In one of my last projects, I investigated the governments practice of separating kids with disabilities (and poorer kids generally) from their parents and detaining them in closed institutions. My report detailed how much changes in society when the government excludes swaths of the population from basic services like healthcare, education, and even just access to city streets. The answer? Everything.
That marginalization was part of a governing process aimed at further enriching the wealthiest few and those in power. It reflected the leadership of figures lacking a basic understanding of what all people need and deserve. I consider that a hallmark of a fascist regime.
One of my last evenings in Russia was a chilly November night in 2014 in the northern city of St. Petersburg. Mothers and children, grandparents and teenagers alike stepped with care to avoid slipping on black ice and bumping into (and possibly falling thanks to) large plastic advertisements for fast food, clothing, cosmetic dentistry, plastic surgery, and even IVF treatments sticking up like weeds on the cobblestoned sidewalks of the city's center.
Those glowing placards seemed to replace what had once been a slew of different kinds of people when I first traveled to Russia as a college student in the late 1990s. In the same central train stations of that city, old women then sold carrots and beets from cardboard boxes they had lugged from their country homes. Young women could sometimes be seen in bikinis and stiletto heels (even in that weather!) with beer advertisements scrawled across their chests. Uzbek and Tajik men scrambled to finish construction on new stores, restaurants, and apartment buildings before winter set in. Roma mothers, their babies strapped to their backs in jewel-toned scarves, begged for money for food and housing.
Sometimes, when traffic grew too congested for their liking, Russia's newly rich aptly dubbed New Russians in the country's popular press drove their luxury Mercedes and BMWs onto the sidewalks, forcing pedestrians like me, along with mothers pushing strollers and a few wind-worn men and women hurrying to work, to scatter in panic. Despite the chaos and a significant amount of deprivation (more on that later), for many I met then, much seemed possible, including working for ever larger companies, migration, and new luxuries. Electronic remixes of Western songs like If I Were a Rich Girl and Cher's Believe blasted from vendors tinny sounding boom boxes on repeat.
By the time of my last trip to Russia in 2014, however, shiny buildings had been built, older ones renovated, and developers with close ties to Russia's political elite were even richer, thanks to the country's growing oil wealth. Roma (or gypsy) families were no longer anywhere to be seen, as St. Petersburg's government had conducted purges of the city's informal Roma settlements. Nor were old women selling their wares on the streets, while Central Asian migrants from poorer countries to Russia's south seemed ever fewer and less visible during the busiest times. Indeed, local authorities were rounding them up and detaining them without warrants, based on appearance and language alone. (Sound familiar?)
Having spent years interviewing families who could no longer access this new cityscape with their kids who used wheelchairs or were blind or deaf, all I could think was: I'm lucky to be able to go home to the United States.
That last night in 2014, I was also nearing the end of the first trimester of my first pregnancy. I rubbed my still barely visible baby bump as I spotted an old friend from St. Petersburg who was waiting to meet me for dinner at a nearby cafe. As I sat down with her, a waitress approached our table.She noted my American accent and told me with gentle, motherly scorn that I shouldn't be traveling while pregnant. As if on cue, stomach cramps made me double up. After a trip to the restroom revealed that I was bleeding, I started to wonder if the waitress had been right. Was it possible that my relentless travel had caused me to miscarry and in a country where I knew women sometimes faced withering criticism and blame for poor pregnancy outcomes? Just stay with me until I go home, I implored the baby I carried.
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