Donald Trump is not electable for this very reason. The possibilities of a “worst thing” are enormous with Donald Trump as President – and they are a complete unknown. Literally anything might/could happen. It’s almost entirely up to one’s own imagination as to what he *might* attempt. But – it’s also why he is not electable.

• He’s never worked with or through a legislative process so his only visible “track record” on how he works with others is largely through litigation that’s happened in amassing (or losing) his inherited wealth.
• He can say, think or believe anything that captures the vivid imagination of “what-if” with a complete disregard to the reality or consequence of it.
• He’s not a true leader building toward any kind of national consensus – he’s a “my way” or “middle finger” power-broker playing a reincarnated role of John “Don” Gotti (an Italian-American mobster who became boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City).
• He’s a wealthy “brand” celebrity that knows how to appeal to an angry, disenfranchised mob.

P.T. Barnum said it best:

“Clowns are the pegs on which the circus is hung”

In the end, Donald Trump is really just a fantasy candidate with strong support from an emotional minority running for a position that doesn’t exist – King of America.

Looks like everyone who answered this question think Donald Trump can never become a true dictator.

In the spirit of provoking a more thoughtful and less boring conversation, let’s play Devil’s advocate. Let’s devise a plan, aptly titled:

“Donald Trump’s Hostile Takeover Plan of The United States of America or How Donald Trump Became The Dictator”.

1. Becomes POTUS. (Work in Progress)
2. The first 100 days: Play nice
   
   Play nice. Act bipartisan. Appoint your cabinet full of VIPs on both sides, and try to act as Presidential as possible.

   SOTU address: “See? I can be Presidential if I want to!  I can be nice! Those naysayers are just a bunch of idiots. But I can make them work! Let’s pass things, and let’s Make America Great Again!!!”

3. First year in office: Appeasement.
   
   Work around. Stall big packages. Pass small inconsequential acts, such as Women Are Nice Act, Men Celebration Day Act, Kill ISIS Act, et cetera.

   Make peace with Republicans, tell them: “I can work with you lot!”. Also make peace with Democrats, tell them: “See? I wasn’t so bad, right?”

   Going around the country promote yourself, saying “I did it! I made those stupid idiots work again! I will Make America Great Again! Watch me!”. Praise every teeniest little things you’ve done as revolutions, great, bipartisan, and so forth, and show off your great deal making skills. As long as you don’t try to do great things, you would fit right into Washington.

4. Second year in office: Revolt.

   Scrap the Appeasement plan.

   Fire your entire Cabinet. Appoint Trumpites. Fire the directors of CIA and FBI, nominate Trumpites. While you’re at it, fire your entire rooster of Generals and appoint Trumpites too.

   Try to pass Tax The Rich Act, Tax Cut For Poors Act, Health Care For All Act – best without Republican support.

   Try to pass Build The Wall Act. The Ban The Muslim Act. The Sue The Media Act. The Nuke ISIS Act. All will fail. But no matters.

   Go around the country, tell it to voters: “I wanted to make America Better for you! But those bums doesn’t want it to happen! They don’t want to make America Great! They want to give Mexicans your jobs, they want to give China your money, they want ISIS to kill you! Let’s complete our revolution, and let’s kick them out of office!(Point to a person who’ve sworn loyalty to you) Elect this guy! He is our guy! With his help, I can make America Great Again!”

   Most would think it’s just politic hyperbole as usual. Nothing to be overly cautious about – thinking, faced repeated legislation roadblocks, Trump would return to the more reasonable first year Trump.

   In the mean time, work in the background. Work the media, work the talk radio, anything. Threat, bribe, promise promotion, appointment, anything, to gain control of the two chambers of Congress. Use the CIA and FBI if necessary. Force people who are already there to swear loyalty to you, or face the threat of being primaried in the Midterm election. Audiotape that – in case they rat on you.

5. Third year in office: Hostile Takeover.

   Midterm Election. All House seats are up for grab. Angry Trumpites, thinking the only thing that stop Trump from making America Great Again is their House Representatives, went out in full force throughout the country. Trump initiated a hostile takeover of the surprised US House of Representative. Impeachment, which requires a simple majority vote in the House of Representative, is now no longer possible.

   Now, you are free to use the single most powerful authority of the executive branch:the power of executive clemency – the only executive power without any check and balance system.

   Next, raise a private army: the Trump Patriots, whose sole job is to intimidate people into doing Trump’s way, with violence, if necessary. Tell them:“Do whatever to make them do their job, give them a slight push if necessary. I’ll pardon you if you end up in jail, so feel free to do whatever you like! (wink wink!)”.

   By now, intimidated by the Trump Patriots, most senators or representatives are too scared to go against you. The few who dared, ended up beaten to submission or disappeared one by one.

   With Congress out of your way, pass your Acts. The Build The Wall Act. The Kick The Mexicans Act. The Ban The Muslim Act. The Ban The Media Act. The Nuke ISIS Act – then promptly nuke Syria.

   Declare Victory, tell your supporters: “We accomplished great things! We have done great things! But the revolution is not completed! America is not yet Great! We WILL take over the country! The States! The Senate! We Will Make America Ours Again!!!”

6. Fourth year in office: Total Domination.

   With a rampant Trump Patriots, voter intimidation and suppression, legislative victories after victories, and a fired up base, you are reelected with ease. The States and the Senate are now filled with Trumpites, Trump puppets, and cooperators; Trump can now do pretty much whatever he wants. Pass a Constitution Amendment to repeal the 22th Amendment, removing the term limit of a US president? Done. Pass a Constitution Amendment making him President For Life? Done. Pass a Constitution Amendment making speeches against Trump illegal? Done!

7. Dictatorship, and world domination. ./.

Well, that’s it. That would be The End. Mission Accomplished.

Of course, many of those things would be very hard to pull of. But if Trump can make himself the President of the United States, are you seriously in a position to doubt his capabilities?

So, think carefully. Does this plan scares you?

there are two major threats to the USA right now one is a war and the other is a repeat of the financial crisis. In the first instance Trump is more likely than any President in recent history to start one and in the second he is the least equipped to stop one.

Let’s just re-cap the financial crisis first. Amidst the flurry of headlines- TV presenters metaphorically losing their shit on live TV and footage of students camping outside buildings in tents living literally in their own shit  for reasons they couldn’t properly articulate-there were a number of disturbing observations that people didn’t seem to want to deal with.

Preeminent among them was that the cause of the crisis was quintessentially human in so far as that it was caused by a refusal to recognise that we, unlike most species not only doshit in our own backyard, we don’t even have the decency to bury our effluent after we are done squatting.

Glass Steagall was the response, one of several responses in fact, to the realization in 1929 that a single street in America had  turned everything so monumentally pear shaped that nothing short of a brutal global war was sufficient a fiscal stimulus to get things back on track.Together with the formation of the FCA, FDR created a system that, though not fool proof, was nevertheless robust enough to stave off the worst excesses of Wall Street.

Fast forward 70 years or so and deduct 5 IQ points from subsequent political leaders’ every time you pass Go. Political leaders got cold feet about keeping an eye on Wall Street. Oh Mitt Romney wanted to shut down Sesame Street which was a start I suppose but Sesame Street didn’t really have the power to make America look like a scene from the walking dead minus the zombies and Republicans couldn’t get the idea that the floundering economy was somehow Mr Snuffleupagus’ fault to stick.

The Republican sponsored repeal of Glass Leasing was happily singed off by life sized political Beanie-Baby Bill Clinton as one of his last acts of a Presidency that had become a Greek morality parable filled with lurid details about his sex life whilst real life fuck ups such as his decision to send every fifth American on a state paid vacation to an out of state correctional institute were given a pass. Still, nobody could have seen what happened next as long as by ‘nobody’ you mean everyone aside from those stupid enough to put their tongue on a wet electric fence.  You see it turned out that repealing legislation specifically designed to prevent a repetition of global financial catastrophe led to an almost immediate repeat of global financial catastrophe.  The political mathematics were so obvious that one can only assume that Clinton performed this act as some kind of nationwide hazing ritual in which millions of people lost their lifesavings and their homes in return for the dubious honor of being allowed to join Alpha Tau Omygod. The scale of the disaster was hard to comprehend since the numbers bandied about were almost as monolithic as Donald Trump’s ego but the final tally came in at $16.8 trillion dollars in government commitmentalone. The Big Bank Bailout

The actual cost to the economy was staggering and I can’t do the mathematics without becoming ‘clinically fed-up’ so I’ll skip that bit. What was left of the American economy only really worked for Republicans who love to point out that debt has increased under Obama. He did increase the debt its true but it was the result of actions that occurred on Bush’s watch and the whole thing was a bit like farting in a elevator on the third floor and blaming the ‘Black dude’ who got on on the seventh for the resulting funk. Indeed the backlash was similar to the effect of having a child projectile vomit onto a powered up desk fan and stank just as badly. Nobody went to prison; nobody was chastised; the reckless speculation at the heart of the crisis did not collapse the over leveraged companies. They were picked up, their thousand dollar suits were dusted down and they were told to never, ever, do it again cross their hearts and hope to die.

Which they took as a subtle hint to immediately start doing it again.

The problem is that the whole thing was consequence free. Imagine yourself at a casino with a thousand bucks in your pocket which by the way, just to make things interesting is your rent money. The highest amount you can win in one go is a straight up 35 to one by picking the right number. Rational people are unlikely to do that though because, you know, you’re probably going to lose. Instead you spread your bets out (if you bet at all, since that’s your rent money,) and with a little luck you might make a couple of bucks.
And just as you’re about to make the bet, who should walk in but your uncle Fred. He’s not your favorite uncle, more of a backup a ‘reserve’ if you will but one thing that you can say about Uncle Fred is that he’s got an awful lot of money.

“Have fun,” he tells you with a wink. “Spread your bets and bet small,” he adds. “Oh and by the way,” he says as he walks on by, “Don’t worry about your losses, I’ll cover them and it you need a top up well, I got that covered too.”

“Much obliged Uncle Fred,” you mutter with a salute as you place all your money, the deed to somebody else’s house, your wife’s supply of insulin and Michigan’s entire teacher pension fund on number 17.

Mr President  are you sure you want to put the entire defense budget on number 39 to win?

That’s the thing about human nature, we tend to push our luck and the only thing that restrains us is what is known as an asymmetrical loss function. It’s the reason why we set off to the airport a bit earlier than necessary because losing an hour sitting on the couch watching re-runs of Alf costs us less than missing our flight would. There’s no point in blaming the bankers, they’re just assholes. If every $5 lottery ticket paid back  a guaranteed $5-$10,000,000 we’d all spend out entire pay checks on them. So we have to accept human nature for what it is and place some restrictions on Wall Street, just to make sure that they don’t get carried away again because the USA literally cannot afford another meltdown.

The only presidential candidate who is promising to do anything about it is Sanders. Clinton is no more likely to curtail the activities of  her paymasters in Wall Street than I’m likely to stick my unmentionables in a powered up blender just to see what the breeze might feel like. The Republicans couldn’t see a financial crisis coming if it painted itself orange and burst into congress spewing depressed stock data-on-ticker tape out of it arse whilst screaming ‘The is what an economic meltdown painted orange looks like!”

And the only comfort  what’s left of the American middle class will receive, is that President Trump will take time off his sunbed to address the nation.

“My yellow Americans, I tell you the economy is just terrible, it’s a really nasty nasty economy. I’m the only one here who is self-funding his own fort to keep the food rioters out and I’ll tell you, I know how to build forts. And  I know how to do it cheap, so cheap, it’s going to be incredibly, incredibly cheap and it’s going to go up fast, like you won’t believe how fast I’m going to put it up. And Mexico is going to pay for my machine-gun towers too; who will pay for the towers that will gun you down like the pigs you are?… Oh that’s right I’m on TV”

“I could shoot your wife and you’d still vote for me, you’re that stupid and I love you so much and I love your wife but.. seriously, run.”

War.

International relations are actually a lot more complicated than you think. The USA is not all powerful despite what some might think and there are limits not only to what it can achieve but to what it can comfortably even talk about in terms of intentions. Ian Jackson’s answer to Are we not right on the edge of world war with the eruptions overseas recently?

The War on terror cost almost $6 trillion, 2 trillion of which was spent bullying a nation 1/12th  of the USA’s size and killing 152,000 Iraqi citizens in the process. Add that to the fiscal crisis and you find that the USA spent an ungodly $22.8 Trillion
that it really did not need to. That would have put you back in the black or you could
be in the same amount of debt and the USA could have given every single household in the USA $1,939,798 and 19 cents to play with.

You can’t just swagger into an international meeting looking like angioplasty discards in an expensive suit and start threatening to take all the world’s oil. That kind of talk will have the other nations storm off and chisel strongly worded letters on the sides of battleships. He’s going to ‘Go’ after ISIS and go after them hard! He’s going to kick their ass; nobody else can do this of course because they, unlike Trump have to consider certain things; cost, viability, consequences, logistics, causalities and of course the reaction of neighboring states. And the first time the British Prime Minister picks up the phone and respectfully tells a fuming Trump that the UK has
left NATO and sided with old enemy Russia in an attempt to stay out the shit storm in a tent he  just started, Trump will appear in front of the cameras again.

“My Mellow Americans, David Cameroon is a nasty guy, no really, he’s half Chinese and I think he’s a Muslim too. I told him I’m the only one funding my own bunker and I don’t think I get a lot of credit for that. Bush has spent $100,000,000 on his bunker and all he’s got is a hole with his mummy in it and a trampoline across the top; and Cameroon told me that I’m a whack job which is not a nice thing to say by the way. I told him to run back to her majesty who by the way I love, I love the Queen of England and I love the Queen of France too but this Dave guy, boy, that guy is just terrible, I get along with everyone but that guy? I don’t even think he is President of the Untitled Kingdom anyway; I tried to look him up in the White House directory and I don’t think the UK even has a President and even if they do he’s just terrible.”

This man just insulted the fucking Pope for crying out loud! What’s he going to do for an encore? I mean where can you go from there? Piss out Kennedy’s eternal flame? Deface Mandela’s grave? Perhaps he can outdo Mitt Romney and tear Big Bird to pieces with his bare hands?

Successful navigation of geopolitical crisis requires tact and patience and above all else, things need to be considered. Can you imagine Trump in the middle of something like the Cuban missile crisis? All I can tell you is that the radiation will reach Antarctica last so pack some thermals and I’ll see you on the ice flow.

Please follow me on Twitter Grownmangrumbles (@Grownmangrumble) on Twitte

Honestly? We would see the US Presidency reigned in to be more in line with its constitutional bounds.

If somebody like Donald Trump were to be elected president, I would expect many Republican-Democrat coalition groups to suddenly spring up to combat the absolutely inane policies that he frequently proposes. Whether they cost too much (building a wall to keep people out), would be engineering marvels (building a wall to keep people out), infringe on a person’s rights (marking people based on religion), or does something else terrible for the the country (insert harebrained idea here), expect people to come together.

That would mean these coalitions would move to the center, promoting good governance (thankfully) to combat the poor leadership from the White House. That would mean funding for reasonable, middle of the road policies, that would likely mean a reduction in defense spending so Trump doesn’t accidentally start a war, that would probably mean a commitment to actually setting the agenda for once rather than letting the president set it.

Honestly, that doesn’t sound so bad. But I may be painting too rosy of a picture.

Perhaps instead the Republicans in congress go along with President Trump and work toward his aims, shutting the Democrats (who likely won’t have a majority) out? I imagine we would see some pretty interesting policies pushed through and the public would quickly oust many sitting Republicans in favor of the Democrats in the midterm elections.

Would that lead to a more moderate, powerful Congress overall or would it instead cause party fighting over the next couple of years until the Democrats could put up a candidate to overthrow Trump? My money, honestly, would be on the latter.

Overall, though, I think there are enough checks that Congress and the Judiciary can put on the presidency to ensure that a Trump presidency would not be terrible for the United States. It would certainly be interesting to see the hard work of presidents since Teddy Roosevelt suddenly be pulled back as the legislative branch finally reined in the presidency’s growth.

1. First of all he has already offended the USA’s second biggest trading partner (Mexico)
2. He has offended the largest population on the world (China),  the country that should be the USA’s largest trading partner.
3. This will overnight drop the stock market,  and over months drop jobs
4. He might build a $6 Billion dollar wall protecting against the Mexican threat. (There is a net migration loss from the US to Mexico over the last decade,  Mexicans have lower per population rape and murder rates)
5. If he can be that wrong about such simple-to-check data,  imagine how incompetent he might be when making decisions about the many other decisions.
6. He will continue to propose war crimes
7. He will continue to offend other nationalities.
8. His rhetoric will inflame and encourage people to hate America more.
9. He would order more torture,  more bombing and more drone strikes. This will be the most effective recruitment method for ISIS. Eg if enough brothers,  children and wives are killed then even more people will hate America.
10. He will offend the second largest religion in the world (Islam) with gleeful stories about bullets dipped in pigs blood etc.  this will also reduce jobs as well as break relations with more countries.
11. He will weirdly deny Climate Change. This will continue to damage the world economy due to more disasters,  it will be a security issue also as the Pentagon has warned. (much of the 3rd gen terrorists are encouraged by poverty due to harvest issues). He will not support the thriving Solar Industries which has grown the GDP.
12. His current “best managers” are doggedly committed to profit over ethics. Corruption would be mainstream in the USA.
13. Diplomatically the US would be the laughing stock of the International community. He would have no respect.
14. He has bankrupted and failed so many times,  the chance that he suddenly learns to be competent seems absurd.
15. He has no understanding of  International matters.  He has no experience of politics. He is hated by the Republican party. It is unlikely he could get much done. What direction he gives would be idiotic tasks (eg item 1)
16. He is so far over his head as a property investor, he will be immensely out of his depth even as a Senator. But what worries me most is his abject lack of a grasp onto reality,  that would not end well.
17. He has said he would nuke places. The Army has said if ordered they would rebel against his statements. This is nice but represents even more extreme issues of no chain of command.
18. He would offend and incite North Korea without understanding the cultural issues of saving face / forcing a response.