Things could end very badly for MAGA leaders 

By Jon Hochschartner

As far as I can tell, the ongoing constitutional crisis in the United States will end in one of two ways. The first is that President Donald Trump and his staff, the leaders of the Make America Great Again movement, will succeed in consolidating power and turning this country into a fascist state. The second is that they will fail and subsequently be exiled, imprisoned, or killed. I’m betting the second outcome is what happens.

The white supremacist pseudo-intellectual Curtis Yarvin appeared to see the writing on the wall in a recent blog post where the author confessed he was considering fleeing the country. Yarvin, it should be noted, has the ear of powerful conservative figures, like Vice President J.D. Vance, and right-wing mega donors Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. Members of Trump’s White House would do well to heed his words.

“The second Trump revolution, like the first, is failing,” Yarvin wrote. “Because the vengeance meted out after its failure will dwarf the vengeance after 2020 — because the successes of the second revolution are so much greater than the first — everyone involved with this revolution needs a plan B for 2029. And it is not even clear that it can wait until 2029: losing the Congress will instantly put the administration on the defensive.”

Obviously, I dispute Yarvin’s characterization of what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. If President Joe Biden had held Trump and his fascist cronies accountable, we wouldn’t be in the situation we are now. But Yarvin is correct that, going forward, there must and will be legal consequences for those gangsters currently in the White House, trying to end democracy in the United States.

They would be doing themselves and the country a great favor if they left now for exile in Russia, Hungary, or another authoritarian right-wing state from which they have found inspiration. If they don’t, they will ultimately lose power and go to prison. If, in an effort to avoid this, they try to impose a fascist dictatorship, I fear they may be killed in the ensuing violence. It would be unfortunate, but not unsurprising.

I’m reminded of how their ideological forebears, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, met their ends. Of course, the German dictator killed himself with a gunshot to the head after it became clear the Soviet Union would take Berlin. The Italian strongman, on the other hand, was captured and summarily shot by communist partisans. Both of these fates are a long way from dying of old age, happily in bed.

The modern anti-fascist coalition has a wide variety of policy goals. For instance, as animal activist, I want to see a massive infusion of state and federal funding into cultivated-meat research. The new protein is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. I view this as the most promising means of reducing nonhuman suffering and premature death. But none of our goals can be achieved under a right-wing dictatorship.

I strongly urge those in the Trump White House to turn away from their present authoritarian course. Yes, they will be held accountable for their crimes, but violence, which has the potential to engulf everyone, very much including themselves, need not be necessary. Alternatively, these fascists could go into exile, while they have a chance, in a country sympathetic to their particularly dangerous strain of conservatism.

Jon Hochschartner lives in Connecticut. He is the author of a number of books, including The Animals’ Freedom Fighter: A Biography of Ronnie Lee, Founder of the Animal Liberation Front. Visit his blog at SlaughterFreeAmerica.Substack.com.