Back in August I wrote a piece here in Salon about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and how it was a mistake for liberals to laugh too much about them. At the time, we were mostly concerned with his signature plan to deport over 11 million people and build his “big beautiful wall” with a “big beautiful door” and have Mexico pay for it. His rhetoric was crude and demeaning, as he theatrically accused undocumented workers of being violent criminals constantly referring to the murder of “beautiful Kate” and the rape and sodomy of an elderly white women to illustrate the threat.
He had also vividly shown his colors at that point with his daily evocation on the stump of Bowe Bergdahl, whom he called a “dirty, rotten, traitor” who would have been summarily executed back in the day “when we were strong.” He promised to make our military so strong our heads would spin and he declared himself a big second amendment person. He promised to “renegotiate deals” with every country in the world to get a better result for America although he was vague about exactly what that meant beyond complaining about all the foreign cars he allegedly sees coming off of ships in American ports.