What if these things didn't happen to Trump? By Hal M. Brown

One big thing and two smaller things we can't know that could have stopped Trump's hellbent dismantling of democracy if they never happened.

I’ll take the big thing first. What if Trump hadn’t lost the election? The term “the big lie” wouldn’t have existed except in books, movies, TV shows, and when one spouse finds out that the other has been having a secret affair for years.

Had he won Trump wouldn’t have spent four years convincing a large segment of population that Biden’s winning the election was a big lie. He wouldn’t have been spending four years seething inside at the utter humiliation of losing and inciting rage among his cult. Obviously there would have been no assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6th.

Trump would have reentered office having learned that he had to pick people who were utterly loyal to him since he’d learned that to do otherwise major parts of his agenda would be modified or derailed. Whether these people would have been less extreme and more qualified than those he picked this time is open to speculation, but it is possible.

Considering that Project 2025 was published in 2023, it wouldn’t have been an actual carefully designed blueprint for turning the government into an autocracy, even though the authors would have been available to advise Trump.

Musk bought Twitter in 2022 so it is possible he wouldn’t even be in the picture today.

When it came to winning the election, I wonder what would have happened if the person shooting at him in assassination attempt at the Pennsylvania rally had missed completely. There never would have been that bloody ear fist raised photo. That was the best commercial for a product in the history of advertising. It was all the Marlboro Man ads rolled into one. The “Where’s the Beef” ads helped Wendy’s compete with McDonalds. That one photo without a slogan screamed “the beef is here.” Trump would have won without this, but it sure helped make both him feel invulnerable, and led others to think he was ordained by God to be president.

A major psychological factor, in fact, the major factor that drives Trump today besides his need to be the greatest and most feared king in history, is his need to exact revenge against all of his enemies. From actual people to nameless immigrants, he relishes being able to make them suffer. Not all malignant narcissists are also sadists, but Trump is. He has appointed people who, to varying degrees, have a sadistic streak like Tom Homan and Kash Patel.

This leads me to my other “what ifs.”

Two things happened that shook him to the core but in very different ways. The worst for him was the E. Jean Carroll trial. Day after day he had his freedom taken away and had to sit in a hot courtroom where the only thing he had to be thankful for was that the trial wasn’t televised. There still were unflattering drawings of him from courtroom artists. Donald J. Trump who never was forced to be anywhere he didn’t want to be had to be in that courtroom for days on end. The only good thing to come out of that trial for him was the mugshot which ended up on dozens of t-shirts and mechandise.

Trump had to be sitting there thinking about becoming president again and getting back at everyone who ever dared to cross the king. He probably thought about having E. Jean Carroll, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, and Judge Kaplan hung in a televised execution on the White House lawn.

Instead he spent the years until the election with the resentment festering and building inside.

The other thing that happened that caused Trump to have his sense of omnipotence upturned was the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, what he assumed was the king’s impenetrable fortress. The FBI even found sensitive documents in his bedroom.

Consider how he must have felt knowing that armed agents were violating his personal domain.

The meaning of the proverbial phrase “revenge is a dish best served cold” is that taking revenge at a later date is more satisfying that enacting it immediately.

Taking revenge later means you have time to premeditate your revenge to perfection instead of acting in haste. The saying means that the longer you wait to take revenge, the more satisfying it is when you do. (Reference)

Now after years of preparing for this day, Trump is able to serve his revenge dishes piping hot.

Mafia Godfather Don Corleone said, "Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold." We now have a Mafia kingpin running our country.

(Reference)

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