GOP voters are 'happily consuming' Trump's pro-dictatorship 'Kool-Aid': pollster

Kathleen Culliton
February 7, 2024 

Thousands of Trump supporters gather at the Supreme Court to show their support for President Trump after the election. (Shutterstock.com)

The majority of Republicans think a day of a Donald Trump dictatorship is probably a good idea, a new poll shows.

Trump’s controversial quip that he would be a dictator only on the first day of his second term is considered “definitely a good idea” by 35 percent of newly surveyed Republicans and “probably a good idea” by 39 percent, according to a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released Wednesday.

That means 74 percent of polled Republicans link the words “dictator” and "good,” poll co-director and UMass Amherst professor Alexander Theodoridis noted in a press release.

“Most rank-and-file Republicans,” Theodoridis added, “appear to continue happily consuming Donald Trump's Kool-Aid.”

The poll highlights a concerning campaign tactic of the former president’s, according to a Washington Post analysis.

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“Trump discovered that people liked the line — dictator for a day! — and so he has at times sprinkled it into his patter at rallies,” writes columnist Philip Bump. “That’s how his politics work: He angles for applause and, if the crowd likes something, it’s on the path to potential policy implementation.”

Bump notes the unlikelihood of a day-one dictatorship considering Trump’s documented troubles getting things done in the White House, as well as the U.S.'s system of checks and balances.

“He can’t be ‘dictator for a day’ except to issue mandates that could then be challenged in court,” Bump writes. “He can try to mandate that a wall be built on the border with Mexico, but he tried that when he was president, too.”

The Washington Post columnist argues Trump doesn’t have concrete plans, he just likes saying what his followers like to hear.

“Think of it less as a plan than as an aspiration,” Bump concludes. “One that most of his party views positively.”