Who (or What) Will Stop Trump?
January 23, 2026
Photo by Carson Daniel
Normally, when a president is a card-carrying pedophile protector; an inside-trading stock jobber; an obstruction-of-justice hall of famer; a lifetime subscriber in the emolument-of-the-month club; and a godfather of both Icemen and the hangmen of Mike Pence, there would be no shortage of candidates to bring him down—from the House Judiciary Committee to the Supreme Court. Keep in mind that it was the nudge from mainline Republican senator Hugh Scott that got President Richard Nixon to leave by the back door (as he was proclaiming that “my mother was a saint”).
For the moment, Thirty-Four-Felon Trump lives under his own Immunity Golden Dome, which means that no one or nothing can touch him. He can shake down the Qataris for a plane or deposit Venezuelan oil revenue in his private checking account, and no one in power will say “boo.” From history, we do know that someone will stop him, one of these days. But who?
The Epstein Victims
You have to admire their determination and courage, to stand in front of klieg lights or sit on Oprah-like stage sets and recount endless abuse at the hands of white men in suits or golf pants. Already there are dozens willing to testify, which means that another legion remains in hiding, horrified at the prospect of bringing down the world’s press on their doorsteps, so that they can recount more lurid tales of a massage-table kind. I don’t doubt that all of them are telling the truth, including what they are saying about Ep-bestie Donald J. Trump. But as the only one held responsible for such a worldwide procurement ring is a white, middle-aged British woman, I am guessing that the victims lack the institutional muscle to bring Trump down (and slut-shaming helped to keep the Clintons in power).
Venezuelan Hot Money in Qatar
You might think funneling Venezuela’s oil revenue through a personal checking account in Qatar (do the checks have a little drawing of the purloined 747?) might raise conflict-of-interest questions from money-laundering watchmen or at least trigger a few FNBAR reports. Instead it seems almost like a patriotic mission to throw a Latin American drug runner in the trunk of your helicopter and then claim his juice as your own. Moreover, as Qatar has replaced Cyprus as Russia’s offshore banking center, you might think that someone in official Washington would have a few questions about whether Trump’s Caracas rendition was so that Venezuelan oil can be sold (via Qatar) to his Gaza buddy, Vladimir Putin. Alas, this is not John le Carré’s Cold War, and the MAGA Republican Party could not care less that a Manchurian candidate is tearing down the White House.
NATO-nians in Davos
I know, by the time you get to the bottom of that third IPA, Davos must look like the reincarnation of the Trilateral Commission (as Casey Stengel would say, “You can look it up”). On the ground in eastern Switzerland, however, it’s nothing more than a gathering of Elks, Rotarians, or Lions, writ large. At this week’s lodge meeting, there was, briefly, a hostage situation, in which a deranged man, claiming to be president of the United States, rushed the stage and talked about taking over Greenland and Iceland. Sometimes he whispered into the mic (like some fare-jumper on the New York City subway) and at other times he issued crazed threats against Europe. In the end the Nato-nians gave him a few hugs and cheeseburgers, and the crisis was averted. But last I heard, Interpol had said he could return to the United States (where there seem to be no laws against holding a country hostage).
The U.S. Constitution, Impeachment, and Congressional Republicans
There are no shortages of clauses in the American Constitution on which to impeach Donald Trump for abuse of power or to convict him for using high office to enrich himself and his family. By his own admission or those around him, in the last year he’s raked in some $1.5 billion (by threatening tariffs, and then calling them off after accepting sweetheart deals for resort developments, land for golf courses, investments in meme coins, or some crypto shenanigan, etc.). And the reported $1.5 billion in backhanders strikes me as low, as it probably does not include the $40 million that Amazon paid Melania for her home movies or Trump’s inside-trading haul at Trump Media, now worth a cool $2.4 billion (even though he invested nothing in the company except his grammatically-compromised social media posts). Though the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution is clear—“And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”—congressional Republicans seem to think its fine having a president on numerous foreign payrolls (no doubt because some of them are too).
The 25th Amendment
Don’t hold your breath that a majority of the cabinet along with the scheming, eye-lining Vice President JD Vance will vote to conclude that Trump “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Besides, to overturn such a palace coup, all Trump would need to do is deliver to Congress a second letter (Stephen Miller could even draft it) to the effect that “he’s fine now…thanks for asking.” Besides, why would a cabinet of billionaires (as French novelist Honoré de Balzac liked to say: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime…”) get rid of its get-out-of-jail-card-free?
The Midterm Elections and the Democrats
The great white hope of reviving American democracy is the idea that come November 2026, the Democrats can “take back” the House and possibly the Senate. Keep in mind that these are the same Democrats who in the last three presidential elections gave us Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris by putting its thumbs on the scales of the electoral process. (Hillary ran unopposed until Bernie showed up, almost by accident; Obama nominated Joe, then in fifth place in the primaries; Kamela was given the nomination without so much as a straw poll.) Now we are to believe that the same crowd will take down Trump? Even with the House in Democratic hands, are we sure that it will lead Trump to a stockade?
The Gaza Board of Peace
“Member for Life” Trump has invited the likes of Messrs. Netanyahu, Erdoğan, Putin, Orbán, and Lukashenko to join him on the so-called Gaza Board of Peace (Med-a-Largo but maybe without the Village People). To be admitted to such a club, you need to put up $1 billion in pay-to-play fees (it’s not clear whether that’s for Trump or Gaza, but you can be sure that the routing number on the transfer will be to a Qatari bank). Clearly, to be considered for the board, you need to show on your CV that you have destroyed a few countries. Other committees of the board are loaded with Trump remittance men and errand boys (i.e., Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner). As with the Kennedy Center, no doubt one of the goals will be to rename the occupied land “The Trump Strip,” and its model will be some extra-territorial “zone” or free city beyond the reach of banking, UN, NATO, or ICC laws, for the kleptocratic ruling classes whenever they are chased into exile. Trump’s presence on the peace board at least suggests (much as suitcases full of gold used to) that he’s making retirement plans, in case the Icemen cometh for him.
The Dementia of Father Time
More than perhaps they should, the Democrats are hoping that Trump’s addled mind will flip the government. The problem with the insanity defense in this case—accurate as it might be—is that the Democrats were prepared to suit up Joe Biden for the 2024 election, despite his obvious mental impairments. The other precedent on Trump’s side is that Republicans guided the demented Ronald Reagan through his entire second term, allowing him the occasional joke or sound bite, but otherwise consigning him to this California ranch, where he spent a lot of time “clearing brush”. Don’t forget, too, that Trump’s dementia is a godsend for his team of rival mediocrities—the likes of Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who otherwise would not be given the keys to a cabinet-level car. Does not everyone in the Trump government have some story of him interrupting a cabinet meeting to stare at the snow or to talk to the rabbits? (“And I get to tend the rabbits…”) Of course they do, as does now the NATO leadership, Anchorage’s own Vladimir Putin, and the Davos 500, but in these cases dementia is doing their bidding. In so many ways, Trump is a straw man.
Would Heather Digby Parton Prefer Hitler Atop the US Empire?
Image by Kadir Celep.
So what’s worse than a fascist atop world history’s most lethal superpower in the middle of an ecological catastrophe led by that superpower in an increasingly anarchic world loaded with thermonuclear weapons capable of blowing up the planet many times over?
According to Salon writer Heather Digby Parton, the answer to this question is Donald Trump atop that superpower.
Parton claims that, to quote the title of a recent Salon essay, “Trump is something worse than a fascist.” Trump, Parton argues, is about “tyranny,” not fascism, because: (a) he has “no concept” of what “the rule of law” and “our system of checks and balances” are and (b) Trump “operates purely out of greed and self-regard” and thinks “he can do anything he wants,” including turning the White House into a vehicle for expanding his own vast personal fortune.
“This,” Parton says, “is not ideology at work…He is a tyrant…[with] no belief in anything but himself.”
This is a bad argument, one that I first took down in the fourth chapter (titled “The Anatomy of Fascism Denial”) of my 2021 book This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America.
Parton’s thesis is undone by four key problems.
First, notwithstanding his brazenly avaricious, malignant narcissism, fascist ideology has long been written all over the Hitler-admiring ogre Donald “Poisoning Our Blood” Trump’s statements, policies, and actions from his 2025-16 campaign to the present day. This is something that I and many other commentators and scholars have been reporting on at great and detailed length for years.
Trump indirectly approved Zohran Mamdani’s description of Trump as a fascist last November with good reason. Trump himself and not just “fascistic and authoritarian people around him” (Parton’s words) has long checked off key fascist boxes, including these: genocidal racism, militant misogynist patriarchy, xenophobic nationalism, palingenetic ultra-nationalism, obsessive anti-Leftism, the embrace of political violence, all wrapped up in a project for a new dictatorial form of governance trumping previously normative bourgeois democracy and rule of law with the rule of force and violent men.
Second, anyone with a reasonably informed understanding of fascism’s history knows that fascist regimes have been headed by tyrannical narcissists who believe madly in their own superior vision and excellence (the ultimate fascist dictator, Adolph Hitler, was very much like that, to say the least). They do nearly all the things Parton has Trump doing in support of her false-dichotomous thesis that Trump is a tyrant, not a fascist: mocking and demeaning their predecessors atop the government; persecuting and prosecuting their political enemies; rejecting and violating domestic and international law and basic morality; unleashing brutal gendarmes to “batter immigrants and citizens;” claiming that their fear-generating terror and repression is “for the common good,” “ginning up one phony crisis after another” to justify their dictatorial moves; “ruling by threats and extortion.”
Third, while it is certainly true that the billionaire parasite Trump is personally venal in ways that differentiate him from far more deeply ideological, doctrinal, intellectual, and messianic fascists Mussolini and Hitler, there has been ample room for Trump to combine egoistic avarice with fascist beliefs and actions (including the appointment of doctrinal fascists like Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Russell Vought to top regime posts). At the same time, the classic fascist regimes of the past all practiced a form of gangster capitalism marked by corrupt capitalist dealings behind the scenes. That Trump himself is one of the top capitalist gangsters in the 21st Century US version of fascist rule is no anomaly for the notion that he and his regime are fascist.
Fourth, it is a complete mystery how any of what Parton claims to make Trump “not a fascist” is somehow worse than fascism”! Does Parton mean to suggest that real, bona fide fascism contains a virtuous commitment to the common good by comparison with Trump’s supposed non-ideological greed, narcissism, and depravity? Does Parton think fascism is a lesser evil compared to Trump’s epic selfishness? Would Parton prefer a more completely ideological and messianic fascist madman like Hitler – a purer fascist for whom Fatherland and the racialized war against “Judeo-Bolshevism” completely trumps lining one’s own pockets – atop the US Empire? Would she prefer Stephen “We are the Storm” Miller as US president?
If anything, Parton’s argument that Trump is all ego and avarice and therefore (supposedly) not fascist would seem to suggest that he could be narcissistically drawn to step back towards some measure of law-abiding decency and democracy if doing so could be shown to be in the interests of his wealth and image.
That step back will not likely occur given how far the orange-brushed tyrant has already gone down the fascist highway to Hell, and because of how well that trajectory reflects his fascist character and world view.
On a positive note, Parton does say this: “Many Americans have finally wrapped their minds around the idea that we are dealing with a presidency and political movement that can be defined as authoritarian, and even fascist” – a curious statement given her overall argument. And even if she wrongly rejects the organization Refuse Fascism’s understanding of Trump (as well as the broader Trump regime) as fascist, Parton’s essay seems usefully aligned with RF’s essential slogan: TRUMP MUST GO NOW! As I have been saying all year, it’s a mistake to deny that Trump is a fascist but one does not have to accept that description of the 47th POTUS to agree that his immediate removal from power is an urgent existential necessity.
During the last year of the Trump45 regime, the esteemed left intellectual Noam Chomsky engaged in wrongheaded denial of Trump’s fascist essence even as he properly observed (mainly on ecological grounds) that Trump was “the most dangerous criminal in human history.” That description came during the first eco-fascist Trump presidency, which now looks mild compared to the second one. Surely anyone who is “worse than a fascist” and who has been judged “the most dangerous criminal in human history” by a thinker like Chomsky must be removed from power as soon as humanly possible!
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