'Dystopian' future awaits as Trump moves closer to securing 2024 nomination: conservative

On November 30, the Washington Post published a Bob Kagan op-ed with the disturbing headline, "A Trump Dictatorship Is Increasingly Inevitable. We Should Stop Pretending." Kagan warned that 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has the makings of a full-fledged dictator — a premise that The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last totally agrees with in a December 4 column.

Despite the fact that he is facing four criminal indictments and a variety of civil lawsuits, Trump has huge leads over other GOP presidential candidates in poll after poll. A Messenger/HarrisX poll released on November 30 shows Trump ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 59 percent and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by 61 percent. And some polls of a hypothetical Trump/President Joe Biden matchup are showing Trump with small single-digit leads.

Last fears that Trump will grow even stronger as a presidential candidate in the months to come.

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"Once Trump is the nominee," Last explains, "then some percentage of Republicans who currently say they won't vote for him in a general election will change their minds. Confronted with him as their party's nominee, they will get onboard. The hope is that this will be offset as Democrats and independents, who said they wouldn't vote for Biden when Trump was a hypothetical, change their minds once Trump is the actual nominee."

The Never Trump conservative adds, "What's the net-net on that trade? We don't know. But I expect a bump for Trump in general election polling once he's the nominee."

Last views Biden-era 2023 as the calm before the storm, noting that the "dystopian" elements of a second Trump presidency would, according to ABC News' Jonathan Karl, range from "a cadre of thousands of political appointees, vetted for personal loyalty to Trump, replacing career civil servants" to "an overriding desire on the part of Trump to seek retribution against perceived enemies."

"Again, this is not science fiction," Last warns. "We're not talking about some hypothetical future a decade from now. Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. In November 2024, tens of millions of Americans will vote for him. The only uncertainty is whether or not he will eke out enough votes in a handful of states to carry the Electoral College.

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Read Jonathan V. Last's full column for The Bulwark at this link.