Transcription
Hey everyone, me Kevin here.
Yesterday, I quoted folks saying that some people think Donald Trump is a dictator. I think either people who were half listening—fortunately, it’s a very small percentage of folks—or some people who just can’t afford to even remotely pay attention apparently thought that I was calling Donald Trump a dictator. They misunderstood that I was quoting another group of folks.
So, what I thought I would do is just make a very clear video, and we’re just going to call it a message to everyone worried about Donald Trump being a dictator. See, Democrats are worried that Donald Trump is going to remain in power forever and that he’s going to be an evil dictator. They think he’s got all the control in the world, and therefore, you’re basically screwed. You’ve got dictator Trump, and that’s it.
What I thought I would do is start with a quick personal message sort of on where my POV is coming from, and then we’re going to talk about what is a dictator and how that fits into what actually is happening in America. I think this is very useful.
So, the quick personal note is this: and this is just a note to my audience. I personally consider myself socially liberal and fiscally conservative. A lot of people have used that phraseology before; this is not very much of a surprise. But in English, basically, I want a balanced budget. I don’t want crime. I want politicians to stop spending money they don’t have. I care about good schools, and I really don’t care whom you marry. You want to marry him or her? It doesn’t make a difference to me. I just want strong law enforcement.
I hate seeing homeless people die in the streets or shoot up in front of kids. I also don’t like endless proxy wars with the government in Lockheed Martin’s pocket and no desire to negotiate. I don’t like high taxes. I understand the need for some taxes, but not excessive taxes. Honestly, I mean, you know, I personally don’t think any of what I said here is really that unusual. If it pisses you off, sorry about that.
I have four daughters and three sons, and the reality is I don’t want boys playing in girls' sports. I don’t like lawsuits for the sake of stopping businesses or innovation or crypto. As a data savant, I acknowledged that Donald Trump pulled major votes from categories he wasn’t expecting to. He convinced 55% of Latino men to vote for him. That’s a huge number. He convinced 46% of all Latinos to vote for him. He convinced more white people than we’ve seen since 1992—my birth year—to vote for him. Now, that’s actually extremely odd, because usually you see less white folks vote in every single election just because of demographic changes.
So, how all of a sudden did this go up for the first time since 1992? Well, Donald Trump convinced people to vote for him. It’s that simple. That’s how it worked.
So, then you have to ask yourself, okay, well obviously a lot of people in America resonate with what Donald Trump says, and maybe there is something to it. And so, in this video, we’re going to again break down this idea of—is Donald Trump a dictator?
Now, also keep in mind this: some of these statistical differences here I think are pretty remarkable, but consider this for a moment. Women chose Joe Biden by a 15-point spread in 2020; this year, that dropped to just eight, which is almost half. It’s pretty bad—it’s a bad spread. Harris lost white suburban women by seven points. This is like a cannot lose demographic, and she lost it.
The reality is 67% of you are frustrated about the economy and war, and you probably ought to be. You probably should be. You should be frustrated that the economy isn’t as great as the data is telling us. There are real concerns about a jobless recession, and frankly, robots will take over. It’s kind of scary because it’s going to push a lot of people onto universal basic income and joblessness.
So now, let’s get to the topic at hand, which is the dictator topic, because all of what I just gave you is just a little bit of background on where my POV is coming from. Just so you can understand where my frame of reference is.
Also, a realization that Donald Trump won people that should have been unwinnable for him, and that should give us a little bit—or at least give him a little bit of street cred—that there are more people who believe him now than when he was running against Biden. So, that would indicate that less people think he’s going to be a bad dictator. Maybe some people think he’ll be a good dictator.
But then the reality we have to think of is—is he going to be a dictator at all? I mean, Caesar was a dictator. There are good dictators and bad dictators. I’m not saying he was good, but there are a lot of bad ones on the list too—Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini; there are plenty of dictators. Mao, Dong—they have plenty of opinions on both sides of the aisle for him. Kim Jong-un, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein—these are historical dictators.
And the one thing that you find with historical dictators that makes someone actually a dictator is that they have absolutely unchecked power. Now, some people say that Donald Trump has that. They say he has unchecked power. “Oh, got Congress,” they say. “He’s got the House; he’s got the Senate; he’s got the Supreme Court in his back pocket because they sent Roe v. Wade back to the states." Folks, Roe v. Wade is not in the Constitution. Yes, I understand Donald Trump enabled them sort of checking that out again; I get that.
But in fairness, rights not delegated to the federal government are explicitly reserved for the states. So now I’m not saying I’m taking a side on this position. I’m just saying when I look at the argument the Supreme Court made, I do think there’s logic.
But, you know, when folks say Donald Trump has all of these different branches, then the question becomes—okay, so does he have unchecked power?
Well, think about this for a moment. Senator Rick Scott, a Republican, is from the same party as Donald Trump. He thinks that Donald Trump needs 60 votes to institute tariffs and that a budget reconciliation measure for tariffs won’t cut it, or that executive orders for tariffs won’t cut it. Well, this would put a big thorn in Donald Trump’s plan to institute massive tariffs on China without the support of Congress.
Which once again goes back to the idea of—okay, we need the entire party to be united. It’s not just enough to say you have control; that doesn’t mean you have everybody on the same wavelength as you. If, you know, we’ve got—let’s see—what does America have right now? I think Senate election results. I think there’s a two-lead for Republicans, a three-lead. So you’re at 53 on the Republican side right now for Senate, 46 Dem. So Republicans could probably afford to lose three Republican votes because then the VP, JD Vance, could tie break. But if you lose any more than three, you’re screwed. If you lose any more than 13 in the House, you’re screwed.
And people are like, “Oh, but they’re not going to lose any.” Well, think about this for a moment, just to give you an understanding of how the House of Representatives works. For example, the House of Representatives has a division—or, I should call it a caucus, really; it’s just a group of reps—and it’s called the House Freedom Caucus. It is a 38-seat group that frequently votes together. They are also very much fiscal hawks. If they think Donald Trump is potentially spending too much money or driving the United States into debt, and they vote no, this dictatorship is over with.
The power of just one group within the Republican Party—even Donald Trump’s favored treasury secretary pick right now is starting to question the fiscal responsibility of saying no social security taxes or taxes on Social Security income. And so instead, he’s suggesting, “Hey, maybe we could do like an income approach where, like, you know, or an age approach where, hey, if you’re 80, you don’t pay taxes on Social Security.” I’m just making that up, right? He hasn’t given exact sort of ladders yet, but presumably, like maybe you pay the normal tax when you first retire, but then as you get older, you pay less and less tax over time. That’s just an idea that he suggested—not saying that’s what’s going to happen—but it shows you that you’ve got some resistance here to unchecked power, even within the party.
JD Vance is considered a fiscal hawk. The legal system is not just the Supreme Court, either. I mean, you’ve got thousands of judges at local levels, state levels, federal district levels, and you know, appellate courts. There are a lot of judges here that are not all going to be on the same point of view of Trump. And it’s not just that; it’s that lawsuits can lead to stays which pause the activities of government officials.
Law can lead to, frankly, losses. I mean, Democrats had wins in like 83% of the cases they brought against Trump the first time he was president. Those were all little forms of checks on his power. I’m not saying I’m a big fan of people like suing everybody to try to get things done that they think are important to them, but that’s very common.
So, it’s very difficult to actually be a dictator in the United States, even if you have all sorts of “quote unquote” control of Congress or potentially even the Supreme Court. It’s still challenging to actually have true control, and that puts you in a position where you’re like—okay, so maybe it’s going to be a little bit more challenging to be a full-on dictator.
Now, while Donald Trump is unpredictable, I want to be clear about my opinion: I don’t believe that Donald Trump is un-American. That includes Democrats. Now, of course, he could be a little bit of a loose cannon, but I don’t think he’s trying to destroy America. Generally, I don’t think any president is trying to do that. Like somewhere deep down inside, once Biden walks through the sand, I think there’s some heart in there. And I generally think that is true of most politicians—that there’s some heart deep down inside.
You just have to get through multiple layers of financial interests, lobbyism, and other incentives that probably shouldn’t exist but do. That’s just sort of the nature of the game of politics. That doesn’t mean I support it, but it also doesn’t mean that I’m losing sleep over the fact that Donald Trump is president.
Now, if I were a Democrat, I really—I'm not saying don’t vote; don’t let your voice be heard. But I don’t know that arguing Donald Trump is going to be a pure dictator is the right thing to say here. I don’t think it’s possible, and I don’t think he is. Obviously, he’s going to try to do what he thinks is best, whether that’s, you know, from the deportation POV or from the tariff point of view.
Although a lot of that could be negotiation tactics—even with Mexico. I mean, we already know these are potentially negotiation tactics with China. But also consider that with Mexico—if you say, “Hey, you’re going to send everybody back,” Mexico is going to—or even other countries in South America, since it’s not all just Mexico. Even China, you know, a lot of Chinese are coming through the southern border. In fact, there are some of them outside of South America; they’re like, I think, the most popular immigrant coming through and flooding through the southern border.
So, even saying you’re just going to send everybody back is a way to potentially negotiate with China and negotiate American interests with these other countries. So, that’s important as well. And remember, even when it comes to appointees, they have to be confirmed by Congress. This is important as well.
You know, Powell’s going to fight getting fired and fight political interference, even though Vivek, Musk, and Trump have all pushed for interference with the Federal Reserve.
And, you know, then there are these concerns that, well, Donald Trump is basically going to always be in power because one of his sons, or JD Vance, or somebody else will be in power. And in fairness, I was on a run the other day, and I saw somebody, an elderly white gentleman, walking around with a hat on. It was not a MAGA hat, but it was a hat, and he had a Vance 2028 shirt on. I mean, that’s cool. For him, it’s sort of a way of expressing that he’s very happy with the result of the election, and I’m happy on his behalf that, you know, he’s happy.
But look, a lot of things are beyond the control of what’s going to happen in 2028. If Donald Trump, you know, for no fault of his own—certainly not over the last four years because he’s not in office—may be some residual from his prior term. But if we walk into a recession, that’s not going to be his fault day one—at least certainly not unfold.
It could just be sort of the economic nature of a post-COVID recession. And if the recession’s bad, and it’s a jobless recession, it’s really really bad; people are going to blame Trump. They’re going to label him “Recession Trump.” You know, “Oh, recession during COVID”—recession right when he opens the door to the White House again.
Even if it’s not his fault, he’s going to be stuck with that burden, and that could make you lose power right away in the midterms and make you lose power in 2028.
So maybe I just have too much faith that the voters in mass are trying to do their best to, as Kevin O says, correct the political atmosphere and the direction of the country. I think the voting electorate as a whole is kind of quick to pivot. Like ooh, didn’t like the economy the last four years? Okay, we’re going to pivot to Trump in numbers we’ve never seen before for a Republican and numbers going up for white voters that haven’t been seen since 1992 despite demographic changes.
Oh, okay. Then you pivot over and you’re like, okay, so what about—is he a dictator?
Well, let’s see what happens the first two years. I mean, if it’s anything like the first term, it’s going to take time to actually do anything. See, that’s something else that I think a lot of folks forget. If you go back to the stimulus days after the first sort of emergency stimulus package, it took forever to get legislation done.
And the same, frankly, is just going to be true of probably every single cycle going forward, where even though they want to do a tax plan, they want to do crypto regulation or whatever, it’s just going to take months to write the legislation, then negotiate the legislation. Everybody’s going to want their add-ins.
So when you add this together, the checks on a dictator’s power here are other courts, other lawsuits, caucuses, groups within Congress, and delays from the time it takes to actually put legislation together. This is all hard work.
So our government, just by nature, by virtue of what the founding fathers wanted, moves very slowly. It actually makes it very difficult for somebody to be a dictator, just by virtue of how our government is established.
So that’s my take. You know, who knows? Maybe I’m out of line here; I’m sure you’ll let me know in the comments. But I look forward to seeing what you all have to say. Anyway, thank you so much for being here. Make sure to subscribe to the channel if you like this sort of commentary, and we’ll see you in the next one.
Thanks so much. Goodbye and good luck.
Do not advertise these things that you told us here. I feel like nobody else knows about this. We’ll try a little advertising and see.
Congratulations, man, you have done so much. People love you; people look up to you.
Kevin P.A., their financial analyst and YouTuber, Meet Kevin. Always great to get your take.