Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It’s truly impressive—Olympic-level, even—the flexibility required to believe that Donald John Trump, wannabe emperor, is not trying to be an authoritarian while doing authoritarian things with the enthusiasm of a man speed-running a dictator starter pack.

Executive orders? Oh, those were egregious—constitutional vandalism, tyrannical overreach—right up until Trump discovered them. Then suddenly they became rugged expressions of freedom, bald eagles flapping majestically in the wind of unilateral power. When Obama did it, it was the end of the republic. When Trump does it, it’s just “decisive leadership,” preferably signed with a Sharpie thick enough to be seen from space.

And let’s talk optics—because dictators love optics. Bulldozing the East Wing? Slapping his name on the Kennedy Center like it’s a Vegas casino? Wanting his face minted on a commemorative coin while he’s still very much alive and tweeting? Totally normal stuff, folks. Nothing screams “humble servant of democracy” like treating national institutions as personal branding opportunities. The Kennedy Center wasn’t built to honor art and culture—it was clearly just waiting for gold letters spelling TRUMP.

Historically, living presidents don’t put their names on monuments, buildings, or coins. That’s not because they can’t—it’s because democracies tend to frown on personality cults. But here we are, watching Trump speed past norms like they’re speed bumps in a Walmart parking lot, while his supporters insist, “This is fine.”

What’s especially baffling is how the red-hat faithful somehow fail to recognize the greatest hits playlist he’s borrowing from: Putin’s “strongman patriotism,” Kim Jong-un’s “I alone can fix it,” Xi Jinping’s “criticism is treason.” Trump didn’t invent this stuff—he’s just remixing it with worse grammar and a louder crowd.

He attacks the press. He delegitimizes elections. He demands loyalty over law. He treats the Constitution like a suggestion box. And yet, his followers look at the flaming wreckage of democratic norms and say, “But at least he tells it like it is.”

Yes. He does. He tells it like an authoritarian.

The truly wild part isn’t that Trump wants power—every politician does. It’s that his supporters are so conditioned to hate “dictatorship” in the abstract that they can’t recognize it when it’s wrapped in a red hat, waving a flag, and selling commemorative coins with its own face on them.

If this were happening in another country, they’d be calling it tyranny on Fox News with a dramatic chyron and ominous music. But because it’s their guy, suddenly bulldozers, branding, and executive fiat are patriotic.

At some point, denial stops being ignorance and becomes participation. You don’t have to read Orwell to recognize a strongman—but it helps if you’re willing to stop cheering long enough to look.

And that, apparently, is asking too much.