I have to hand it to the inimitable Charles Pierce of Esquire magazine.

A few days after media critic Margaret Sullivan complained in the Guardian that journalists were not effectively communicating the dangers of a second Trump administration, the headline of his essay did not mince words: Nazi-curious lunatic currently charged with 91 crimes gives speech .

This is not hyperbole.

As former President Trump appears to be sailing toward the Republican presidential nomination, he is increasingly embracing autocratic language and ideas, using rhetoric familiar to anyone who has studied the speeches of dictators and strongmen throughout history.

I am your righteousness. I am your retribution, he told a crowd at a conservative political conference in March.

Illegal immigration, he said a right-wing website in October poisons the blood of our country.

We promise you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and radical left thugs who live like vermin within our country’s borders and who lie, steal and cheat in elections, he told his supporters in New Hampshire earlier this month.

If you are not alarmed by his rhetoric, then you are not paying attention or recognizing the danger he poses to democracy. Or perhaps, and I recognize that this may be the case for many of his most ardent supporters, you think that a strongman with protectionist impulses, racist policies and disregard for the rule of law is exactly what America needs.

And what would become of the current world order in a second Trump administration?

For example, does anyone believe for a moment that Trump, who has bent the knee to Russian President Vladimir Putin, would support Ukraine in its fight against Putin’s war of aggression? Do you think for a second that the Islamophobic Trump would exert any kind of moderating influence on Israel, as his extremist government appears increasingly intent on punishing not just Hamas, but every single Palestinian in Gaza and the West Bank while Iran watches and waits?

During Trump’s first campaign in 2016, his supporters liked to say that his over-the-top rhetoric was mostly for show. Take him seriously, not literally, they said.

If you bought that line, you were a fool.

Trump is, as the Atlantic’s Peter Wehner noted, an institutional arsonist. Wehner is a former speechwriter for three Republican presidents and a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, a nun

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profit christian think tank. It is quite a remarkable indictment of those who claim to be followers of Jesus that they would continue to show allegiance to a man whose cruel ethics have always been at odds with Jesus and are becoming more so every day, Wehner wrote last week.

Trump has vowed to dismantle the federal bureaucracy, which he and his henchman Steve Bannon like to dismiss as the deep state, and end civil service protections for tens of thousands of federal workers he sees as insufficiently loyal. If elected, he will fire them and replace them with political appointees. This plan, codified in an executive order called Schedule F, was developed in secret during his first term. Trump aides told the website Government Executive that they had identified 50,000 federal employees for layoffs, though they hope to lay off only a fraction of that total to create a chilling effect and keep the rest in line, the website reported . President Biden rescinded the order as soon as he took office.

Trump has promised to use the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, including, of course, the Biden family.

The Washington Post reported that Trump told advisers and friends

he also wants the Justice Department to investigate former allies-turned-critics, such as his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, his former attorney general, William Barr, and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley , That

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Trump has suggested he deserves it

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the death penalty for communicating with

Milleys

Chinese counterparts to allay Chinese fears of an impending US attack at the end of Trump’s term.

Trump’s Republican associates are deeply involved in his anti-politics

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democratic plans.

One flank is dedicated to rewriting the history of January 6, the day violent insurgents failed to thwart the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. A second is devoted to perpetuating the fiction that the election was stolen from Trump.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene emphasizes in her new book, a commercial flop that critics say reads like a tryout for a job in the Trump administration (VP perhaps?) that the insurrectionists were not MAGA Republicans, but left-wing extremists and undercover federal agents .

Your colleague,

LouisianaOhio

Representative Steve Scalise recently refused to answer George Stephanopoulos when the ABC News host asked: Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen? Stephanopoulos must have asked the question six different times, and all Scalise could muster was that there were a handful of states that weren’t following their election laws. Does it really need to be said that allowing mail-in makes it easier for citizens to cast their votes?

ballots

or

mood

dropboxes not manipulate elections during a pandemic?

I happen to think journalists have done a fantastic job exploring the dangers of a second Trump administration.

The question is: are Republican voters rational? Do they care?

@robinkabcarian