One of the odd things about the past decade of American politics is how the man who has sucked up so much of the media's attention is a political figure who's life shows that he's never really had any strongly held political views. Before he became a Republican, Donald Trump donated money to both political parties, held moderate views and seemed more interested in bragging about how rich he was (and how many women he had slept with) then American politics. Then he became an extremely conservative president.
Why did he change? Because he has no real fixed views on politics;he once said that he was "very pro choice" now he takes credit for appointing the judges to the Supreme Court who overturned Roe Vs Wade. And even his signature issue, his hatred of undocumented immigrants, is coming from a man who often hired undocumented immigrants to work at his businesses over the years. So what drives Trump is not any political beliefs, instead, he has a single, lifelong principle. And that principle is that he sees himself as the greatest human being that has ever lived in the history of the world. Think I'm exaggerating? Check his social media posts comparing himself to Jesus, or his assertion that he was a better president than Washington or Lincoln! Because he believes that he should be worshipped like a god, Trump will always try to say whatever he thinks will garner him the most reverence from the American public.
Look at his first foray into politics with his association with the birther movement. While there's no reason to think he actually believed in the absurd and racist view that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, he found that every time he expressed this opinion in public, members of the Republican party cheered him on, so he just kept at it. And, of course, once he decided upon being a Republican, he knew that he would have to be against abortion, even if that meant contradicting his stated beliefs going back years.
The worst part of this messianic nature of his is that he managed to instill his own god like self image into the minds of tens of millions of Americans, who hang on his every word at rallies and openly claim that they believe that he was sent by god to "save" America. Really, the modern Republican party is more of a cult of Trump than a political party, and like any cult leader, Trump can do wrong in their eyes. These cult like beliefs from millions of Americans would be bad enough for any leader, but they are made much more frightening when they are focused on a self serving sociopath like Trump. While what happened at the nation's capitol on January 6th was bad enough, it may even be worse how Trump and many of his followers have embraced what those protestors did, with Trump himself calling violent, convicted criminals "hostages".
This combination of a messianic sociopathic political leader worshipped by tens of millions of people could make for a very dangerous combination in November: if Trump loses, it's safe to assume that he will never accept it, even if he loses all 50 states. So what will happen? How far will he push his belief that he never loses at anything? And how far are his worshippers ready to go? Even worse, what if he wins? Will there be anyone to stop him this time when he starts locking up children again, or sending the military to stop political protests against him? Putting it simply, every Presidential election is called "the most important one ever" but this time that may be true in the worst possible way. Another Trump presidency could end America as we know it, turning it something more like a dictatorship. Either way, the next few months are going to very important in our country's history.
