Imagine a tuxedoed former President Donald Trump standing on a stage in Manhattan on Saturday night and doubling down on past quips about being a “dictator.” Surprisingly, at least one member of the audience had real ties to actual historical dictatorships.
The crowd who gathered at the swank Cipriani Wall Street for the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala included Gerald Grosz, an Austrian politician and former presidential candidate who has been part of a political party founded by Nazis and who has deep ties to a late leader who often praised the Third Reich. Grosz was one of several figures from the European far right who attended the event and have previously associated with the club that hosted Trump.
This captivating scene perfectly encapsulates the way Trump and his allies have embraced the global far right and authoritarian rhetoric as he runs to retake the White House. It’s a nod to the irony in Trump and his allies’ insistence that his strongman bluster shouldn’t be taken seriously, even as they eagerly expect four years of vendettas and aggression.
Outside the MAGA bubble, fears of a Trump dictatorship are fueled by his own campaign platform, including the potentially criminal efforts to overturn and question the last election, his vows to crush political enemies, or as he has called them “vermin,” promises to use the military to quash protest, and vows to suppress the press. The dark rhetoric ramped up in recent weeks as Kash Patel, a former Trump White House aide who has been tipped for a senior post if the former president returns to office, gave an interview promising a hypothetical second administration would “come after” Trump’s rivals “not just in government but in the media.” Amid the growing alarm, Trump loyalist and Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the former president during a town hall to promise he would “never abuse power as retribution against anybody.” Rather than taking the opportunity to soothe anyone’s fears, Trump declared he would only be “a dictator” on “day one” of his second term.
Trump doubled down at the NYYRC gala this weekend, where he was introduced with a flair of false and illogical 2020 election denialism as “the 45th, the 46th, and the 47th president of the United States.” In his speech, Trump blasted the press as “animals” and praised global strongmen like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un as “sharp.” He also reiterated his desire to — albeit briefly — be a dictator.
“I said I want to be a dictator for one day,” Trump said. “You know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want a wall, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
The over-the-top nature of his comments, the jovial tone, and the suggestion it’s just a theoretical comment about a single day give Trump’s promise of authoritarian rule a winking, nodding deniability. Self parodying humor has been a defining feature of the modern far right and neo-Nazi movement.