Will what happened in South Korea provide a valuable lesson for Trump or will he just ignore that lesson and be prepared to declare martial law in the United States at some point in the future? I’m betting on the latter. There is a reason Trump wants to surround himself with sycophants who are loyal to him rather than to the U.S. Constitution. That is simply because he wants to be able to wield his presidential power without any checks on him whatsoever. People who are of the ‘he would never do that’ camp are extremely naïve. Some of Trump’s toadies encouraged him to declare martial law after the 2020 election debacle before he left office. They and Trump will certainly be more emboldened now.
Everyone should understand by now that there are five things that are most important to Trump – power, money, loyalty, adulation, and surrounding himself with telegenic people, particularly women. It’s really that basic. Trump does not care about the American people. Trump does not care about the Constitution. The sooner people understand and acknowledge this, the sooner people will be able to mount a resistance to the draconian changes that will hit the country as Trump enacts the tenets of Project 2025 and tries to impose a type of illiberal democracy on the United States the way Viktor Orban did in Hungary.
There is a famous line from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Paul Newman is confronted by a much larger opponent in a fight. His opponent pulls a knife, and Newman stops the fight and tells his opponent that they first need to discuss the rules. Newman approaches the man as if to confer about the rules and when he is close enough, he kicks the man in the groin causing him to fall to the ground. When questioned about what he did, he simply replies, “There are no rules in a knife fight.” That is exactly what everyone needs to understand, we are in a knife fight for the future of democracy and Trump and his MAGA sycophants are not going to play by the rules we have used before.
Trump will use his unchecked presidential power in ways that in prior presidencies would have been unimaginable. As we see with his carnival of cabinet picks, he is prioritizing loyalty over competence. No one should doubt that he will use the presidency to further enrich himself and his family. He will create situations and news events where he is surrounded by nothing but adoring acolytes and news media.
It would not surprise me at all if Trump were to try, at some point in the future, to declare martial law like what happened in South Korea. The question is, will “we the people’ mount the type of resistance that happened in South Korea to force their president to rescind the order within 24 hours. I wish I could be more confident. The American voting public failed to keep a twice impeached, convicted felon who mounted an insurrection during the last election to keep from once again taking his seat in the Oval Office. If that wasn’t enough to disqualify him from office, what’s a little declaration of martial law? Stay tuned.
