I don’t know that story has a good ending for Trump. An advantage that the SA had was that they could very easily control what the world saw of their actions. They controlled the people with the cameras, and the people writing articles I’m newspapers. So they were able to sanitize their own image and portray the aspects of their strength that they wanted to.

That’s not possible today. Nearly every single person has a cell phone with a camera and unlimited access to the internet. Those challenges are not insurmountable but inevitably live broadcasts of what’s happening would appear around the world. America is not so powerful that they can afford to not care at all about how they are perceived. The US involvement and conduct during the Palestinian genocide and the upcoming second term of Donald Trump has put an alienating pressure on many foreign nations. This is to the advantage of other super powers like the EU and China who are alternatives to trade and political relationships with the US. If the US was seen to have a secret police dolling out indiscriminate violence in their pursuit of mass displacement and genocide it would probably turn that alienating force into a flood.

Trump is a bumbling idiot in terms of competence and ability. That being said I don’t think he would do something that totally destroys his ability to economically benefit from his presidency. I can’t guarantee that that is the case because he is nearly unpredictable, but I perceive his loyalty to himself as being above any loyalty he has towards the neo-fascist project. I think it’s more likely he would err on states rights and do things like refuse federal funding to states that refuse to fall in line regarding mass displacement and his other policies. Using outright violence didn’t work for him last time.

But then again he might not care because he isn’t going to live forever, and he might see his current presidency as his final mark on history. He might do everything in his power to shape the nation into whatever vision he has for it. He could create a secret police of die hard maga loyalists. He could (and has said he will) turn the American military on the people. He could start wars of territorial aggression. Really the sky’s the limit once he’s in that chair. He could have “burning of the reichstag” emergency powers act pushed through with his slim congress majority, suspending all constitutional rights and the political process under some guise of “protecting the nation from the radical left”. I’m preparing for that inevitability. But I don’t know that it’s a guaranteed one.