from Susan B. Glasser “I Am the Only One”: Trump’s Messianic 2024 Message – see here

• But there is, I’m afraid, an important reason to listen more attentively than ever to what Trump is saying. As he faces the very real threat of conviction and imprisonment in the criminal cases now pending against him, he has dramatically escalated the apocalypse quotient in his rhetoric. It’s no longer enough merely to bemoan “American carnage,” à la his 2017 Inaugural Address, or to portray himself as the savior who will do something about it. With his own survival on the line, Trump has now embraced a Presidential-campaign platform of do-or-die-ism. There is a chilling urgency to his words as he calls on his followers to show up for “the final battle,” a phrase I first noticed him using earlier this year. “We will get reëlected,” he said in his speech this week. “We have no choice.”

• Trump’s 2024 campaign is turning out to be a master class in fear, his own and that which he seeks to inspire in his supporters. His doom-casting is designed not only to provoke their emotions but to lead his audience to the inescapable conclusion that radical action is required. “Republicans all, you must finally get tough,” Trump said on Tuesday night. “You’ve got to get tough and you’ve got to show them, when you arrest your leading political opponent, we no longer have a democracy.” He concluded with a promise to “obliterate” his enemies in the “deep state,” and to appoint a “real” special prosecutor to go after Biden, “the most corrupt President in the history of the United States of America,” and Biden’s family, too—the very politicization of justice of which Trump claims to be a victim.

• The speech ended on the dictatorial note that has become the chilling, messianic signature of his 2024 campaign: “I am the only one that can save this nation,” he said. L’état, c’est Trump. ♦