Donald Trump’s promise that, if reelected president, he’ll be a dictator on day one of his second term has me wishing I could be dictator for a day — now — because I know exactly how I would spend it. I would hold Trump captive at a secure location and drill baby drill him on the reasons he could lose the November election.
Before Trump could call me “Nasty Nan” for abducting him, I would tout my qualifications as campaign adviser. Having spent my entire career as the lone Republican in a hotbed of lefties, I know that nothing short of a lobotomy would cure Trump derangement syndrome. Amazingly, however, one former colleague has just confided that she will vote for Trump — on certain conditions — so I would spend my day as dictator recounting those conditions because I’m betting my friend speaks for a wide swath of swing voters.
Like me, she likes to quote writers who express her sentiments exactly, and on the subject of former President Trump, she recited 19th-century Virginian John Randolph’s famous appraisal of Henry Clay: “He is a man of splendid abilities but utterly corrupt. He both shines and stinks, like a rotten mackerel by moonlight.”
With Trump’s pledge to reverse the regulations the Biden-Harris administration has imposed on my friend’s husband’s business, Trump “shines.” But she also says Trump’s pugnacious style “stinks,” and her vote is contingent upon his reversal of the claim, “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks.”
I share that concern and would have Trump follow Oscar Wilde’s rule to “Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much.” And I would do for Trump what Kamala Harris’ team has done for her. As one commentator has noted, the vice president’s handlers have “surgically removed her cackling cords,” and I would program Trump’s phone to emit a little shock whenever he forgets that calling Harris “an incompetent socialist lunatic” will repel swing voters, as will rambling speeches that breach Shakespeare’s rule: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
A winning strategy would have Trump start each day replaying President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection ad titled “Morning in America,” which reminded voters his first administration had rescued an ailing economy and made America strong again.
A winning strategy would have Trump swap his combative style for Reagan’s genial tone and let clips of Harris spewing nonsense and defending her (now former) hard-left positions speak for themselves — for now. The debate stage will afford Trump an opportunity to expose Harris’ flailing attempt to recast herself as a centrist — on fracking, unchecked inflation, border control and private health insurance — but even then Trump must remain unflappable and stick to hard facts.
Before I release him, I would propose one last way Trump could shine for the next 66 days. Before henchwoman Nancy Pelosi frog-marched President Joe Biden into the shadows, Trump could have chosen P. Diddy as his running mate and won reelection.
Before Biden exited the race on July 21, Trump’s choosing JD Vance as his running mate made sense, but a Donald Trump-Nikki Haley ticket would have been a shoo-in against a Harris-Tim Walz ticket. It’s too late to swap Vance for Haley, but it’s not too late to enlist the dynamic Haley as Trump’s sparring partner during debate prep and to feature her appeal to women voters — even those who identify as childless cat ladies.
I would end my day as dictator assuring Trump that he has my vote plus additional donations if he recants the Trump rule: “I have to do it my way.”
Otherwise, I fear that Trump will end his career like Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “A poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more.”
Nan Miller is professor emerita at Meredith College and lives in Raleigh.
