Most aspiring dictators try to hide their intentions. Trump doesn't. And that's his secret sauce.

Plus: The Inaugural Triad Christmas Song Thunderdome.

Tonight: On the TNB livestream I’ll be joined by Mona Charen, Will Saletan, and special guest Noah Smith—the guy who says Joe Biden’s economy is “truly excellent.”

It’s going to be a great show. Join us 8pm in the East.

Also: I’m trusting you all to get into the spirit of things with #2. I want us to have a little fun to go along with the gloom.

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Former US President Donald Trump looks on during the civil fraud trial against the Trump Organization, at the New York State Supreme Court in New York City on December 7, 2023. (Photo by MIKE SEGAR / POOL / AFP) (Photo by MIKE SEGAR/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

1. One More Day

Over the last three years I have sometimes felt like I was losing my mind. That’s because it has become clear that Donald Trump has a coin-flip chance to be legitimately re-elected by the Great and Good American people, despite the fact that:

• Joe Biden has had an objectively successful first term.

• The economy is truly excellent.

• Trump left office with the economy in shambles.

• And Trump’s entire pitch for 2024 is, More authoritarianism!

As I’ve said before: It is not the case that Biden has been a hapless idiot who bungled foreign policy and presided over a recession while Trump was cleverly pretending to have turned over a new leaf and gone mainstream.

Biden isn’t Jimmy Carter and Trump isn’t Marine Le Pen.

We’ve talked about that first analogy a lot. Today I want to explore the second one.

Because while Le Pen is still playing by the rule of conventional politics, Trump is doing something genuinely new. And horrible.