‘A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator’: Trump says America craves a dictator, not a president

Each day under Donald Trump sees America inching away from democracy and towards dictatorial authoritarianism. Trump and his cronies are now so close to achieving this that they can practically reach out and grab it.

They have an extrajudicial goon squad controlled by the president in ICE, they’re busily rewriting the law to obliterate legal restrictions on their powers, they’re openly waging war against Democrat-controlled cities, and cozying up to the likes of Vladimir Putin.

Now, Trump has pretty much just come out and admitted that ditching democracy and installing himself as America’s dictator is on his mind. Speaking in the Oval Office, he made the eye-poppingly telling statement that “a lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator”:

Just said it out loud. https://t.co/hYfzBYDZ7v

— Poli Alert ⚖️ (@polialertcom) August 25, 2025

The full quote:

“As you all know, Chicago’s a killing field right now. And they don’t acknowledge it. “we don’t need him. Freedom, freedom. He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator”. A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator… I don’t like a dictator, I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and I’m a smart person.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, and even by Trump standards, he’s squeezed a lot of crazy and terrifying nonsense into a few sentences. So, first up, no, Chicago is not “a killing field”, only Nazi freaks are demanding a dictator, and evidence suggests others on you having “great common sense”.

“Each day a new hint”

America didn’t fight wars, write a Constitution, and build a democracy just to throw it away because one man craves absolute power.

— Peter (@_e_tto_) August 25, 2025

America was never going to simply wake up one day and find that the system of checks and balances that has made the nation a beacon of democracy had vanished overnight. It was always going to be a little sidestep to authoritarianism here, a trampled constitutional right there, and constant hints that the president needs more power to maintain ‘order’.

Then, like the fabled frog who doesn’t jump out of the slowly boiling water, one day America imperceptibly transitions away from a constitutional democracy to something far scarier. And in Trump, you’re looking at it. All evidence suggests America is rapidly heading into some extremely dark times, and it’s unknown whether the nation you grew up in will be recognizable after all this.