When Donald Trump first decided to run for president, he confided to friends that his real goal was to get publicity for his brand and squeeze a larger payment out of NBC for his TV show. He even bragged that he'd be the first person to make money running for the White House.

Once he unexpectedly won, he turned that into a business opportunity, redirecting over $100 million of government money into his own properties and businesses.

Now, with the possibility of losing the presidency, he's setting up his Plan B, his next business opportunity.

The suckers who've been funding his reelection campaign are complaining that when they made a donation, they didn't notice that the “make this a recurring donation“ check-box had been pre-filled-in. Every week, Trump is extracting more and more money from their checking accounts or credit cards.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone missing from Trump' inaugural fundraising and his 2020 election fundraising; odds are most of it has ended up in Trump's pockets.

So now he's launching lawsuits and a PR blitz to convince his cult followers that they need to hang in there with him until after his presidency so they can continue to buy his products, subscribe to his new online TV network, and pay to attend his rallies.

Trump has taken America closer to authoritarian fascism than any president in our history, and shown us exactly how a future truly fascist and truly competent president could destroy our republic.

The good news is that he was more interested in lining his own pockets than being the next Mussolini. As a result, it wasn't until the third year of his presidency that he really got going with the fascist agenda, mostly with the help of Bill Barr.

But his presidency has shown us how fragile our republic has become as the result of massive consolidation of power in the executive branch, a process that really began with the Nixon administration in the war in Vietnam, and went on steroids after 9/11.

As Trump moves on to his next hustle to extract cash from his cult followers, America needs to take on to the serious work of rebuilding the executive branch so the next Republican president, who might be a very competent fascist, can't completely pull off what Donald Trump nearly did, and can't ever again use the White House like it's an ATM.

-Thom