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Seriously, What Happens When Trump Dies?
Nobody knows how much time he’s got left at this point.
Donald Trump is 78, and oh boy does it show. Depending on who you ask, he’s either at the peak of health (if you ask him) or is in the process of sundowning (if you ask an increasingly large number of experts in psychology, older adult health, and dementia).
In addition, he famously doesn’t exercise and likes to eat absurd amounts of McDonald’s hamburgers, after all — certainly not someone at the peak of health. The scandal of him being exactly one pound under the threshold for “morbidly obese” when he was given his health exam as President echoes in my mind.
Put simply, I’m not sure Donald Trump will survive long enough to complete his upcoming term as president. That said, I didn’t think he’d survive to 2024 either, but he proved me wrong there, so what the hell do I know?
That said, with the increasingly rambling and unhinged stuff that he says — not that he was ever anything but rambling and unhinged — it’s seeming like he’s really in a state of mental decline right now. It would not shock me to see J.D. Vance pull a 25th Amendment on him and assume the duties of president fairly straight away. I think it’s fairly easy to justify at this point, not that I would enjoy a Vance presidency in any way.
However, assuming that he dies sometime in the next four years, or even after he completes his second term, what happens? I don’t mean in practical terms — though the thought of President Vance makes me cringe almost as much as another four years of Trump — but rather in terms of his following and the MAGA movement.
If he dies as president, he’ll probably get a huge state funeral with millions of mourners coming to pay respects to their tangerine tyrant. Same if he dies as a civilian after 2028, assuming he doesn’t make himself fascist dictator of America by that point, but even still, my question remains roughly the same.
What will his followers latch onto one he’s gone?
One aspect of this is who will take over the Republican party once he’s gone. There have been quite a few people who have tried to style themselves as “the next Trump.” Greg Abbot and Ron DeSantis have both tried, and…
