On January 20th, 2025 Donald Trump will again be sworn in as President of the United States of America. He will have his hand on a Bible—it may even be his own, what better opportunity for a bit of product placement. John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the man who granted Trump immunity from prosecution for crimes done as “official acts” while president, will administer the Oath. In those two sentences we have the height of irony.

When Trump reads the Oath of Office and swears to uphold the Constitution we can be certain of one thing: he will be lying through his teeth. Let’s examine why this is.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

No vote by Congress has been proposed to remove this disability for Trump, nor has it been proposed. According to this Amendment, only Congress has the power to allow Trump to take office. He is specifically prohibited from holding it by this statement. This is Constitutional law and all Members of Congress have sworn oaths to uphold this document and its Amendments. Yet the only sound we here on this front is crickets.

In spite of the overwhelming evidence of Trump’s efforts to overthrow the election of 2020, his subsequent statements about setting aside the Constitution, his promise to operate as a dictator on Day One, his endorsement of the destruction of the federal government through the blueprint of Project 2025 and more, the “Law and Order” Republican Party is ready to enact the fascism Trump desires.

Meanwhile tomorrow newly elected Members of Congress will be sworn into office and in this event there will be many who will be lying when they recite their oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution. Our problem is that the liars will compose a slim majority in both houses.

Yes, the fascist American faction known has MAGA will be in charge of both the Executive and Legislative branches of our government. The third, the Supreme Court majority, already belongs to Trump.

Neither Trump, nor the Members of Congress who supported his 2020 coup attempt in word and/or deed, qualify for the posts they occupy or will occupy. The fact that they are able to do so can be laid at the feet of Merrick Garland whose glacial, “slower than a dead snail on a hot sidewalk” investigations and prosecutions have now been sidestepped by an election. The fact that Trump’s successful re-election was bankrolled by tech-billionaire, wannabe fascists is irrelevant. Garland’s failure to even lay a glove on the insurrectionists in Congress or even investigate the rampant corruption of various Supreme Court justices is a massive omission from his own oath of office.

The fact is than on January 20th, this country is being turned over to a cabal of people who fully intend to destroy it and ally with our enemies.

This is a fact that we need to continue to confront. It sounds daunting. It sounds like the beginning of the end. But it is not.

We have to remember that the majority of these people are fools and tools. A much smaller number of this faction are dyed-in-the-wool anti-social personalities who hate literally everyone around them, even those who support them. Many of those supporters will be trashed and crushed like others in the past—Rudy Giulianni, Sydney Powell and other sycophants are just a few examples.

The other thing to look forward to is open warfare between the factions within factions—we are already seeing this in the fight between Musk and Bannon. But the most important thing to remember about these anti-socials is that they, personally, are just not competent people and generally do not complete things. They do make a lot of messes. And they won’t be at all good at cleaning them up. Their overconfidence will be stunning.

No matter what kind of organization one is working with, agreement on the purpose of that organization is the essential, coordinating impulse. These people think that they will be able to sweep aside a nearly two and a half century of agreement and construction of the reality of America. Government by greed and fear can never replace the higher purpose our Constitution represents. Reality will dawn rather quickly that Trump will not be able to trash things with the ink of a signature—which is about all he’s capable of writing.

Former Turkish journalist Asli Aydintasbas wrote some great advice and a very good reality check on this very subject at Politico.

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power is unnerving but, as I have argued previously, America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight—or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

I am not suggesting that the United States is immune to these patterns, but it’s important to remember that its decentralized system of governance—the network of state and local governments—offers enormous resilience. Federal judges serve lifetime appointments, states and governors have specific powers separate from those granted federally, there are local legislatures, and the media has the First Amendment as a shield, reinforced by over a century of legal precedents. Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, Donald Trump really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbanization of America is not an imminent threat.

The same component contained in the oaths of office of the President, Members of Congress and all other posts in the federal government, “to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” exists for us as citizens. This is one of the fundamental agreements this country operates on and has for nearly 250 years.

Trump and his cronies are coming to power on our watch. Restraining them, defeating them and then preventing them from ever achieving this again is our job now. Let’s get ready and get to work.