You were hoping we’d get the Trump who said the Hollywood Access tapes were not his best moment. You were hoping we’d get the Trump who showed up to salute American coffins. No, I’ll tell you the Trump we got. We got the Trump who gleefully watched Jan. 6 unfold on TV and refused his advisers’ pleas to call off the mob, even when police were being bludgeoned.

The Trump we got is systematically eliminating all voices of opposition to his power: 17 inspectors general gone, DOJ lawyers gone, FBI leadership about to be gone, the man who pays the country’s bills gone, free press Pentagon offices gone. This is not just a new corporate CEO cleaning house; this is a tyrant securing power.

He’s already got a rubber-stamp Congress, a rubber-stamp Supreme Court, a rubber-stamp news agency, and a rubber-stamp lackey at the head of every cabinet post, some of whom are there to cripple and shut down their departments.

If you see what I’m seeing, you’re hoping Congress will impeach him. That isn’t likely until the Democrats win the mid-term elections in two years. If he’s gone this far in three weeks, can you imagine how rock-solid his hold on government will be in two years? It’s possible his rubber-stamp Congress will find a way to postpone or even cancel those mid-term elections.

It’s possible his rubber-stamp Supreme Court — the one that gave him immunity — will interpret the 22nd Amendment as meaning no president may serve twhree consecutive terms, allowing him to run again in 2028. This is exactly the way Vladimir Putin began his dictatorship: keep the semblance of democracy until you don’t need it anymore.

OK, let’s assume you believe some of what I’m forecasting is at least possible. Why would Trump cripple our democracy? What are his motives?

It’s risky to get into the mind of a psychopath, but my first guess is that someone told him he couldn’t or shouldn’t do it. And so he’s doing it. I know that sounds simplistic, but he’s lived by that code his whole life.

My second guess is money. His Department of Government Efficiency commander, Elon Goebbels Musk, already captured the U.S. checkbook, so which of the country’s bills will get paid and which won’t, and what happens to the international standing of the U.S. if we forfeit on our bills? Where else might that money go?

I think Social Security and Medicare are targets and that even the gold reserve may be in danger.

My third guess is probably too far-fetched: Putin. If you think the U.S. can’t look like Putin and his oligarchs, you weren’t following the oligarch ante-ups before inauguration.

It may be too late for Washington to recover because Trump has had four years to plan this takeover. His coup on Jan. 6 failed because his Oath Keepers and Proud Boys proved to be nothing but bullies wearing costumes, not real soldiers, lucky for us. But his plan is working to perfection now because nobody in D.C. believes he’s going as far as I’m suggesting.

So what do we do in the face of such evil? We march. Aside from crying “the sky is falling” as I’m doing here, millions of Americans are going to have to march peacefully on Washington, D.C., to embolden members of Congress who are in shock and are cowering in their offices wondering how to stop this anti-democratic juggernaut.

Folks, for my money, democracy as we’ve known it, no matter how flawed, is better than a Trump dictatorship, but that’s what we’re going to have if we don’t take quick action. He must complete his takeover by the mid-term election or he could be impeached shortly afterward. However, even if impeachment happens and the Senate convicts, by that time he might be so firmly entrenched that he can ignore the Constitution altogether. He likes doing that, doesn’t he?

If you need more convincing, watch for the next domino in Tyranny 101 to fall — imprisoning the opposition. Maybe the FBI leadership who yesterday showed resistance to being fired. Or maybe the most vociferous reporters in the White House press corps. The dominoes after that are too ghastly to mention.

John Adams lives in Northfield.