American Authoritarianism. How Bad Will It Get Under Trump?
By: Tim Dickinson (Rolling Stone)
hello weather underground 2.0
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Donald Trumpwill be president again.
Far more dispiriting than what the election says about Trump is what his win says about the American body politic. We are a house divided on a fault line of decency. Trump's venality, his bigotry and racism, his fondness for dictators, and his disregard for the truth were on flamboyant display for American voters — with his former top general even decrying Trump as "fascist to the core."
Campaigning for the White House, Trump was a peacock with fetid feathers. And others flocked with him: Ostentatious oligarch Elon Musk made a mockery of our democratic system by seeking to buy off voters with small checks and million-dollar prizes. "Comedian" Tony Hinchcliffe was there — making 1950s jokes about Blacks eating watermelons, Jews being tight with money, and Latinos making too many babies, while casually blasting Puerto Rico as a swirling island of garbage.
Trump openly touted his dictatorial aims and his plans for a "bloody" mass deportation — even as he courted white supremacists with a blood libel against Haitians and spouted eliminationist language about Congolese refugees being a pestilence. And more than half of American voters didn't recoil. Whether they relished in Trump's vicious spectacle or simply abided it, they did not turn away. They used their ballots to punch a ticket for Trump — with his dozens of felonies and a sexual abuse adjudication — to return to power, and to absolve him of the consequences of his Jan. 6 coup attempt.
In his victory speech early Wednesday morning, standing before a wall of red-white-and-blue banners, Trump cast his win as divine will: "Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason," he said. "Now we're going to fulfill that mission." Never has the old saw "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" seemed more prescient.
Deflating Their Confidence
In advance of the 2024 election, Rolling Stone interviewed experts in authoritarianism, fascism, and presidential power. They offered advice for resisting what is coming, but offered few assurances that the damage created by installing an American authoritarian — who is now effectively unchecked by criminal law — will be quickly or easily reversed.
Timothy Snyder is a Yale professor of totalitarian European history and author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Published in 2017, it gave shape to popular resistance of the first Trump term. "You can't despair," he tells Rolling Stone. "Because that's what they want. They want you to think that it's hopeless. It's never hopeless."
Snyder's first rule in On Tyranny is "don't obey in advance." He emphasizes that Americans opposed to Trump's designs should take stock, and action, now. "The period of November, December, January, becomes very important," he says, and "not just for ordinary citizens," but for people entrusted with providing checks on executive power. Snyder issues a clarion call to members of the judiciary: "There's going to be a lot of cases really quickly, in which the only thing that's going to stop some kind of dreadful federal act of violence is going to be a judge."
For normal people, Snyder insists the key is "to get out in protest" — now and through the inauguration. The understandable impulse of "keeping your head in," Snyder says will only embolden Trump's reactionary team. "You're giving them even more confidence that they're gonna be able to do what they want in January." What's demanded of activists in this moment is to "deflate that confidence," Snyder says, and you do that by "showing that you're not afraid, by cooperating with your neighbors, and by organizing."
Snyder emphasizes a lesson of the "Wall of Moms" in Portland, Oregon, in late summer 2020, who helped drive up the political cost and terrible optics for Trump's most heavy-handed crackdown on public dissent. Launching tear gas at Black Lives Matter protesters looked different on TV when the feds were brutalizing a wall of white mothers in gold shirts, locking arms at the front of the crowd. "It's about corporeal politics," Snyder says. "Getting your body out where there are other bodies — with people who are maybe not like you or maybe less privileged than you."
Seeing the Threat Clearly
Experts in authoritarianism insist that Trump's dictatorial threats need to be taken with gravity because he's already done "things that autocrats do," says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who is an expert in Italian fascism and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.
"He has been able to domesticate a very old, storied party, and truly make it his personal tool," she tells Rolling Stone. "He instigated a violent coup attempt," and — instead of "having to go into exile or going to prison, like in Peru" — he "managed to paint it as a positive thing" or to make "a lot of Americans shrug their shoulders at it." These are "preconditions for autocracy," she insists.
Trump may have a "highly problematic, decompensating personality," Ben-Ghiat adds, "but the guy is a master propagandist," who has used those skills in a campaign against the American system of checks and balances. "He's taken people step by step … for almost a decade now to view democracy as an inferior system — a system of crime and anarchy, weak government … and to see versions of authoritarian rule, with him at the head, as preferable."
Ben-Ghiat warns that Project 2025, the conservative policy and personnel program, is the road map "to finish the job" Trump started in his first term. The intent is to "destroy the governing structures and norms of liberal democracy through mass purges of civil servants who are not loyalists — and create something else. And that something else is autocracy."
Jason Stanley is Yale professor and author of How Fascism Works. He says Trump is pursuing a well-worn playbook. "He's going to replace the civil service with Trump loyalists." The next thing "autocrats do is go after the courts, the press, and the universities." Many of our compatriots have grown up with a false confidence that the United States is immune from this kind of democratic corrosion. "Americans have to grow up," Stanley says. "A lot of people live under these situations."
Project 2025 will take time to implement. Sen. Bernie Sanders warns Rolling Stone to watch out for Trump's use of national "emergencies" to produce a power grab, emboldened by allied partisans in the judiciary: "He will create emergencies, state of emergencies. You know, 'The world is falling apart. I have got to do A, B, and C.' And the courts will say, 'Yeah, of course you have the right to do it. You've defined an emergency.'" Sanders says. "There's a real danger of us losing the rule of law."
Mixing Orban With Pinochet
What will Trump's model of authoritarianism look like? Experts point to Hungary as a prime example, where Viktor Orban, the long-serving strongman, has undermined the country's courts, press freedoms, and minority rights to create what he touts as an "illiberal democracy."
"I don't think we'll be as bad as Russia," Stanley says. "It's Orban, who's visiting and giving advice." Stanley notes that Orban's mechanisms for controlling dissent are milder than Vladimir Putin's. "They'll probably do the Orban thing where they go after your taxes. They go after your livelihood, your job," he says of Trump. "They're not going to start assassinating people."
Ben-Ghiat agrees that Orban is a model for MAGA governance, but cautions that what Trump has in store "will be far more violent." The Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is part of her calculus: "Orban didn't stage a violent attack, sending lawmakers running for their lives."
Trump's openly stated aims, she warns, bring a South American strongman to mind: "He's already talked about using the military against protesters, and in that sense, it would be more like Pinochet," she says. "I'm not saying it's going to be a military dictatorship, but there are elements of what he would like to do in terms of domestic repression that hark back to" the Chilean dictator.
Enabling Enemies Abroad, Targeting the Enemy Within
Perhaps Trump's darkest ambition is to shift part of America's prodigious military might from geopolitical adversaries abroad to political targets at home. Trump has indicated he'll let Putin lay claim to parts of occupied Ukraine in the name of "peace," and has treated Taiwan as far less than an ally, suggesting it needs to pay for America protecting it from China.
"Trump's whole thing is that he would stand back," says Ben-Ghiat, from America's traditional role of providing a bulwark against expansionist autocrats like Putin and Xi. "What he would like to do is partly reorient military power to be used for domestic repression." She points to Trump's mass deportation plan for the undocumented, involving rounding up and removing the equivalent population of Sweden or Belgium from the United States, calling it a "vast repression" on "a historic dictator scale."
Trump has preemptively offered police officers immunity from prosecution (in what Ben-Ghiat calls an "authoritarian bargain"), and he's repeatedly expressed his desire to use the National Guard and even the Army to enact his deportation scheme — as well as to suppress the "enemy within" that opposes his designs.
Here, Snyder insists, is where the American public has its most important, and perhaps most challenging role to play. "The Trump-Vance initiatives can only work by getting the population involved — and basically corrupting us," he says. Snyder argues that even Americans who might share anger with Trump about immigration may yet be recruited to block the border camps promised by Stephen Miller.
"That's the kind of active thinking that folks have to do — am I going to become the kind of person who takes part in this sort of thing? Am I going to become the kind of person who denounces my neighbors because they are not documented?"
"If Their Rights Are on the Line, My Rights Are on the Line"
A key to resisting authoritarianism, Snyder says, is standing up for the rights of the least powerful first. "If protest comes down to the people who are protesting only because they have to, then you always lose," he says. "It has to be people who are one, two, three, four, even five steps away from being directly affected who show solidarity — and who also show pragmatism and wisdom by getting out early.
"If you're more privileged, you should be thinking, 'What can I do for the least privileged people?'" he says. "If their rights are on the line, my rights are on the line. That's not just a moral position. It's actually, politically, 100 percent correct."
Even as he insists that "the more privileged people have to lean out," Snyder recognizes that early returns on such bravery are bleak. He points to the "disturbing" choices of the owners of TheWashington Post and the Los Angeles Times to block their newspapers from endorsing Kamala Harris in an apparent attempt to curry favor with Trump. "That's an example of the most privileged people saying, 'I'm going to act like the least privileged people. I'm going to pretend that I'm the one who's going to be hurt here, and I'm going to run away.'"
Clawing Democracy Back
The most predictable part of Trump's effort to rule as an authoritarian is a supercharging of corruption and cronyism. The blowback to that will help build and strengthen opposition.
"The economy is going to be based on, are you friends with Trump? Are you connected to him in some way," says Stanley, who predicts federal contracts will be "tilted" toward FOTs, or "friends of Trump." One measure of how bad it gets, Stanley says, half in jest, is what happens to Mark Cuban — the billionaire who campaigned most vigorously for Harris. (After Harris' loss, Cuban tweeted his congratulations to Trump and Elon Musk.)
Snyder, whose latest volume is called On Freedom, insists that brazen corruption can erode support for a cult of personality like Trump's. "Folks have this fantasy that if you have a dictator, then the dictator is going to solve problems." But under Trump, he says, "you're going to have oligarchy, and a handful people are going to do much better — and everybody else is going to do worse, because the whole system is going to be corrupt and sticky" and run by "incompetent cronies."
"That's going to be bad for almost everybody," Snyder says. "And you can get a lot of support by pointing out how corruption is economically stupid, how corruption hurts everyday people in their everyday lives."
Both Snyder and Ben-Ghiat point to the recent example of Poland, which has slowly beaten back an Orban-style far-right takeover, as a model that can give Americans hope. "In Poland, the other side didn't give up," says Snyder. "They kept running, even when the elections [appeared] unfair. And they kept coalitions going, and people took risks."
Dictator for Life?
Stanley and Ben-Ghiat expect Trump will seek to stay in office for as long as he lives, despite the constitutional prohibition against him serving a third term. "He'll stay in office till he dies," Stanley predicts, "whether that's two years, four years, eight years, 12 years, like any other autocrat."
In the meantime, Snyder advises, America's system of federalism offers hope for democracy at the state and local level. "Many things are going to be terrible. But controlling the federal government doesn't mean you're controlling everything," he says. He exhorts Americans to support the institutions closest to them that uphold democratic norms — "whether that means some civil society organization, or state government, or a local mayor" — and collectively try to strengthen those bodies.
Defending those institutions will give proponents of America's democratic experiment their best shot at recovery, when the MAGA movement stumbles. Here, Trump's age and lack of a clear successor offers some hope. "He's old, so at some point, age is going to make a difference," Stanley says. "There will be a power struggle. The next opportunity will be when he dies in office."
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in 1971 I was told I was too young to join, now I'm probably too old ...
oh well ...
I figure that a better shot will come along. No way can Trump survive a plethora of second amendment snipers.
Hope he can't sleep at night for worrying about it.
I wish him every evil thing possible.
Isn't it unconstitutional to use the military for domestic purposes?
The Constitution may become an inconvenient impediment for the promised agenda. Here’s hoping at least some in the judiciary will uphold their oath.
... uh, like trump will start abiding by the constitution now? no worries, if he steps out of bounds and into the open, there's plenty of trained professionals that still hold sacred their oath to defend the constitution and taking one for the team is instilled in them ...
Yes there are some of us still around but I'm having my doubts about the ones I know who took the oath and still defend and support the racist bastard
they've completely negated the service to the US given by them. their status is now american by accident of birth...
I'm talking about the people closest to me. The only one I don't worry about is my son-in-law.
remain positive and think of the day when they realize what they've done and you can rub their face in it ...
There are many fools who are now regretting their vote for the fascist.
It's called Evangelical Authoritarianism and is justified by some by doing some constitutional contortionism. You see, the constitution guarantees our freedom of religion, and many evangelicals believe their religion and religious beliefs supersede the constitution and they believe the constitution itself supports that stance because it supports their religious freedom. So normally the constitution would prevent those in power from stripping Americans of established rights such as half a century of bodily autonomy protected by our constitution and affirmed by the supreme court. But if Evangelical Authoritarians get into power and place fellow Evangelical Authoritarians on the court they can subvert the constitution and strip Americans of their right to privacy because their religious beliefs supersede and are more important to them than the constitution. They could repeal the emancipation proclamation and send slavery back to the States if they wanted to and believed their religion was in support of segregation like nearly all white evangelical Churches of the past did.
So as long as their reason for acting like an authoritarian and stripping other Americans of their rights and freedoms is because they're acting on their religious beliefs, then they feel justified in their actions, the constitution be damned. They only support the constitution when it supports their religious beliefs and their right to own as many guns as humanly possible so they can prep for their holy war against all the infidels and foreigners so that they and their fellow Christian warriors can meekly "inherit" the earth by wiping out their enemies. They're frankly just putting up with progressives and liberals in America waiting for the day their God gives them the go ahead to open fire. Sadly, to many Cheeto Jesus is their new God so if Trump tells them to open fire, you know they won't hesitate. We saw what they did January 6th after he told them to "fight like hell" but do it "peacefully" which apparently translated to Trump supporters as "only beat capital police officers with flag poles and clubs but don't shoot them".
The Only Thing More Dangerous Than Authoritarianism - The Atlantic
I almost snorted water out of my nose.
christo-fascism ...
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How do you think he is going to use the military for domestic purposes?
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within" "We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.” - Donald J Trump
And sadly, it seems clear that a little more than half the country would empower him to do so.
His supporters know he's a snake, but they don't care because they believe he's only going to bite their enemies. Of course, he's going to bite our country in the ass, and they will regret their decision in the long run, but they'll likely blame the left for Trump no matter what he does. Heads he wins, tails we lose.
'you should have offered up a better alternative' is what ive heard used, by the herd, after Clinton lost. Sure it will hold true with this one as well
We have one ignorant country.
I disagree, Trump is surrounding himself with smart people that know the law. Would he use the military to secure the border, maybe. Do I see the military driving down Pennsylvania Blvd, No.[✘]
Trump doesn't want anyone on his team that's smarter than he is, and he certainly doesn't want any that are beholden to the law. He will surround himself, as he always does, with yes men whose sole job will be to massage their dear Leaders ego. His entire cabinet this time will be made up of those who have already surrendered anything that might have once been called a conscience or a brain. The guard rails are off, America needs to get ready for a rough four years on nonstop drama, trauma, finger pointing, ignorance and mayhem coming out of the oval office. We've had a pretty stable last four years under Biden regardless of what the dumb shit Trumpublicans ignorantly claim in their effort to promote themselves and their tired useless broken trickle down piss in the poor's face economics. But sadly, some on the right won't even acknowledge that they're getting fucked by the new Trump administration because they hate gays and liberals so much they'll just bite their My Pillows as they get financially raped over the next four years. You can fix ignorance with facts, education and information. Sadly, you just can't fix stupid so even after the next four years of inevitable disaster for America, right wing shit bags will still be championing Trumpism.
Putin beat Hillary just like he beat Kamala.
Damn shame that the GOP doesn't understand that they are Russian stooges.
Since the Supreme court has now gone illegal and since we have a criminal for a president, figure I might as well break bad as well. If it's good for the GOP scum bags...............
Gonna have to tell my daughter to just say fuck it and screw all those morals I taught her. Morals no longer exist in America.
theyr'e ethically now wrong
Yes, they do. They're not out in the open like they should be, but there are some of behind the scenes keeping our morals and our ethics
What is "unconstitutional"?
Did I spell it wrong?
Dunno.
Is it perhaps just so outmoded that an old guy like me can't remember it?
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And what did you sign up to fight for?
An ideal that forms the foundation of our democracy or an individual who has openly demonstrated neither the understanding nor the desire to honor that ideal.
And thank you for your service.
... some think they've earned the right to vote for a criminal/traitor. besides, when trump terminates the constitution, that silly oath they took to ignore later goes away too ...
Like a couple of teen incel school shooters plotting to gun down their fellow classmates because they've been bullied, rightwing conservative Christians have a chip on their shoulders and feel they've been bullied by the "MSM" and some fantasy "deep State" and the liberals and progressives and the lgbtq community and their "gay agenda", which gives them permission if not the right to "push back" which is how they see electing a treasonous sexual predator rapist felon. The more the left hates him, the more the right loves him. To them, hearing liberals complain about Trump is like listening to the screams of children running for their lives in the echoing hallways of a public school which is music to their ears.
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Is that what DP wrote?
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I heard someone refer to it as 'the Deep Blue State' the other day.
I don't give a shit if someone served if they defend a traitor, don't give a single shit. Makes no difference.
Oops, my bad. I wasn't paying close attention
forget it, I'm the one that flagged his but, but, but, what about off topic comment ...
It was off topic and I deleted it after I commented to ti
bfd. he was only here to troll ...
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Define "triggered tool".
it was the rifle that stayed in his closet while he served stateside ...
A simple search for the slang meaning of those two words will yield fantastic results
Tool: Someone who is being used without realizing it: A person who is selfish, rude, vain, close-minded, narcissistic, toxic, predatory, or thinks they are better than others.
Triggered: someone who is upset or has their feelings hurt.
Triggered tool: Someone who is upset or has their feelings hurt and is being used without realizing it. Pretty much describes every Trump supporter defending their dear Leader and getting butthurt that the MSM exposed them as low IQ back woods morons desperate to remain relevant in an ever-changing global landscape that has left rightwing religious conservatives behind.
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"boo hoo hoo ..."
Well I read the article and thought to myself, OK they are making some good points and I think that we all need to push back where Trump and his administration start to drift into waters unfit for a Democratic Republic. I was following along without expecting too much unhinged paranoia, that is until they said this:
Look I agree that there is plenty to be wary about when it comes to Trump, but he is not going to be able to stay in power past the end of his term. Even if he wanted to, not even the Republicans would let him. For one thing it would require another Amendment to the Constitution that would supersede the 22nd Amendment which would require the following:
Ain't going to happen! So why ruin a somewhat rational discourse on how to oppose Trump where he needs opposing with such an outlandish fear mongering "prediction"? Such statements diminish the rational and legitimate concerns we should have about Trump and simply add fuel to the knee-jerk argument that any fears about Trump are irrational. Such statements could also stoke violence if people really believed he would try to seize such dictatorial power despite the Constitutional restraints.
Good point. It takes forever to pass an amendment
everybody in america wants to see trump's head on mt rushmore, we just differ on the how, when, and where ...
I know where I want to see his head....but I can't say it here. I may offend sensibilities
so that's how his hair and face became those colors ... mystery solved ...
Trump is enjoying the shock value of his appointments, tearing DC down is his goal. Now that he has nominated these people the next will be to get them through congress which I doubt will be a problem, most Republicans don’t have the backbone to stand up to Trump with the exception of Lisa M.
Once they are approved by congress then the real test will began, they have to prove that they are capable which is a real stretch in some cases, the ‘’Peter Principle’’ will take effect and one can only hope that they have not done to much damage before that Principle is reached.
I don't think so. Trump will have Heritage Foundation people who will guide these ditzes in the demolition of their departments. Competence is unnecessary for destruction.
(30) Project 2025 Private Training Videos - YouTube
NONE of this is improvised. The Heritage Foundation has been planning very carefully.
how fitting
... uh, heh heh ... heh, heh, heh ...