Donald Trump invites authoritarianism to America
America’s scary flirtation with authoritarianism threatens its democratic foundations—and it’ll take a concerted global effort to push back
If you’re not worried right now, you’re not paying attention. Or perhaps you’re a partisan whose capacity to warp reality to fit your world view is on par with the ability of large bodies to significantly alter space-time. Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States was abnormal, and the very early days of his administration have given us more reason to be concerned about the future of America and the global order than we had even in the tumultuous months following his victory.
Politicians, academics, commentators, and journalists have regularly compared Trump’s rise to that of fascist and authoritarian leaders. In the halcyon days of only a year ago, it was impolite at best—and absurd at worst—to mention either fascism or authoritarianism in a conversation about mainstream American politics. Indeed, back then, Godwin’s Law marked the outer limits of civil discussion: the claim that the longer a discussion (on the Internet) continues, the more likely it is that Hitler will be invoked as a comparison meant to criticize another’s extremism. Now, epithets such as “Hitler” or “Nazi” or “authoritarian” are just plausible enough that they betray a reasonable, growing anxiety.
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At best, Trump exercises authoritarian tendencies. (At worst, he and his supporters’ words and actions come disconcertingly close to authoritarianism’s most virulent and nationalist variety, fascism.) Authoritarianism, to slightly adapt political scientist Juan Linz’s definition, is a way of governing marked by severe limits to freedom—the centralization of authority in the hands of a single leader or small group of leaders who may use power to benefit personally (for instance, by using the state to generate personal wealth), and impose limits on civil society. As a way of directing the affairs of state, authoritarianism is enabled and sustained by force—or the threat of force—and is further underwritten by supporters who demonstrate a deep, often emotional attachment to the leader and the regime.
Perhaps all of that is starting to sound familiar.
The Oval Office’s newest tenant owns a politics marked by compulsive, blatant, and sustained lying aimed at generating a cult of personality, rallying his supporters, undermining his opponents, and putting the press on their back heels. On Saturday, Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, stood in the White House briefing room and lied to the assembled media about the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration. “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” he said.
It wasn’t. But his boss lives in a perpetual campaign and his cult of personality demands ongoing veneration. So, this time, a small, blatant lie was told.
Since then, Trump has declared his inauguration a “National Day of Patriotic Devotion,” ordered the construction of a border wall with Mexico, advocated torture, silenced government agencies, launched an investigation into (non-existent) voter fraud, and doubled-down on his promise to ramp up deportations while also limiting entrance to the United States by refugees and Muslims. At the same time, his advisers have been disputing reality, with one, Kellyanne Conway, claiming the existence of “alternative facts.”
In a November essay, political theorist Jacob Levy highlighted that the power to speak untruths and to make others repeat them is a time-worn tactic of oppression: “Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them…Arendt analyzed the huge lies and blatant reversals of language associated with the Holocaust. Havel documented the pervasive little lies, lies that everyone knew to be lies, of late Communism. And Orwell gave us the vivid ‘2+2=5.’ ”
Coupled with attempts to bend reality to his will, Trump sorts the world into simple groups, characterizes them as enemies of one another, and then takes sides. His nativism, nationalism, and isolationism reflect his one-dimensional thinking. In his inaugural address, he began by claiming “Today’s ceremony…has very special meaning because today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.”
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures while walking with wife Melania and son Barron during the Inaugural Parade in Washington, January 20, 2017. Donald Trump was sworn in earlier as the 45th President of the United States. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
While he speaks to a long-standing concern—that American politicians don’t serve the interests of the people they’re elected to represent—his division of the world into “elites” and “the people” is deliberately antagonistic. Moreover, his solution to the problems facing the United States is to use the power of the presidency to do battle rather than to work to find solutions. His default operating mode is belligerence—and belligerence requires enemies. This characterization of politics is the antithesis of pluralist liberal democracy.
When Trump says “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” he is referencing not crime, but an idea of the United States as a nearly post-apocalyptic hellscape marked by unchecked violence and widespread decay, porous borders across which would-be terrorists are constantly moving, and foreign enemies whose only interest is in the decline and fall of the Republic. He divides the world into heroes (the People) and villains (foreigners, criminals, terrorists, elites). To do battle, extraordinary commitment is required. So are extraordinary powers.
What do Americans get in return?
As Trump said in his inaugural, which reads like it might have been written for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, “There should be no fear. We are protected and we will always be protected. We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement. And most importantly, we will be protected by God.”
Americans get to be safe. Secure. Protected. Just trust and follow the leader.
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In advanced democracies, a first line of defence against encroaching authoritarianism is elections. If you don’t elect would-be authoritarians, their path to power is much more difficult. Downstream, there are other formal and informal institutions meant to prevent the rise of such people: The Constitution, the courts, law-making bodies, sub-state units, the press, and civil society.
It’s unclear if American institutions will now be able to effectively check Trump. The American system of checks and balances was designed to enable branches of government to resist overreach by their counterparts. To the extent that there was to be an institutionalized adversarial relationship, political parties weren’t the primary mode of organization—branches of government were.
Today, deep polarization between Republicans and Democrats, Republican domination of Congress and state legislatures, and a Supreme Court that will soon feature a majority of Republican-appointed justices could enable Trump to stretch his authority further than other presidents have before as the Red Team squares off against the Blue Team.
None of us knows what comes next. The United States is in uncharted territory and consequently so is the rest of the world. What is to become of the American experiment and the global order? Will America slowly drown in the rising tide of authoritarianism? The fact that it now seems at least plausible that it might, the rapid and bold and frightening steps that Trump has taken in his first days as president, and the uncertainty about the future on so many fronts means that resistance to extremism—and active support for rights and democracy—are more important now than they have been at any time since the Second World War.
A more stable future now hinges on the institutions we have collectively built over the course of decades and, in some cases, centuries. Democracy and rights can only exist through the continued support of a critical mass of those committed to them. Sustained civic action combined with rigorous, critical press coverage will be necessary but not sufficient elements for a bold response. Preserving the best of both America and the world as we know them will also require millions of people believing that democracy and human rights are not just the ways of the past and the present—but also the path toward a more just future. For Americans, that might require reflection on the revolutionary origins of their country and a reminder that liberty can never be taken for granted.
David Moscrop is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia and a writer. He’s currently working on a book about why we make bad political decisions and how we can make better ones. He’s at @david_moscrop on Twitter.
5 days into his term and the US is already looking to remove him.
Emilyone on
Good read! Small typing mistake here: The fact that it now seems at least plausible that it might, the rapid and bold and frightening steps that Trump has taken in his first days and president, (…)
I think you meant “(…)the rapid and bold and frightening steps that Trump has taken in his first days AS president (…)”
Christopher Breton on
“Small typing mistake …”? The whole piece is a typing mistake.
B.Causeiknow on
Media now seem comfortable calling a spade a spade.
Alex2 on
The last time a guy did silly things with his hair and his hands it shut the free world down for a few years until we could get rid of him. He had his followers too.
blacktop on
Half of the U.S. voters did not agree with you. This is not authoritarianism, but democracy.
Kermodebear on
“Or perhaps you’re a partisan whose capacity to warp reality to fit your worldview”
Or maybe you are a Reform Hater in Canada.
Let’s speak louder against this trend for anonymous haters, hiding behind social media, feeling that they can trash Canada at will while they cheer Trump, in the hope that he will help trash Canada. Don’t say you have not noticed. All you need to do is look in the National Post, Globe and Mail and other major paper comment sections. Canada’s enemies within can clearly be seen there. We are in a battle for Canada.
And no, we can disagree in our democracy, but trashing Canada or wishing ill on our country should be clearly off limits. The Reform Haters have no regard for that.
TJ Conway on
As an American thank you for this story. People who are resisting Trump were buoyed by the demonstrations around the world, including Canada. Forty people from here in Northern NY joined the 6-8000 in Ottawa and many others demonstrated locally and in DC. The article is right, we may not get out of this hard right turn into a historical dead end for a long time, if Republicans press their advantage and effectively create one party rule. Democracy is not a spectator sport. I have thought “stand on guard for thee” a bit of an odd formulation but it is absolutely right. Be vigilant and guard your democracy in Canada. It may also be time for the rest of the world to move on without the US on any number of issues, trade, climate change, and a clean energy economy. If our crisis deepens, boycott US companies–they understand economic pressure, and if necessary, move from the US dollar as a reserve currency to a basket of currencies. Always remember that a majority of Americans voted against Trump and his agenda. Many of us are resisting, and will continue to do. People are organizing and acting on their own with Daily Acts of Resistance–letter, phone calls, donations. Please pray for us.
Ginger Storey-Welch on
Your desire to be governed by Hillary and, later, Sharia law, leaves me speechless.
B.Causeiknow on
I beleive your example is a bit extreme. That being said, a lot of people failed to recognize that one of the speakers/organisers of the Women’s March (Linda Sarsour) is a staunch supporter of Sharia law and what it entails. That by no means is representtive of the whole march , but rather exposes how many people are knowingly/unknowingly casting a blind eye to inconvenient truths.
Joe8 on
What’s up Mr. Moscrop, did she make you sleep on the sofa last night?
B.Causeiknow on
Last time I checked, the authoritarianism is stemming from liberal colleges and universities in the States. We also have the same problem here on Canadian campuses. Today, authoritarianism and a more marxist world view is rampant amongst liberals and the left. It has gotten so bad and is so engrained on campus that many liberals don’t even realize they have become authoritarians. If you don’t beleive me, google any incident where a student or professor on campuses in the US or Canada bring up a dissenting opinion from the campus majority. You will also see this when speakers with differing opinions are censored on campus and students protest and disrupt the events. None of this admonishes Trump in any sense…..but we also have to recognize that the majority of authoritarianism today is actually coming from the left. So, let’s try to fix BOTH the problems with a Trump administration AND the rampant spread of authoritarianistic thinking that has taken over the left. However, to say that the Trump administration is the main source of authoritarian thinking in the USA is just not based in reality.
Joe8 on