“You won’t have to do it anymore… It’ll be fixed; it’ll be fine; you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Donald Trump at a Christian Religious Summit in Florida, July 26th.
My liberal friends rail at the unambiguous Trumpian move towards autocracy, believing that Americans will never stand for that. I tell them the only way a minority extremist groups can ever hold power is through dictatorship. Democracy, contrary to popular belief, is more fragile than most believe; it truly cannot sustain unchecked extremism. Remember, Hitler was elected! Yet too many Americans just cannot believe that we’d really vote democracy out the door.
There is a global de facto cabal of illiberalism transitioning to autocracy (e.g., Orban’s Hungary, Erdogan’s Turkey and perhaps Israel), of established autocrats (e.g., Russia, China, North Korea, Iran), slinging mutual support against an inefficient and messy form of government: democracy. But democracy was purposely designed to be messy, to accommodate myriad opinions on an open debate stage. Democracy is thus indirectly challenged… chipping away with consistency against the hallmarks of democracy, without decrying “democracy” directly.
These rising or established autocrats follow a unified, underlying, oft-repeated chorus, of “chaos” (their favorite buzzword), uncontrolled criminal acts (even when statistics show otherwise) and an underlying premise that there is only one dominant and properly constituted cadre of culturally, religiously and racially similar citizenry, whose values constitute the only “right-thinking” in the land. Each phrase, each word, is a putdown of democracy itself.
Only leaders with consolidated power can fix it, they say, and anyone who gets in their way is the “enemy.” To the extent there is a judiciary which acts as a check and balance to that rising concentration of power, it is either coopted, marginalized or simply crushed. And there is always a necessary religious, racial or ethnic group needed to focus public wrath, to serve as a rallying point, to justify an autocrat’s rise to power. Jews, immigrants, Uighurs, “radical leftists,” etc. are common targets.
The shift towards autocracy often creates new words that create a level of plausible deniability but reflect a clear reordering of dominance and control. In the US, rather than call things “white Christian nationalism” (e.g., white supremacy), a rising autocracy uses an ”only our way” term, “woke,” which conveniently has never really been universally or clearly defined. Another such trope is to use the label “DEI candidate” – which seems innocent enough after the Supreme Court delegitimized diversity, equality and inclusion programs for college admissions – as a socially “acceptable” term… replacing the “N” word for Blacks, the “S” word for Hispanics, etc. But the meaning to the users and adherents is beyond clear.
For Democrats, even pointing out the unabashed use of autocratic pledges unhidden by Donald Trump – starting with his simple wanting to be a “dictator for a day” – has not found traction. Either because many of his followers want a dictatorship as the only way to ensure white supremacy or because they believe that much of would appear extreme based on the choice of words is nothing more than Trump’s proclivity to exaggerate. Kamala Harris’ new tact is to view Trump’s rather obvious extreme rhetoric, now repeated in a massive double-down by his ultra-rightwing running mate, as aberrant, or as she puts it, “weird.”
Writing for the July 27th The Atlantic, Brian Klaas notes: “Trump’s remarks [above] represent an extraordinary departure from democratic norms in the United States—rarely, if ever, has a major party’s presidential candidate directly stated his aim to make elections meaningless, a notorious hallmark of autocracy.
“There are at least two ways of interpreting this statement. First, Trump could be implying that there won’t be any future elections if he comes to power. He may imagine himself as an American Xi Jinping, the Chinese dictator he routinely praises , a leader who’s declared himself ‘president for life.’ As he often does, however, Trump left just enough room in what he said for plausible deniability. A second and slightly more charitable interpretation of his remarks is that Trump believes his presidency will entrench so many pro-Christian policies into the United States government that no future election could realistically undo his transformation of the country. Both interpretations lead to the same conclusion: that Trump is telegraphing his authoritarian intentions in plain sight, hoping to sever the link between voters and government policy.
“Trump’s remarks last night [7/26] are just the latest in his long record of expressing authoritarian ideas and admiration for strongmen in several undemocratic regimes—including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un… Since launching his first presidential campaign in 2015 by painting an entire group of immigrants as rapists , Trump has taken just about every page from the authoritarian playbook. He lies constantly . He calls the press ‘the enemy of the people,’ a phrase so incendiary that Joseph Stalin’s successor removed it from Soviet propaganda . Trump even went so far as to label any critical reporting ‘fake.’
“Throughout his first term, Trump engaged in despot-style nepotism and cronyism, hiring his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to oversee crucial briefs in government while elevating his son’s wedding planner to a top role in federal housing. He abused his power to offer pardons as an enticement or a reward to witnesses who could testify against him, including Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, and even the ex-husband of one of the Trumpiest cheerleaders on Fox News, Jeanine Pirro. And, like all authoritarians, he saw himself as the sole embodiment of the state—which is why he referred to the military brass as ‘my generals ,’ used his office to personally enrich himself , and attempted to orchestrate an egregious quid pro quo, trying to trade missiles for political dirt on his former opponent.”
Yet Donald Trump’s star has risen high again. He has managed to diffuse the successful legal criminal and civil actions against him, as part of a well-organized radical leftist plot to marginalize and discredit him. The rightwing Supreme Court has even granted him an unprecedented level of presidential immunity, one that would probably send our forefathers into high-speed spinning in their graves. Harris’ obviously hopes that “weird” will resonate better than an honest assessment that Donald Trump’s “me first” persona is dynamically against supporting true democracy.
I’m Peter Dekom, and that the American public continues to focus on individual issues (notably the economy, immigration and crime) while missing the big picture choice of the going-forward choice of government our nation will follow, says it all.
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