It happened so fast. For almost 250 years, both sides of the political divide in the United States celebrated a separation of powers within our three-branch system of representative government. No longer. With the election of Donald J. Trump as president, America careened toward autocracy. If we don’t act soon, if we don’t engage immediately with our democratic process, there will be no turning back.
Dear reader: Before we proceed, let’s be perfectly clear about the mission here. We have all seen countless references to “unprecedented” bad-boy behavior, dire warnings about the demise of democracy, and actual legal indictments and impeachments of Donald Trump. If you already understand the threat he poses, if you are already convinced that Trump is a self-serving dictator who has brought democracy to its knees, you need read no further. But the question then becomes, what are you doing about it? If you haven’t contacted your representatives in Congress, if you haven’t engaged in grass-roots politics, what are you waiting for? The following catalogue of offenses is meant to get you off your ass.
There has never been a time like this in America. What is occurring today cannot be properly compared to the presidencies of Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as some have suggested. Labeled tyrants by their opposition, those presidents all operated in times of crisis and emergency (the Nullification Crisis, the Civil War, the Depression, and World War II). They tried to save the country, whereas President Donald Trump wants to tear it down for vengeance, to massage his own ego, and for personal gain.
During a 2023 televised town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Candidate Donald Trump if he would abuse his presidential power, to which Trump responded, “Except for Day One.” When pressed by Hannity for clarification, Trump specified, “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.” Then, “After that, I’m not a dictator.” But Trump evidently enjoyed the taste of dictatorship, so day one gave way to months of autocratic abuse.
Authoritarian governments are characterized by the concentration of political power in one person, or a small group of people, at the expense of democratic institutions and individual freedoms. Trump has taken control of the United States government and established himself as America’s de facto autocrat.
A cauldron of resentments, jealousies, and grievances had brewed among a large segment of the American public since the Great Recession of 2008. Despite having viciously stirred that pot, Trump lost the popular election to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by almost three million votes, which inhibited the incoming president’s appetite for authoritarianism. Emboldened by a more legitimate victory in 2024, however, Trump’s newfound winner-takes-all mentality further unleashed his instincts for lying, cheating, and retribution. What’s more, he has forced the Republican Party to close the door on resistance. He has insisted that his party muzzle the opposition through overt voter suppression and audacious gerrymandering. These are the methods of an authoritarian.
Trump routinely debases democratic norms. After flagrantly pressuring state officials such as Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” votes for him, Trump still frequently claims that the 2020 election was stolen, despite all evidence to the contrary. (Trump lost the popular vote by a count of over seven million and was handily defeated in the Electoral College.) Trump’s GOP is currently using the legal system to intimidate the election board of Fulton County, Georgia. Borrowing the language of Joseph Stalin, the president refers to the media as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people.” Trump has even gone so far as to suggest revoking the broadcast licenses of networks critical of him. He demands loyalty from government officials, including judges and members of the intelligence community, and he has weaponized the Department of Justice against his impeachers and even his former allies. Trump pummels his allies into submission, as when he just this week forced Missouri legislators to pass a redistricting plan that gives Republicans another safe seat in Congress. Unquestioning loyalty (typically the byproduct of bullying) is a hallmark of the Trump brand. It’s an autocratic cult of personality. If you aren’t part of that cult, what have you done about it? What are you waiting for?
Autocrats often resort to violence while scoffing at the rule of law. As far back as 1989, in a Larry King interview, Trump said, “Maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done.” As recently as this week, Trump has initiated a change in the name of the Department of Defense, because, as Secretary Pete Hegseth chillingly observed, “We’re going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality…We’re going to raise up warriors, not just defenders.” Trump idolizes strongmen like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping, all of whom have been accused of grave human rights violations by organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. (Trump just successfully pressured Congress to back off of long-awaited sanctions against Russia.) The recent obliteration of an alleged cartel vessel killing eleven people in international waters is an example, according to retired Navy captain Jon Duffy in Defense One, of “murder” and “authoritarianism,” facilitated by the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States that the president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed while exercising official duties. Trump’s Jan 6 pardons, attack on judges, use of the military against American citizens, brutal immigration controls, business fraud and falsification of records, abuse of the legal system for political retribution, misuse of the Trump Foundation to pay personal expenses, and having been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, all beg the question as to what he means when demanding increased “law and order.”
There has never been a president of the United States who so blatantly molested the office for personal gain. Trump shakes people down for money or endorsements like a mob boss. His first impeachment, for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden, seems almost quaint by comparison to the unabashed graft unfolding all around Trump today. Having refused to divest from his business empire, Trump has made every effort to monetize his presidency. He encourages foreign governments to patronize Trump properties, which he also uses for government business, as when he charged the Secret Service exorbitant rates at one of his hotels. Through multiple “Stop the Steal” campaigns, Trump robbed his supporters of millions. When hawking Bibles only generated chump change, Trump turned his sights to digital trading cards, meme coins, and cryptocurrency. He mercilessly bends the massive influence of the Oval Office to his own gain and that of his family, as with the unprecedented $40 million deal with Amazon to license a documentary about Melania.
If all of that doesn’t strike you as authoritarian, if you somehow doubt authoritarianism would ever knock at America’s door, just look at Project 2025, the blueprint for autocracy in this country.
Project 2025 is the enormous, extremely conservative, 900-page roadmap (presented in five sections with thirty chapters) orchestrated by the Heritage Foundation (overseeing 400 contributors from fifty conservative organizations) that Trump is enacting through executive orders. The project mirrors authoritarian government strategies. That’s right: AUTHORITARIAN. There is nothing subtle about this document, which is a playbook for dismantling the modern administrative state and undermining democratic elections. This project is grounded in the Unitary Executive Theory, which aims to shift power away from Congress and the courts to the president. Along with enhanced executive power, it advocates the rollback of civil liberties, the replacement of career civil servants with party loyalists, and the dismantling of independent agencies like the CIA, FBI, Federal Reserve, Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Internal Revenue Service. Although Trump distanced himself from this plan during his campaign, he has been feverishly committed to it since his election.
Project 2025 and the Unitary Executive Theory are not the American way. These ideas do not coincide with the Founders’ intent, nor the wishes of the American public. Polls conducted by NBC, YouGov, Newsweek, and The Washington Post all confirm that, to the extent Americans are familiar with this project (most are not), the vast majority (70-90%, depending on the polling service) do not approve. Yet here we are. Right where Donald Trump wants us.
Trump brags that he has mastered the art of the deal, but his real talent is the art of deception, constantly twisting the facts and bending the narrative to his advantage. Perhaps his boldest deceit came when he convinced Christians that he is their shepherd. Democrats can’t whack the moles fast enough. To make matters worse, Trump has also perfected the mechanics of bullying. Give the president credit. Shameless lying and harassing are his special powers.
You might think he’d get tripped up by his lies and hypocrisy. He says he believes in free markets then orchestrates the government’s partial purchase of Intel; he touts fiscal responsibility even as his lower taxes balloon the national debt; he advocates states’ right until those states refuse his unwanted military “assistance”; he insisted we lock up Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for using her private email account, but looked the other way when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted highly confidential military strategy on an unsecure non-government communications app; he recently federalized the police in the District of Columbia to fight crime after refusing to do so on January 6, 2021. The list goes on and on and on. As should be evident to all observers, the operative principle is presidential power. That’s it.
It is all quite overwhelming, but having seen the inventory of offenses above, you can’t wait until things are even more obvious. Now that an authoritarian has entered our home, we must resist. Scholars have suggested that democracies are impotent in the face of authoritarianism, that voters simply don’t have the power to eject an autocrat. It is time to prove that incorrect. It is time to organize our opposition for the coming midterm elections. Don’t wait for others to carry the load. Act now, while you still can.
Together, ‘we the people’ must defend our democratic traditions. Authoritarianism is not now and never has been the answer for whatever ails America. If President Trump truly cared about American success, he would be looking to make democracy great again. In the immortal words of President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address, “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
i think all intelligible people MUST STOP talking about the "midterm elections" ... firstly, we cannot wait that long ... secondly, there is clearly NO CHANCE that we will have a free & fair midterm election cycle precisely because of the point of this BRILLIANT article : we have a dictator ruling in an autocratic political system in the united states ... dictators (like putin) host shell elections, which we all ready see them preparing ... WE ALL MUST ACT ... NOW ... the revolution is here ... may freedom prevail !!!
THANK YOU! For months I've been tell folks that by the time midterms get here it will be too late. Look at all the damage that's been done in a mere 9 months.