Category: Authoritarianism

SAVING OUR DEMOCRACY THROUGH TRUMP OBSESSION

In case you haven’t noticed, we are obsessed with Donald Trump. He gets far more news coverage than any of his predecessors. We incessantly talk, tweet, post and blog about him. Late night and early morning talk shows digest the Donald’s every move. Four films at this year’s Sundance Festival were about Trump. Psychotherapists are treating patients for “Trump Anxiety Disorder”. Drained by the antics of our 45th president, people are unplugging from social media just to clear their heads.

So, in the vernacular of Brokeback Mountain, why can’t we quit him? What sense does it make to fixate on someone we know will fill our hearts with angst, agony and anger? Why not go on a lean Trump diet of a morsel or two every now and then?

The answer is that Donald J. Trump poses a lethal threat to the core principles of our 242-year-old democracy. Ignoring the elephant in the room doesn’t mean he’s not there. We have every reason to be anxious and angry. Yet, our deliverance from this morass will come from continued vigilance, not escapist denial. And come it must, for our very way of life is at stake.

If you think that last sentence was mere hyperbole, then consider what this president said Monday night in response to a warrant authorizing the search of his attorney’s office: “It’s an attack on our country . . . ; it’s an attack on what we all stand for.” Of course, “what we all stand for” is a nation of laws. The search warrant was sought through those very laws, by top U.S. Justice Department officials appointed by Trump. It was also authorized by a federal judge, representing a separate branch of government. It was as American as apple pie. Yet the president of the United States saw the search as treason simply because it might have adverse consequences for him. Only in an autocracy ruled by a strongman tyrant would that premise make sense.

Therein lies the problem. Trump approaches the presidency as if our constitutional democracy doesn’t exist. He may think he has a bigger nuclear button than his North Korean counterpart, but what the Donald really wants is Kim Jong-il’s title: Supreme Leader. Trump is perpetually mystified and profoundly frustrated with the parliamentary ways of Congress. And he has no time whatsoever for the annoying intrusion of a judiciary he can’t control. As he has said so many times, “I alone” can fix the country’s problems. If only he could find a way to rule the kingdom by himself.

And that is precisely why it is so important for us not to turn our backs on this presidency. Two Harvard professors, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, wrote a book called How Democracies Die. They cited four markers, all of which have Trump written all over them: They are:

1. Rejecting or showing weak commitment to democratic rule.
2. Denying the legitimacy of political opponents.
3. Encouraging or tolerating violence.
4. A readiness to stifle or limit civil liberties of opponents, including media.

Hanna Arendt, a noted political philosopher of the Twentieth Century, wrote about the characteristics of totalitarianism more than 80 years ago. The ideal subject for totalitarian rule, Arendt wrote, “is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exists.” According to the Washington Post fact checker, Trump made more than 2,000 false or misleading statements during his first 355 days in office. He has relentlessly gone after the news media, insisting that everything they publish or broadcast is “fake news.” Polls show that a substantial portion of his base believes him.

If Donald Trump ruled this country in the authoritarian style he craves, there would be a total Muslim ban, a complete rollback of LGBTQ rights, a wall around Mexico, eviction from the country of 800,000 young immigrants brought here as children, deportation of millions more, all without due process. To one extent or another, those objectives have either been scaled back or blocked by the courts, or by the actions or inactions of Congress. So far, our democracy is holding, even against the will of a man determined to undermine it.

Yes, the news media has covered Trump more extensively than any other president. And, yes, most of the coverage has been negative. But it’s negative in the same sense that a story about a devastating hurricane is negative. By definition, news is an aberration, something unexpected or contrary to custom and tradition. When Trump, on almost a daily basis, issues statements that are patently false, that’s news. When the president calls impoverished African countries “shitholes”, that’s news. When he says one thing and then does the complete opposite, that’s news. When he repeatedly demeans and insults other governmental leaders, including members of his own cabinet, that’s news.

At this very moment, according to news reports, we are on the verge of a constitutional crisis. Trump wants to fire Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and other Justice Department officials in an attempt to shut down the Russian election interference investigation. So far, his own advisors and other Republican leaders have held him back. But, as we know, Trump doesn’t take kindly to advice that runs contrary to his impulse.

Clearly, our democracy is facing more peril than it has in at least 50 years. Now is the time for more Trump news, not less. Now is the time, for us to tune in, not out. A recent poll showed that one in five Americans have participated in protests against Trump. That’s just the vigilance we need to protect our democracy. After all, that is really, in the president’s words, “what we all stand for”.

TRUMP’S ROAD TO TYRANNY IS PAVED WITH RESISTANCE

Nearly nine months into Trump’s presidency, there is but one saving grace: the early dystopian prediction that our democracy would be usurped by an authoritarian dictatorship has not occurred. Not for want of trying, mind you. Trump tweets, barks and snarls like a banana republic strongman, but when it comes to effectiveness, he more closely resembles a little old man behind a curtain, impersonating a wizard.

Those were some dark days after the November election. One publication declared the danger of pending authoritarianism to be severe. Another said the time was ripe for Trump to turn our democracy into tyranny. Two Harvard professors suggested the new president was positioning himself for an authoritarian takeover.

Our country is clearly at one of the bleakest moments in memory. The president has injected a despicable toxicity into our everyday lives, disrupting relationships, instilling fear in marginalized groups, dominating far too many of our waking hours. Trump’s got the fastest Twitter finger in the West, a cyberbully with nuclear codes. Life in these United States right now is anything but comfortable. Yet, an authoritarian Armageddon does not appear to be at hand. This president has been unable to get a single major bill through a Congress controlled by his own party. Heading toward the last quarter of his first year in office, Donald Trump is the opposite of a strongman. In terms of effectiveness, he has been a bastion of weakness.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly talked about how he, alone, could “drain the swamp” and return America to greatness. It sure sounded like a prelude to authoritarian rule. When he got into office, he started bonding with all of the ruthless strongman dictators around the globe: Russia’s Putin, Malaysia’s Razak,Turkey’s Erdogan, the Philippine’s Duterte, Egypt’s el-Sisi and Thailand’s Chan-ocha. Trump admired the ability of these despots to get things done, regardless of how many bodies had to be buried along the way. He wanted to be like them. And he might have been, except for three major differences between himself and his bully buddies: his tyranny mentors all had substantial military assistance and no significant legislative or judicial oversight. Trump, on the other hand, has had his baser instincts squashed by those same institutions.

Ironically, it was Trump’s affinity for the military that persuaded him to draw three former generals into his inner circle: Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary James Mattis. They have all struggled valiantly to pull Trump back from his odious moves. Their win-loss ratio has been uneven, but the effort has been a clear reversal of the military’s role with other totalitarian leaders. These generals are trying to contain the damage to our democracy. They reportedly spent the weekend trying to steady Trump’s hand on the North Korea crisis and urging him not to withdraw from a trade agreement with South Korea, at the very moment that such an alliance is so critical to our interests. When Trump taunted North Korea by tweeting that “talking is not the answer,” Mattis immediately issued a statement saying that “We’re never our of diplomatic solutions.” The defense secretary also deftly maneuvered around the president’s order to keep transgender people out of the military by tabling the policy while a panel of experts makes recommendations.

The generals are not alone. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, among others, have publicly distanced themselves from Trump, a previously unheard of move by a cabinet member. Tillerson has done it repeatedly: on North Korea, Qatar, nuclear proliferation, climate change and Charlottesville.

Eliot Cohen, a state department official in the George W. Bush administration, told the Washington Post that these White House objectors are keeping the country safe. He said: “Very few of them are there because they love him. Some of them are thinking: ‘This is potentially a very dangerous time for the country. I will go in and do my best, in effect, to save the country.’”

The judiciary has also played a significant role in holding Trump back, much to his constantly tweeted chagrin. His Muslim travel ban has been repeatedly scaled back by different courts, as has his attempt to withhold funds from municipalities refusing to cooperate in apprehending undocumented immigrants. When the Boston Globe last counted in May, it found 134 lawsuits filed against the Trump administration, setting yet another record for this president. Congress, too, has stepped up to the plate to stop the president from numerous pursuits, thus providing a major block for the would-be authoritarian.

That leaves Trump with only one real club: the power of persuading the American people to support his agenda. It’s here that the Donald’s real weakness shines through the emptiness of his tough talk and tweets. Unlike every president before him, Trump has made no effort to expand his base, to move independent and soft Republican voters into the “strongly support” column. The hardcore, rabid rally-goers and white supremacist marchers are the only audience he cares about, hardly enough to move Congress in his direction. Trump’s approval ratings are at the lowest of his presidency. Not only that, 55% of voters say he is not stable and 58% call him reckless. Politico reported on a recent focus group of Trump voters where the conclusion was that even his base is losing patience. Participants described him with words like “chaotic”, “scary”, “tense”, and “embarrassing”.

Despite all that, Trump can and will cause more damage and pain in the days that pave his uncertain future. At this point, however, there is solace in mitigation. The democracy-protecting strictures put in place by the country’s founders are holding up just fine. They, and other key players in this drama, are keeping the 1776 dream alive. And the very essence of that dream is governance by, for and of the people, not by the whim of a tyrannical king.