The only thing standing between democracy and dictatorship in America

06 February

Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance gesture during the U.S. national anthem at the Army-Navy football game in Landover, Maryland, U.S., December 14, 2024.

Trump wants FBI agents who investigated his coup attempt, his facilitating espionage, or his other financial and criminal activities fired.

Let’s be very clear: this is how dictatorships start.

A guy who wants to be a dictator always begins by changing how the government works. Even though the majority of the nation had agreed previously that the government should do certain things in certain ways, he reassures everybody he’s got a better way and it’ll all work out.

In the process, he breaks a bunch of laws, but people mostly shrug because they don’t directly affect them. Pastor Niemöller wrote about this in 1930s Germany; to paraphrase: First they came for the government workers…

Then people start resisting, which is when he begins to use the police power of the state. The people who show up in the streets, the people who speak out in the media, the people who try to fight him in the legislatures and the courts: he figures out ways to get them fired, harassed, and ultimately imprisoned.

When she was being confirmed, Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to say that she would not executed an illegal order on Donald Trump’s behalf. Like if he directed her to investigate somebody who irritated him. Or prosecute somebody who had investigated him. Or imprison — perhaps only temporarily, at first — somebody who has spoken out against him.

We’re there now. Bondi just announced that the political prosecutions are about to begin. At first they will be going after the police agencies themselves, as a way of bringing them to heel: Terrify the terrifiers.

Next will be the Press. First they will use financial terror to force compliance; we’re already seeing that with Trump’s lawsuits against all three major networks and multiple newspapers. That will expand. Eventually it will turn into shutdowns and arrests.

He will remake our schools so they become indoctrination factories for his white, male supremacist worldview and the new authoritarianism.

He will realign our democratic country away from democratic allies and toward countries run by dictators like he aspires to become.

He will purge the military of leadership that might resist him and of troops who might refuse his orders.

He will remake our criminal justice system so it becomes more violent and brutal, opening prisons for “the worst of the worst“ in places beyond the reach of law, like Auschwitz in Poland or Guantánamo in Cuba.

He will remake our media so it becomes a Greek chorus, singing his praises and carrying his every word.

By proclaiming, as every dictator does, that divine providence and the blessings of God put him where he is, he will bring the country‘s largest religious institutions to heel.

He will proclaim grand plans and spectacular efforts, like the Autobahn or remaking Gaza, Greenland, and Panama. They will distract the public from the relentless, grinding destruction of the guardrails of government itself.

He and his allies will empower civilian militias who will then become his terror shock troops against the people who oppose him. Hitler had his Brownshirts; Republicans in Nassau County are right now trying to field America’s first armed private militia.

He will remake commerce and business, so the most successful companies are those that throw money and resources at him. Fritz Tyson wrote a book about this, about his shame at facilitating it, titled I Paid Hitler. Someday, perhaps, Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook will write a similar book.

America today is early in this process, although it doesn’t typically take very long. It took Hitler 53 days. It took Putin about a year. It took Victor Orban about two years. It took Pinochet less than a week, although he had the help of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

Trump and his project 2025 friends, however, have been preparing for this for four years: They hit the ground running.

This moment proves that the preservation of democracy requires constant attention and a collective commitment to uphold the integrity of its institutions.

Right now, though, the only thing standing between democracy and dictatorship in America are public opinion, the media, and the Democratic Party; Republicans have completely caved and the courts move too slowly to stop him.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to think they can pull this off in a matter of weeks, and so far — because of the cowardice of Republican legislators and the disorganization and lack of leadership among Democrats — they may be right.

Unless we all stand up and speak out now.

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