The Coming Autocracy

There is a strong likelihood that if Donald Trump wins the presidency again in November 2024, less than a year from now, democracy in the United States of America may be supplanted by autocratic governance.

But faced with this alarming prospect, large numbers of Americans, including some who claim to detest Trump, shrug, believing that if autocracy replaces democracy in the U.S. they personally will not be adversely affected, that they’ll be able to go about their daily lives without undue bother.

I’m afraid that such people are like ostriches trying to hide from predators by burying their heads in the sand.

The danger is very real, and it will affect tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of Americans.

The list of all the groups of people that Trump has pledged to take vengeance against, using the powers of the U.S. government, is quite long. Here are some: immigrants, with or without visas; non-birthright citizens; residents of top-ten-in-population cities run by Democratic mayors (e.g., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston); women, via a national anti-abortion law; RINOs (Republicans In Name Only, meaning in his view any Republican not an active Trumper); union members; Muslims; civilian federal employees; and high-ranking officers of the military. As a reminder, Trump has also advocated trials and even executions of high-ranking people who have publicly disagreed with him, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley, and Marine Corps General John F. Kelly.

Currently our laws mandate that a president, on issues like immigration, must negotiate with Congress on what is to be done and the resources to be used. An autocrat can order harsh treatment without recourse to negotiation with other elected representatives; Trump has already said he will kick out all immigrants with or without Congressional approval, and has also pledged to wage war against Mexico, whence most illegal immigrants enter the U.S. Anent abortion, Trump, in addition to championing anti-abortion legislation, wants to curtail that the ability of women in red states to go to blue states for their abortions, or to obtain aborting medications to bring home.

Federal grants to big cities — essential to provision of services — could easily be withheld. Federal monies flowing to blue states such as Connecticut could also be curtailed, resulting in cutbacks of important services like public schools, maintenance of state highways, etc.

If, as Trump has promised, the federal workforce reverts to being a patronage system under his control, the expertise built up over decades in such departments as energy and health care could be flushed away – to the detriment of tens of millions who regularly benefit from it. No more Anthony Faucis!

An autocrat’s ability to adversely affect the credit rating of the U.S., the stability of our banking system, and Social Security eligibility and payouts, cannot be overestimated.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon, in a chat with John Dean, suggested that while in his first term he had not used the power of agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service against his enemies, he planned to do so during his second term; Dean replied that such a prospect was exciting. Also in 1972, CREEP (the Committee to Re-Elect the President), run by former attorney general John Mitchell, successfully shook down virtually every major corporation and wealthy individual for contributions, partly by the implied threat that refusal to ante up would invite second-term repercussions. That too is a precursor for how an autocratic regime would deal with private businesses seeking to sell goods and services to the federal government.

In Trump’s second term, if he keeps his promises, the retaliation that Nixon dreamed of, against individuals and businesses through use of federal agencies, would become routine. We should also factor into our understanding of this threat that advances over the past fifty years in data-keeping and data-extraction — not even to speak of Artificial Intelligence — would heighten the potential for abusing power far beyond the level of what Nixon could have done.

In future columns: the dangerous pattern-setting-for-autocracy measures of Southern state governors; and the 1933 first-100-days actions of Adolf Hitler and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Salisbury resident Tom Shachtman has written more than two dozen books and many television documentaries.