Trump does the opposite of typical authoritarian rulers
Trump is not a dictator. He is the leader of chaos. There have been many analogies and warnings about the instauration of a Trump's authoritarian regime in the United States. However, Trump’s most relevant features are the opposite of what typical authoritarian rulers do: impose political control from the government over the economy, the education, the culture, the information, and the limits of citizens’ private life.
On the contrary, Trump is a multiplied version of Ronald Reagan's main dictum: "Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." Five years ago, he ran as an outsider whose main target was the "establishment," meaning the conventional politicians, the civil bureaucracy, the army, the diplomacy, and the mainstream media. "Drain the swamp" was his most transparent slogan. Once in Washington, he has not stopped launching his abusive and outrageous rhetoric, rebuffing the rules of the democratic game, fighting against Congress and other institutions, and taking personal benefit from government business. He has become an infiltrator to blow up the government from inside.
Instead of strengthening the government to increase its control, his main legislative achievement is a tax cut. He has called the American troops "losers" and "suckers," and he is at odds with the military and security chiefs. If his purpose were to become a dictator, he could have taken the pandemic as an excuse to seize more powers. Instead, he has neglected taking control of the crisis and repeatedly dismissed the health experts' advice for stronger regulation measures. He has not used but combats the "deep state".
Trump’s politics has no ideology. Some stylized philosophers could have the temptation to label his demeanor as “libertarian” or even “anti-paternalist." But when Trump was asked by one of his sycophant TV anchors what would his priorities be for a second term, he went befuddled and confused, unable to utter a meaningful word. For the first time in countless decades, the Republican National Convention that launched his candidacy for reelection adjourned without even adopting a new platform.
There are different types of Trump supporters, but almost none can be considered militants of an ideological cause. Of course, there is the crazy mob that attends his rallies and put big passion into it, which barely up to 2 percent of the electorate, and which Trump despised as "those disgusting people." The fringe lunatics of the far-right or white supremacism have always been there and are unable to promote a movement –the streets belong to Anti-Trump protesters.
Trump is, first, temporarily supported by cynical traditional Republicans that give maximum priority to tax cuts. There are also unconditional followers of the president in charge, whoever he is, for the sake of being close to the office-holder whatever it can imply. These people would adapt to any chieftain holding the loudspeaker from the White House.
Trump’s most distinctive followers are a certain type of angry white men that neither benefit from tax cuts nor receive any particular benefit from being close to power. They do not necessarily share or flap most racist, xenophobic, sexist, and nationalist garbage that Trump expels daily. Many of those people see themselves as irremediable victims of social, economic, and technological changes and do not see a foreseeable better future in their primary conditions of life. They share a deep rejection and repulsion of almost every politician and any other standing power. They see Trump as a model of recklessness, the liar-in-chief, a freewheel that gives them the justification to freewheeling themselves, not complying with the rules, and lying too.
Trump is not the builder of new policies and social norms, but the master of chaos. He, from his top example, gives everybody permission to be reckless, everyone in their way. If he were reelected, the United States would not become an authoritarian country, the way, for example, that in Russia Vladimir Putin gradually expands the official power beyond limits or any restraint. Trump would rather complete his destruction of the regular working of the main institutions and would expand misgovernment. The United States would not become a war threat or an Orwellian Animal Farm. It would turn into the world’s most visible bad example of disorder and disarray.
Version in Spanish in daily La Vanguardia
https://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20201102/49151049421/trump-no-es-un-dictador.html
COMMENTS
Rein Taagepera said:
You make a well-documented case. I am hard put to find a case in history of someone reaching dictatorship through dismantling institutions.
Trouble is that I also fail to find a precedent for the alternative: a leader single-handedly turning a country into “the world’s most visible bad example of disorder and disarray”.
In his utterly ahistorical Romulus the Great, Friedrich Dürrenmatt makes Flavius Romulus Augustus purposefully dismantle the empire prior to 476 as penitence for Rome’s criminal history. But an actual (sub)conscious dismantling? So we seem to be in uncharted waters either way.
Let’s hope we never find out how a clown’s second term ends.
University of California, Irvine
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