The Authoritarian Handbook

Whether or not it was good politics to say it, I suppose it’s debatable (though not much) if Donald Trump is really a fascist. But it’s undeniable that he is an authoritarian. In fact, it’s Trump’s strongman, give no quarter, image that so many of his supporters love about him.

So, here’s what I expect Trump to try to do soon after taking office.

He’ll try to define any opposition to or criticism of the government as a threat to national security, if not outright treason. Don’t laugh. This is what China did in Hong Kong. There were protests, but there were arrests anyway. And now free speech, and any organized opposition to the central government, has been pushed underground. But Trump doesn’t like the Chinese, so maybe instead he’ll follow the lead of his pal Vladimir Putin, who has a habit of making opposition leaders show up dead.

And there are even precedents from the U.S. There were the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 which combined a crackdown on speech critical of the government with increased powers of the president to deport noncitizens — two things Trump would love. There were also harsh crackdowns on free speech during World War I while citizens of Asian descent were imprisoned during WW II.

It doesn’t help that the Democrats tried to gain control of speech on the Internet that they considered to be hateful or harmful false information. I always thought that that was a bad idea because, at some point and it would be pretty quick, you get to a situation where hateful and harmful is in the eye of the beholder. Liberals wanted to quash conspiracy theories. But now the authors of those theories will be in control. Don’t be surprised if facts don’t become dangerous conspiracies under the new regime.

Won’t the Senate stand in his way? No, because they’ll end the filibuster — exactly what the hard-left was demanding when the Democrats controlled that body. I always opposed doing that because it can cut both ways. Now it will cut one way and we won’t like it.

Trump will need an entity to enforce this. He might try the FBI, but he’d have to fire Christopher Wray first. And, even if he did, he’d find too much resistance embedded in the rank-and-file. He might try Homeland Security, but that’s not an organization really set up for this. So, eventually he’ll try to set up his own secret police, loyal only to him.

Next he’ll go after the independence of the judiciary. He might not have to since he already made a slew of judicial appointments in his first term and he, more or less, controls the Supreme Court. But it’s the “more or less” part that he’ll find unacceptable. It’s possible that even Trump’s high court will find his authoritarian moves to be a bridge too far. So, he’ll have to pack the court. Again, Democrats made noises about doing this themselves, so they’ll look like hypocrites for opposing him.

Will he get away with all this? In the long run, probably not entirely. Free speech and criticism of the government, no matter who runs it, is so embedded in American culture that these laws would be impossible to enforce on a mass scale. For once, the Internet will have done some good. But even if he gives up on mass enforcement, he’ll have the laws on the books to use selectively against his most effective critics.

Now, go ahead and call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist myself. I pray to God you’re right.