Connecting the dots of Trump’s authoritarianism, and the implications for our resistance.
Although some have been saying this for quite a while, yesterday was the first time that I connected the dots into a cogent strategy, and it truly didn’t seem like hyperbole to say that the US is teetering dangerously close to authoritarianism. The Trump administration is literally attempting to systematically undermine the foundations of our democratic system. In a matter of weeks, they have already tried to:
- DISCREDIT THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM (e.g., presenting Trump’s narrow electoral college victory as a landslide, repeatedly advancing the unsubstantiated claim that “millions of votes” cast in the election were “illegal” when in fact Trump lost the election by 2 million votes)
- UNDERMINE PUBLIC OUTCRY AND PROTEST (e.g., downplaying the largest mass mobilization in US history and repeatedly pushing citizens to “respect” the president, paving the way for a surge in Republican-supported bills to criminalize protest)
- ERODE THE PRESS (e.g., accusing major outlets of publishing “fake news,” pushing “alternative facts,” admonishing journalists to “keep their mouths shut”, and proposing a budget that dramatically cuts support for public media)
- PUBLICLY CONDEMN OPPOSITION ELECTED OFFICIALS (e.g., mocking or chastising an ever-growing number of legislators such as John Lewis and John McCain, delivering an inauguration speech premised on the assertion that Washington is self-serving)
- SELECT APPOINTEES SET ON DISMANTLING GOVERNMENT (e.g., nominating an energy secretary who has proposed abolishing the department, an education secretary who is a critic of public schools, a housing secretary who once called fair housing “communism,” and a head of the EPA who has repeatedly sued the agency)
- IGNORE NORMS AROUND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AND NEPOTISM (e.g., circumventing traditional background checks on appointees, naming Trump’s son-in-law as his Senior Advisor)
- UNILATERALLY PURSUE MAJOR SHIFTS IN AMERICA’S FOREIGN POLICY (e.g., strengthening the relationship with Putin, making a protocol-breaking phone call to the Taiwanese President, antagonizing the Mexican President, and purging large numbers of State Department staff)
The list goes on. And I believe the overarching strategy finally hit me yesterday because I see the #Muslimban as an effort to undermine faith in our judiciary. Broadly speaking, the Trump administration is creating judicial chaos, deliberately pitting the country’s courts against the federal bureaucracies responsible for implementing their orders (in this case the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection). More pointedly, Trump surrogates have referred to the fact that the federal judge who issued a stay on the Muslim ban was appointed by Obama, establishing the frame that future legal actions against the administration’s policies are rooted in political ideology, and are thus invalid (remember that a similar tactic was used during the 2016 election campaign when Trump claimed that the Judge presiding in the Trump University case was biased “because he was Mexican”).
These moves are not unrelated: they point to a clear effort to rapidly consolidate power in the executive and simultaneously weaken civil society. While we must not downplay the significance of the racist and xenophobic nature of the ban itself, we should be similarly alarmed by every item listed above. Make no mistake, Trump is a master of distraction (and I’ll say it again: TRUMP’S ENTIRE PERSONALITY IS A DISTRACTION), but it appears that the Trump administration is pursuing a shock and awe strategy when it comes to dismantling our democratic institutions. They are trying to overwhelm us by attacking all fronts at once. In my view, this raises several important points for resistance:
We need to recognize this strategy.
Again, I am aware that people have been saying this for some time and that I am coming late to the game. But I now firmly believe that this should be our frame for assessing and critiquing the Trump administration’s policy decisions. This will involve acquainting ourselves with historical cases of democratic erosion, and more importantly, deepening our knowledge of US civics to anticipate how this will play out in our country. And while I’m late to the game, I also recognize that this idea still seems sensationalist to most people (I know that not everyone’s newsfeed contains as many Adorno or Assata quotes as mine). To effectively fight the Trump administration, we need to seriously advance the central narrative that they are working to dismantle our democracy (e.g., post on Facebook, have conversations about this idea with your family and fellow activists). In doing so, we should be wary of painting a picture of some elaborate multi-dimensional chess game unfolding — people are more likely to grasp/support this argument when it is grounded in straightforward connections (e.g., this article).
We need to keep applying pressure.
We must make this administration fight the people for every inch. This will involve continuously showing up in the streets, calling elected officials en masse, etc. It will involve disrupting business as usual and shutting down the executive bureaucracies that Trump needs to advance his mandates. Do not let anyone, authoritarian or otherwise, convince you that protest is ineffective — it is ultimately our sharpest tool for making democracy work. It is imperative that we keep this tool sharp and throw sand in the gears in bold ways, because this is happening fast. Yet sustaining our resistance will also require that we avoid burnout; we need to know our own limits, practice self-care, and look out for others in this fight. The best way to sustainably apply effective pressure is to do so in an organized fashion — it is crucial that concerned people plug into ongoing activist efforts (e.g., join a group and commit to regularly attend their meetings, sign up for alerts, etc.)
We need to protect our democratic institutions.
Now is the time to support quality media, to use that law or policy degree for the public good, to fight wholeheartedly and loudly against voter suppression or other clear cases of undemocratic policy shifts. Again, we must also educate ourselves about existing political structures at the local and national level so that we can firmly and precisely speak out when we see that ground is being threatened or lost.
We need to watch out for the exploitation of crises.
Historically, times of crisis are when democratic governments extend the reach of the executive (e.g., the GW Bush administration and 9/11); if the Trump administration has already been so effective in challenging democratic institutions under the strong economy and relative domestic stability they inherited from Obama, imagine what they might do in an emergency. This is especially worrisome in the context of this administration’s terrible policies, which have been roundly debunked; their environmental policies will catalyze the climate crisis, their economic and social policies will exacerbate America’s crisis of inequality, and their defense policies (including the Muslim ban) will worsen the threat of terrorism or all-out war. We need to expect that the Trump administration will leverage any crisis to further weaken our democratic institutions, and we should be prepared to immediately fight such moves through the measures noted in steps 2 and 3. Crucially, we should also build bulwarks to minimize the impact of crises on those most vulnerable (e.g., by supporting direct service organizations at the local, national, and international level with our time and/or money).
We cannot go back to the status quo.
While this is #notnormal, Trump did not emerge in a vacuum. On the contrary, his administration is exploiting preexisting gaps and inconsistencies in our democracy. On the day before Election Day, the US political system was afflicted by: historically low popular support for government; polarization and political gridlock; an empty supreme court seat due to Republican opposition; unprecedented sums of money in politics; the dramatic expansion of presidential war powers to support an endless War on Terror; the militarization of police and the explosion of private prisons to support an endless War on Drugs; the gutting of key provisions from the Voting Rights Act and the push toward racist voter suppression methods (e.g., redistricting, voter ID laws); America’s inherent white supremacy forcefully rearing its head in reaction to our first Black president; and many, many other problems. If we are outraged by the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, we should recognize that the seven countries affected were already highlighted as “countries of concern” by the Obama administration; if we are outraged by the Trump administration’s proposed wall, we should recognize that both Obama and Hillary Clinton voted to build our current 700-mile physical fence (a.k.a wall) on the Mexican border.
Undoubtedly, now is the time to show up in force against the Trump administration’s edicts. Yet it is also the time for progressive people to forcefully articulate our vision for a more just democratic society and demand transformational change. As we move forward in our resistance, let us take these words to heart: we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
