"Authoritarianism Is Already Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed"

by David Bernell and Ambassador Thomas Graham (Retired)

Sometimes big ideas are found or expressed perfectly in unexpected places. In a social media post advertising an upcoming panel discussion on the future of American politics and government, Malka Older, the Executive Director of Global Voices, wrote the words that became the title of this article. The comment brilliantly captures the political dynamics in Donald Trump’s America. The problem isn’t on the way, it’s here. And yet, Trump’s politics and policies also haven’t extended a ubiquitous reach into all aspects of American society. For this reason, opposition that exists remains limited and uneven, with people who don’t openly embrace Trump either not knowing enough, not convinced enough, not concerned enough, or not brave enough to do more than acquiesce or just get on with their days. And so the path continues toward the consolidation of Trump’s power and wealth, while he simultaneously targets sources of political opposition.

If you’re not an immigrant (here legally or not), if you’re not an outspoken public opponent of the president, if you’re not in Los Angeles or Washington DC with troops policing the streets, if you’re not a press outlet that has criticized the president, if you’re not a federal employee whose job or entire agency has been eliminated, if you’re not at a targeted university or law firm, if you’re not the recipient of federal funding that has been cut off, if you’re not the CEO of a business being shaken down by Trump to give partial ownership of your company to the U.S. government, then maybe you haven’t noticed or been impacted in a way to make you think the problem of authoritarianism is now a domestic concern, as opposed only to something that happens overseas.

If the policies and practices of the American government have not impacted you directly, it might be tempting to think that what’s happening in the United States is that a legitimately elected president is doing what he promised to do: carry out massive deportations, cut federal programs, and seek to remove or diminish what he and his party see as a leftist leaning bias in various institutions such as the government, media, law, business, and education.

This view, however, would be wrong. Consider the following. If you saw a government somewhere else in the world where the president was, 1) sending military forces into cities that were opposition strongholds (saying he had declared an “emergency” to use his authorities to respond to lawlessness); 2) using law enforcement powers to conduct targeted investigations against people, both in out of the government, who are political opponents of the president; 3) massively building up a policing force with agents (also acting under emergency powers) who wear masks and show no identification or warrants while raiding business and roaming the streets, arresting people and deporting them without due process; 4) consolidating power by threatening media, legal, and educational institutions with lawsuits, funding cuts, investigations, and/or government control; 5) using government power and the promise of presidential access to enrich himself and his family; 6) forcing businesses to give shares of their company to the government and giving the president a say in the company, while providing favors and business opportunities to companies with special access to the president; and lastly, 7) saying that he can do whatever he wants because he’s the president, and that he might want to extend his time in office beyond constitutional limits, you would conclude that this was an authoritarian regime bent on consolidating and extending its power and wealth. And you would be right.

These are all things that President Trump has done or is currently doing. For months there has been commentary on the extent to which the president’s words and deeds could be considered authoritarian. The introduction of American military troops into American cities, in the absence an actual emergency, over the direct objection and opposition of mayors and governors, in these cities and states, to target American citizens (the president has used the term “homegrown terrorists,” to describe people arrested for crimes), once again crosses another line that clearly defines Trump’s actions. As one commentary stated, if you want to know what authoritarianism looks like, it is “the president using armed military units...to seize cities run by opposition political figures and it looks like the president using federal law enforcement to target regime opponents.”

Therefore it is appropriate to conclude, as William Kristol of The Bulwark put it, “what we are seeing is not merely a ‘slide toward authoritarianism.’ It’s a march toward despotism. And it’s a march whose pace is accelerating.” Or as Ezra Klein of The New York Times said, “Donald Trump is corrupting the government — he is using it to hound his enemies, to line his pockets and to entrench his own power…This is not just how authoritarian happens. This is authoritarianism happening.”

What Can Be Done?

In a nation of 340 million people, unevenly distributed authoritarianism means that most people are not directly affected by the politics and policies of the Trump administration. They can go about their lives and avoid having some type of unjust, coercive federal power applied against them. This is the state of the country today. There is plenty of opposition to Trump, but it is not cohesive and it is not coordinated. This is known as the “collective action problem,” in which it is very difficult to organize people in a group who are not connected in concrete way, and who don’t have similar interests or problems (one person’s husband was deported, while another lost their job with USAID, and another is not directly impacted but disapproves of current policy).

By contrast, Trump and those in power can use their authorities and offices to coordinate the simultaneous actions of many people to take action and exercise power very effectively – ICE agents raiding businesses all over the country, Justice Department lawyers conducting investigations, DOGE blocking payments of federal grants and contracts, and the media reporting every utterance made by the president.

It remains to be seen if and when enough Americans might decide they have had enough of Trump’s actions. And this is likely to depend on some “spark” or focusing event. However, any such spark that could prompt a large public response to provide attention and build momentum would also be likely to present its own dangers. Our current state of polarization, along with the growing level of political violence in the country against political figures on both the right and the left – the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the equally terrible but less attention-grabbing assassination and attempted murder of two Democratic legislators in Minnesota in June – seem likely to beget even more political violence, as well as calls for the stronger and more widespread use of federal government powers to crack down.

There is some pushback occurring among elected officials engaging in what are more normal, though definitely heated, political activities. Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Governor Gavin Newsom of California, both Democrats, have been vocal critics of the president and have garnered a great deal of attention. In responding to the possible deployment of troops in Chicago, Pritzker has been provocative, saying “You shouldn't have to walk around with papers the way that they did in the early days of Nazi Germany to prove that you belong…And that is essentially the kind of country that we're becoming." Newsom has chosen to parody Trump, sending out tweets in all capital letters, mimicking the language, style and personal attacks typical of Trump’s own messages. After Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska, Newsom posted, “TRUMP JUST FLED THE PODIUM WITH PUTIN — NO QUESTIONS, NOTHING! TOTAL LOW ENERGY. THE MAN LOOKED LIKE HE’D JUST EATEN 3 BUCKETS OF KFC WITH VLAD.”

These two political figures stand out because the Democratic party in general has not been effective at opposing Trump. To be sure, it has little institutional power in Washington, with the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court all controlled by Republicans, who are loyal and deferential to Trump. But the Democrats in Congress have been particularly ineffectual in either generating organized public opposition, or in galvanizing and connecting the many disparate pockets of opposition that exist throughout the country.

Senate Democrats are currently deciding if they should use the only leverage they have right now. A government shutdown is looming, and Democratic votes are necessary in the Senate to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded. A vote to pass the continuing resolution will keep government agencies open and functioning, a goal that Democrats strongly support. On the other hand, a vote to fund Trump’s government will amount to complicity in facilitating more of the administration’s efforts to entrench its own power. The party seems to be without a strategy for the continuing resolution. And this is consistent with its troubles since Trump won the election: the Democratic party is disorganized, without a clear message, and without a plan to do much more than pinning its hopes on winning the midterm elections. Considering how much has already happened in just over seven months since Trump returned to office, it seems pure folly for the party to wait another 14 months to try and stop Trump. If Democrats continue to spend most of their time talking only about health care and “tax cuts for the rich,” without more acknowledgement that what’s going on in American politics is not normal or in any way acceptable or excusable, while hoping for the best in November 2026, they are likely to see more defeat. This is not a good strategy, it is a recipe for disaster, not only for the party but the country.

In the absence of a well-established and organized strategy to challenge the executive branch, civil society and individuals are left with the one thing they have at their disposal: refusing to cooperate, throwing everything they can in the way of the administration’s efforts to weaken, or divide and conquer any sites of existing or potential political opposition. The record thus far of civil society – law firms, businesses, universities, media outlets – offers numerous examples of organizations falling in line with Trump’s wishes and gives little reason to expect much at this time in the way of noncooperation. (J.B. Pritzker and Gavin Newsom have provided examples that get noticed, but it remains to be soon if they prove effective.)

The Source of Our Strength

The United States – in which Trump’s administration is weakening democratic governance and institutions, while threatening prosperity by cutting everything from trade, to investments in science and innovation, to disease prevention at home and abroad – is inviting its own loss of freedom, privation, and deterioration at home. On top of this, the president is facilitating America’s decline, weakness, and irrelevance in the international arena.

In the early twentieth century the British, who had been the strongest power in the global economy for decades, whose navy had ruled the seas for even longer, and which held the balance of power among the world’s great powers, was in a period of relative decline as new global competitors emerged. Germany had unified and was industrializing and getting richer as it built up its army and navy. The United States had expanded across the North American continent and had become a world power with colonies, bases, and power extending from the Caribbean to the Far East. Japan was industrializing, modernizing its political system, and building a powerful military, defeating both China and Russia in war. And by the 1920’s and 30’s Soviet communism, along with German and Italian fascism, were on the rise as ideologies that were all-encompassing in envisioning and fighting for a new politics and a new global order.

It took two world wars to put the world on a different trajectory. Out of all those competitors to succeed the British as a global hegemon, the one that succeeded, the one that grew the most and outperformed the others, replacing the British while further extending its role throughout the century and outlasting the Soviet Union, was the United States. The country that embraced liberal democratic politics, along with global trade and global institutions to advance security, prosperity, development, and health around the world emerged as the dominant global power. (Even though the results of these global efforts may have been mixed, their pursuit has been an important part of the what the United States has accomplished.)

The world is changing yet again. China has become a major force in global politics with economic, political, and military strength few would have predicted at the end of the Cold War. Russia has recovered from the worst of its late-Soviet and post-Communist decline to challenge the West and become a more influential global power. There is no going back to what might be imagined as a better past. But in trying to navigate a complex future, there is also no sense in standing by and letting our democracy whither, along with the qualities and policies that have contributed mightily to making the United States free, strong, prosperous, and influential in the world.

Permitting the weakening of our democratic governance to avoid Trump’s wrath is short sighted and dangerous. And for those who are supporters of the president, it is not a good tradeoff to allow American democracy to be undermined in order to achieve more immediate benefits, whether this involves tax cuts, conservative judges, or just owning the libs. This imperils our freedom, along with the strength, prosperity, innovation, and optimism we have been lucky enough as a nation to long enjoy.