Trump's election win is no mandate for authoritarian rule

But Trump will try to claim one nonetheless. Defenders of democracy need to stay a step ahead of him.

American Flags around the Washington Monument. December 31, 2011. Photo: John Menard/Creative Commons

This piece was originally published at The Hot Screen.

Donald Trump’s victory is a shocking and disastrous conclusion to the 2024 presidential race. Four years after he turned insurrectionist by attacking the results of the 2020 election through fraud and violence, a majority of the American people have nonetheless chosen to return him to the Oval Office. His campaign laid out an American future of mayhem, mass hardship, and repression; with the presidency, the Senate and likely the House, and a compliant Supreme Court in the hands of the GOP, there is no reason to think he won’t do what he has said he will. From seeking vengeance against “the enemy within” to deporting 15 million immigrants, to gutting the economy with insane tariffs, to lowering our defenses against Russia and other enemies, to installing anti-science zealots into positions meant to protect the environment and the public health, to gutting the rule of law through the appointment of hack judges and bent prosecutors, Donald Trump’s election is poised to make most of our lives much worse.

There can’t be any mincing of words: Americans have elected a man who is fundamentally an enemy of America, a man who detests democracy, a sociopath who has no real sense of lives outside his own. He has returned to finish the job that he started on January 6. Among his first acts in power will be to pardon the traitors convicted of assaulting the Capitol and to eliminate the remaining legal cases against him, whether or not such interference is actually legal.

In his ascent, Trump is the conduit to power for deeply regressive and corrupt forces in American society. Right-wing oligarchs see him as the path to increased riches and control over American workers. Far-right religious groups and adherents see him as the man who will increase their influence and impose their backwards views on women and non-Christians in the country. Many millions more see him as a strongman who will restore the fortunes and status of white citizens and put uppity minorities in their place. Bound together by propaganda and lies, worshipping a strongman leader, steeped in grievance and scapegoating “the enemy within,” America has assented to rule by what is clearly a fascistic movement.

Or has it? One fundamental question going forward is to what degree people were fully aware of what they were voting for when they voted for Donald Trump. I will put my cards on the table and say that I don’t think most people knowingly voted for a dictator who will obliterate the rule of law, gut our rights, and destroy our national security. Some did, yes, but certainly not a majority. The New York Times has a pretty decent analysis of some of the structural issues that helped Trump win, but its assertion that “Donald Trump told Americans exactly what he planned to do” is only half-true: Trump indeed did so, but the political media did an abominable job in communicating this to the public, engaging in all manner of sane-washing and repeatedly failing to foreground the deep threat he poses to our country. Then there is the matter of people simply not believing that he would do the things he said, like shoot protestors or deport millions of immigrants — a disbelief shared by plenty of his hard-core supporters.

The dust is still settling, but it seems likely that economic concerns were heavy on the minds of many in their decisions to vote for Trump. Inflation was a generationally unsettling experience for the citizenry (Annie Lowrey smartly points out that “This is not a purely economic story; it’s a psychological one too”) for which the Biden-Harris administration paid a heavy price, and long-term, festering issues like housing and child care costs (also topics Lowrey has written about) mean that Democrats’ huzzahs for the economy rang hollow for many. With the pummeling in the Senate that the Democrats took, it feels like this was a general rejection of incumbents tarnished by such feelings. There is also the fact that ruling parties across the democratic world have been booted in the wake of covid and its disruptions, suggesting a world-wide dissatisfaction with political leadership — as well as a turn to authoritarianism as right-wing parties have gained in power.

A related, more general point that many others have made from various angles, and that I’ll talk about more in the future: the contemporary world is obviously disorienting and complex, and it’s not crazy that many people feel varying levels of specific and general insecurity. Trump offers a simple, easy-to-grasp solution: believe in me, give me your support, and I will keep you safe. This is an appeal that’s both atavistic and authoritarian, but it clearly works. In contrast, the Democrats have been inconsistent if not absent in telling a narrative of the country and our society, particular with respect to the admittedly gigantic social changes they have rightly helped advance. In the absence of a progressive story for where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going, we ended up with Make America Great Again.

But for those of us who despise Trump, it’s deeply unsettling that a majority of voters would choose the path he offers: the obviously bogus claim that he will bring safety and security. Did they not live through the same first Trump term as the rest of us? Deeply unsettling as well that the lure of hate and vengeance brought another set of voters on board, after Trump’s four years of claiming that he, and they, were robbed of their rightful power. All that sense of humiliation and retribution, bottled up for years, now uncorked — only the insensate would not be at least a little afraid.

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In terms of fully confronting Trump’s authoritarianism, providing a sense of economic hope, and conveying a more general sense of being able to provide security to Americans, the Democratic Party has failed to do its job. Put most bluntly, the Democratic Party has failed to defend the country against an undeniable threat to our freedom and our democracy, to the point that they have lost the popular vote against a man who is openly gunning to take away both. Throughout the last eight years, there has been a pattern of refusing to admit the threat that Trump, and the MAGA movement he brought together, truly pose to the United States. Democrats need leaders who fully understand this danger and are committed to defeating it. Those whose errors in judgment have helped get us to this point of disaster need to make way for leaders who can get the job done.

During his first term, Democrats consistently refused to employ what powers they had to hold Trump to account; even when his actions were outrageous enough to merit impeachment, Democratic leadership both resisted the confrontation and then treated it as a pro forma process to be dispensed with as quickly as possible. After Trump’s first term, Democrats declined to investigate the many, many scandals of his time in office or to pursue other strategies to keep his reputation properly in tatters. Save for the January 6 commission — the exception that proves the rule — Democrats behaved as if we were still in the era of “regular,” pre-Trump politics. This, despite the growth in plain sight of a cult around the Big Lie claiming that Trump had been robbed of his re-election, a clear rejection of democracy. Not only this, but Trump and the GOP also tied the Big Lie into the white supremacist Great Replacement theory that millions of migrants were being imported into the United States, with the neat twist that such migrants were providing the margin of victory for Biden and other Democrats.

Beyond this, Democrats have failed to reckon with the immense media advantage that the GOP possesses through a broad array of right-wind networks. As Matthew Sheffield puts it in a survey of the media imbalance that he argues was decisive to the Democrats’ defeat, “Trump’s victory was built on blatant lying, but it could not have worked without the far-right media machine that Republicans have been building for decades but which has mushroomed in size since the once-and-future president came onto the political scene in 2015.” It is incredible that the Democrats have not grasped by now that reliance on traditional outlets means ignoring those outlets’ determined bias to a “both-sidesism” that benefits the radicalizing GOP. Likewise, it’s incredible that the Democrats have failed to grasp the degree to which a substantial number of Americans get their news from right-wing sources that report Republican propaganda, not reality.

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To fully confront the threat that Trump poses, we must first acknowledge his personal depravity, and second that his very depravity is at the heart of his appeal to millions of our fellow Americans. At the same time, we have to see that for millions of others who supported him, their backing is more contingent, and can more relatively easily be peeled away from him. But for both groups, we have to recognize that the appeal is not rational, is not based on facts and figures. It is rooted in extremely basic, even primal feelings. If we are to reach them, we need to understand the emotional appeals Trump is making — to pride, to resentment, to insecurity — in order to offer a healthy alternative that is democratic and unifying for all Americans.

Among other things, we need to double down on democracy, and the principles of equality and freedom, in ways that are vivid and tangible to people. Donald Trump essentially tells citizens to surrender their power to him, and that in return he will keep them safe. Not only is this contrary to basic ideas of dignity and self-respect that I would hope have an intuitive appeal to most people, the idea of trusting a king-like figure to do what’s right is literally what our country was created to avoid. Trump and his political allies very much want to take away our power, whether it’s through voting restrictions, outlawing abortion, or banning books, or through decimating unions, despoiling our god-given planet, or letting the richest among us buy elections and political office. 

We need to get back to the basics. Don’t just talk about protecting “the rule of law” — talk about what that phrase means via concrete details, about what happens when it doesn’t exist, and about how we can see examples of its absence in other countries. We have gotten to this perilous point in part because we have been lazy with the meaning of words that we hold to be central to our lives. And the same goes for the terms we use to describe the MAGA movement — if we rightly call it “fascist” to draw attention to its uniquely threatening nature, we have to be sure to have an open discussion about what we mean by the term. We can’t take anything for granted.

We must also stand firm against Donald Trump’s authoritarian interpretation of his powers, for which he can point to the Supreme Court’s ignominious immunity ruling in support of his attempt to overthrown the 2020 election. Adam Serwer cuts to the heart of the matter when he writes that “there is no constitutional mandate for authoritarianism. No matter what the Roberts Supreme Court says, the president is not a king, and he is not entitled to ignore the law in order to do whatever he pleases [. . .] Americans cannot vote themselves into a dictatorship any more than you as an individual can sell yourself into slavery.” This will be a vital observation to remember as we wrestle with the fact that Trump won a majority of the vote. Does this mean that a majority have voted to end democracy? We need to articulate a resounding and thorough “no” to this question over the coming months, against what will be Trump’s inevitable attempts to assert outrageous new presidential powers.

We need to make sure that democracy means not just a democratic government, but an economy that serves the interests of all Americans, that builds greater equality and wealth for all. MAGA fascism includes powerful supporters like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel who see their engagement a way to increase their personal wealth at the public expense, as do other billionaire and multi-millionaire supporters who expect returns on their investment measured in favorable laws and regulations. This is a topic for another day, but those who hope to defeat the MAGA-fied GOP need to articulate a vision of the economy that gets us beyond what feels like hand-to-mouth, all-against-all competition for so many people (and yes, this does get us into heavy questions about capitalism, government’s role in the economy, etc., hence the saving it for another day).

We need to stress solidarity, not just among those who oppose the MAGA movement, but also towards our fellow Americans who back Trump. Everyday supporters of Trump are some of his greatest victims, marks whom he claims to love and represent, but from whom he’d rip away health care or Medicare without a second thought. Trumpism runs on hate, with MAGA voters encouraged to believe that fellow citizens are enemies and undocumented immigrants are animals. We need to resist the hate bait, and out-Christian the so-called Christians; we must make an effort to love, understand, and find common ground with our neighbors, as hard as it can be. At its heart, the MAGA logic is to give people feelings of hate, resentment, and vengeance to distract them from the fact that the politicians they elect never seem to actually do anything to make their lives better in tangible ways.

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Let’s end with some preliminary thoughts on how to confront and ultimately defeat Trump and the authoritarian MAGA movement. Even as we process our grief and work through our disorientation, we need to get to a place where we prioritize initiative, confrontation, and confidence. MAGA is a fascistic and insurrectionary movement that has broken into democracy’s house and is in the process of ransacking it, with our freedoms, our security, and our economy on the line. Though its authoritarian and white supremacist elements are rooted in centuries of American history and culture, pluralistic democracy is the only legitimate form of government in this land, and freedom and equality are our rightful inheritance.

In the near term, keeping the initiative should be the order of the day, once folks have had time to process and grieve this disaster. First, we badly need the Democrats to start kneecapping the incoming Trump administration ASAP. The Biden-Harris administration owes the country a peaceful transfer of power — but they also have no obligation to unnecessarily empower a man who has already declared his intention to be a dictator on his first day. Taking a page from recommendations made by Brian Beutler, if the Biden administration has transcripts or other evidence of conversations between Trump and Vladimir Putin, it should release those now. The same goes for evidence in the now-doomed federal prosecution of Donald Trump for his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Cover him in mud while he’s still waiting to take the oath of office.

Given his obvious pleasure in fantasizing about ordering the military to shoot protestors and seize political opponents — fantasies that may soon become horrifically real — Biden and other Democrats should take this interval to send a public message that the use of the military to suppress political dissent is illegal and an abuse of power. They should communicate this both to the armed forces and to the public at large. They should remind the public that Trump is talking about murdering American citizens, and defiling the highly-revered armed forces by making them complicit in murder. In other words, they should take Trump’s threats seriously and do what they can to blunt them, given that they’ve otherwise failed to keep this authoritarian out of power.

In light of the near-certainty that Trump will cut off aid to Ukraine, Biden and his team need to basically ship every possible needed supply to Ukraine, stat. Let’s see Trump and his cronies complain that the U.S. is trying too hard to defend American interests in Europe, and start howling to help Putin before he’s even in office.

Democrats should also concede not an inch of the Harris campaign’s assertions that Trump is a threat to democracy. They should reiterate clearly and forcefully the awful things Trump has promised to do, and to do everything they can to publicize those acts when Trump does — both to inform the public, and to demonstrate that he is exactly the unfit character that they have been saying he is. This can help galvanize those who already detest him, and start to reach some of those who disbelieved that Trump meant what he said. It is a good bet as well that he will attempt to engage in actions that many of us haven’t even yet imagined, and we need to have a framework already in place to capture and communicate those to the public.

The need to be ready to call out and describe Trump’s extreme measures is all the more important since, as David Kurtz points out in an interview with Greg Sargent, Trump’s team is already trying to backfoot and intimidate the opposition with the breadth and intensity of their promised early actions (including mass deportations). There can be no cowering as if Democrats are helpless victims; likewise, any Democratic leaders who counsel us to give Trump a chance and see whether his bark is worse than his bite need to be laughed off the public stage.

Democrats need to characterize as deranged the actions that Trump will try to present as righteous and proper. I am thinking here of efforts to persecute political enemies, to brutally deport millions of immigrants (including children who are American citizens), and to purge the civil service of dedicated experts and replace them with sycophantic pro-Trump hacks. They must do so with an eye to building public outrage and opposition, and in a way that explains how the actions violate basic American principles — whether of due process, a belief in facts and truth, or basic human decency. They need to have faith that they can use Trump’s actions to change minds and build up the opposition to defeat his movement and cripple his presidency. This is not a static situation; Trump will surely overreach, and such overreach will be a great vulnerability that Democrats must ruthlessly exploit.

One particular idea: Democrats and other opponents of Trump should immediately start discussing the idea of buyer’s remorse about the choice America’s voters have made. There is simply no way Trump will not be unleashing, over the next few months leading up to his inauguration, all manner of threats, sordid plans, and vengeful promises — as well as the deranged gibberish that seems to come out of his mouth half the time these days. He cannot be allowed to fill the airwaves uncontested. No respect is due to a man who has lost his right to respect; even the vote of the majority this time around cannot wash away the stain of his insurrection attempt and his open vows of second-term violence and mayhem. Trump is on course to engage in actions that will surely shock and surprise many millions of Americans, including many of those who voted for him without knowledge of or belief in the promises he made. Democrats must be ready to expose this divergence between reality and expectation, with the goal of showing Americans how Trump is fundamentally betraying the trust they gave him.

Opponents of Trumpism should be prepared to call out and condemn the blatant corruption that is sure to come — not only self dealing like we saw in the first Trump administration, when he fleeced the U.S. government by overcharging for Secret Service stays at hotels he owned, but larger-scale efforts that intertwine the interests of Trump and powerful businesses. Considering the likelihood of a Trumpist oligarchy, Franklin Foer writes, “The regime does the bidding of the billionaires and, in turn, the billionaires do the bidding of the regime. Power grows ever more concentrated as the owners and the corrupt leaders conspire to protect their mutual hold on it. In short order, this arrangement has the potential to deliver a double blow to the American system: It could undermine capitalism and erode democracy all at once.” Politically, the prospect of Trump doing favors for billionaires cuts against his populist image, and could be quite damaging, particularly if those favors have to do with repressing worker rights or funneling money to the ultra-wealthy.

It’s not too soon to start organizing civil society groups to defend against future depredations. MAGA has already declared war on abortion rights, and doctors need to speak out about the harms to women’s health. In the closing days of the campaign, Trump made clear that mandatory vaccines are now in his crosshairs, thanks in part to the influence of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; medical professionals need to sound the alarm about preventable illnesses running amok due to anti-vaccine madness. Lawyers have a role to play in defending (and like I noted above, explaining) the importance of the rule of law in our country, and why, for starters, it’s really bad for everyone that the Supreme Court has indicated that Donald Trump is above it. Americans need to understand that the threat Trump poses is not just to marginalized groups, but to everyone; the threat is personal.

We need to listen to and learn from authoritarianism experts like Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Timothy Snyder. Every country has its particular politics, but we should use existing tools gained from other countries’ experiences, rather than completely re-invent the wheel.

We can’t be afraid to call out the lunacy of Trump’s suggestions that he has been divinely appointed to lead the nation. I feel safe in saying that God had nothing to with Trump’s victory (if a deity really was involved, I’d place my bet on the guy who dwells Down Under — and I’m not talking about Australia). For many, even most Americans, such declarations are reminiscent of the prophesying of street-corner preachers and religious charlatans. In Trump’s case, they are so self-serving and transparently profane that they should make even an atheist blush. Short version: he sounds 100% nutso, and we should feel free to respond accordingly.

Finally, speaking broadly, we have to double-down on truth and facts, including by effectively addressing the huge media advantages currently held by the right. What binds MAGA fascism together is a constant firehouse of lies, propaganda, and conspiracy theories that keep people disoriented and malleable. Among other things, there can’t be a pro-democracy movement that doesn’t place the reality and threat of climate change in a central position. To me, MAGA’s denial of this baseline reality is one of its major vulnerabilities — a doomed attempt to tell people that what they’re seeing with their own eyes isn’t actually happening. There’s no saving ourselves and our democracy without also saving the Earth.