Tag: autocracy
Donald Trump

Trump Faces The Trial Of The Century -- And So Does Our Democracy

The frame of the 2024 election is now clear: It’s democracy versus autocracy — straight up. It’s the stakes — not the horse race — that should dominate the media coverage and the approach of the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately, there’s a move afoot among some Democrats to re-use the successful 2018 playbook that helped them retake the House that year: Stay focused on other issues (in 2018 it was health care) and let the anti-Trump forces mobilize on their own. This is fighting not the last war but the war of three cycles ago. In the last war — 2022 — democracy was a potent, brand-building issue for Democrats.

So while I get why Joe Biden isn’t commenting on the Trump prosecutions, no other Democrat should follow suit. They should be raising the alarm and shivving Trump (metaphorically) for the duration.

Yes, it makes sense to run an A,B,C,D campaign — abortion, Bidenomics, climate, and democracy. But the last of these should often come first. That way, the basic structure of the race — democrats versus autocrats — stays firmly in place.


By the way, if you don’t believe that a reelected Trump will, quite literally, end our system as we know it, you have not been paying attention.

“We will demolish the deep state,” Trump said at the rally in Michigan. “We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

If this was just more Trump demagoguery, the kind we became inured to in the eight years since he came down the escalator, we wouldn’t have to worry so much. But it’s not. It’s the campaign trail version of a plot to end our nearly 250-year-old experiment in self-government.

If you missed this lead story from The New York Times on July 17, please take the time to read it: Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025 (no subscription required). It will scare the crap out of you. The piece chronicles the detailed plans underway to dramatically expand the president’s authority so that Trump can assume near-dictatorial powers.

One thing almost all aspiring dictators have in common is that they announce what they’ll do if they get power. The Fuhrer certainly did, as Trump knows well. His first wife, Ivana, now deceased, told her lawyer in the 1980s that Trump kept a collection of Hitler’s speeches, My New Order, beside his bed. In those early speeches, and in Mein Kampf, Hitler lays it all out in language very similar to Trump’s.

As bad as Trump’s language was when he was president, it was shocking in March when he told supporters in Waco, Texas, “I am your retribution.” That location was chosen for his announcement speech as part of his plot to slime and discredit the FBI (which did not cover itself in glory in its attack on the Branch Davidian compound there in 1993) so he can rebuild it into his personal police force and instrument of “retribution.” Or recall how in 2019 Trump declared:

“I have an Article 2 [the part of the Constitution that establishes the presidency], where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

And if someone tries to stop him? He will, he said, “terminate the Constitution.”

The Times story explains Trump’s plans to eliminate the independence of the Department of Justice. This wasn’t news. We all understand, of course, that if reelected he will immediately pardon January 6th insurrectionists and himself. But he also plans to fully politicize the Federal Reserve (wonderful for the economy!) and bring all independent regulatory agencies under his thumb. And he will sign an executive order on his first day that implements “Schedule F” — a politicizing of the civil service that will fill the government with incompetent Trump hacks hired for their loyalty, not competence.

What’s really scary is that this power grab will be attempted under any Republican president elected in the foreseeable future. The GOP now stands for autocracy. For years, conservative lawyers have pushed what they call a “unitary executive” theory of presidential power that claims the Constitution gives presidents power over the sprawling federal bureaucracy, which, if you include military personnel, includes about 4.3 million people. In a notorious dissent in Morrison v. Olson (1988), Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “this does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power.” Scalia’s view now has at least four votes on the Supreme Court.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, told the Times. Vought, the founder of the Center for Renewing America, is drafting a blueprint for how to make the entire federal government bend to Trump’s will.

Let’s pause for a second on that word “seize.” That’s what dictators do. They seize power. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen, explained on MSNBC.com:

Those plans are consistent with a 21st century playbook for authoritarians: Tell the public how you will set up an authoritarian state well before you get into office. Frame your intended expansion of executive powers as a mere streamlining of government. Don’t forget to repeatedly praise dictators as “brilliant” and “top of the line” people so there’ll be no surprises when you act in a similar manner. [This is what Trump has consistently done with China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and several other authoritarian leaders], And whet your followers’ appetites for destruction of existing norms by advertising how you will purge [liberal critics].

Trump will be using this roadmap all the way to the election. The good news is that at least three large boulders now stand in the way. The several civil suits won’t slow Trump down; he doesn’t have to appear in court during the trials and the cases—even if they lead to significant monetary damages— mostly just make him more popular with his base. But next year he will face three daunting criminal trials. In all of them, the odds favor conviction.

On March 25, Trump is scheduled to go on trial in the Stormy Daniels case. He’s facing New York State charges that are less serious than in the two federal cases, but with his abominable sexual and financial behavior on full display — disqualifying for any other candidate — he’ll likely lose support from independent voters, even if he’s acquitted.

On May 20, the Mar-a-Lago classified documents trial is scheduled open in rural Florida under Trump-friendly Judge Aileen Cannon, who on July 21 resisted Trump’s pressure to delay the trial until after the election. Trump’s lawyers may yet convince Judge Cannon that the volume of documents and complexities of handling classified information require delaying the trial until after the election. But if they fail to do so, the evidence is so damning that the defendant will likely be in trouble even in the heart of Trump country. In federal trials, jurors almost always set aside their politics and decide on the evidence. It’s a good bet that at least a couple of them will tell reporters after the verdict that they voted twice for Trump but convicted him anyway. And Trump’s lavish praise of Judge Cannon will deal a blow to his “witch hunt” charge.

Finally, there’s the Big Show — the January 6th trial. Given the absence of classified documents and the speedy trial views of federal judges in Washington, D.C., it may take place before the Mar-a-Lago trial. Whatever the specifics of the upcoming indictment, this case goes to the heart of our system — the peaceful transfer of power and the rule of law. The Stormy Daniels case isn’t unprecedented; we had Monica Lewinsky and plenty of campaign finance prosecutions. Before Trump stole classified documents, former national security adviser Sandy Berger and former General David Petraeus did so. But no president in American history has ever tried to cling to power after he lost.

That’s why this will be the trial not just of the century but of any century — bigger even than the Trial of Socrates, when Athenian democracy didn’t hang in the balance in quite the same way.

It makes me queasy to mention Trump and Socrates in the same breath, so let me offer three other possible comparisons to the Orange Menace:

Lucius Sergius Catilina — better known as Catiline — was a first century B.C.E. scoundrel who had sex with vestal virgins and tried to stage a bloody coup against the Roman Republic. Benito Mussolini, whose smug strut on the platform anticipated Trump’s, was a fascist innovator with lots of support before World War II, not just in Italy but the United States. John Gotti became an anti-hero in his Brooklyn neighborhood, where he sponsored festivals and fireworks, before entering folklore. Americans love seeing the bad boy get away with it — at least for a while.

All three were eventually brought to justice. Even if Trump somehow escapes again, the pursuit of him will have been worth it on principle. We are, after all, a nation built on a principle— the rule of law— and, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, on a proposition — equality and freedom. We’ll know in 15 months whether a nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

Jonathan Alter is a bestselling author, Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, and a contributing correspondent and political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. His Substack newsletter is OLD GOATS: Ruminating with Friends.

Reprinted with permission from OLD GOATS.


Are Western Democracies Tough Enough For 2022?

Are Western Democracies Tough Enough For 2022?

A week ago, they were programmers and teachers, baristas and farmers — and their elected leader was a former comedian. Their capital city, Kyiv, sparkled with cafes, fancy stores and night clubs.

To many, this soft existence set the conditions for fast capitulation to a military assault by Russian tanks. As the world now knows, the opposite happened. Rather than provide a fat easy target for Russia, Ukraine's city and country people alike rose up to defend their country with their bodies.

Herein lies a lesson for democracies that don't know their own strengths. The Ukrainians did not cave before the hardened Russian battalions because they didn't want to lose what they had.

The comic in charge emerged as one of modern history's great leaders. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky radiated confidence, determination and calm, in sharp contrast to the histrionic Russian President Vladimir Putin. He spoke from the streets, urging his people to, in effect, fight them on the beaches. And that's what they did.

That high morale changed everything. Suddenly, there was almost nothing most of the civilized world wouldn't do to help Ukraine fight off the Russian aggression.

In 2014, When Russia invaded Crimea and cut it off from Ukraine, the West employed sanctions that were weak and that took a year to go fully in effect. This time, Ukraine's friends activated their economic might in the course of a weekend.

The economic sanctions sent an immediate message. The value of the ruble plunged. The heralded "fortress" of Russia's $643 billion in foreign currency reserves has been breached. In a scramble for cash, nervous Russians are now lined up in front of ATMs.

Among other astounding developments, Germany boosted its defense budget and canceled the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was to transport natural gas from Russia. Sweden of all places said it would ship 5,000 anti-tank rockets to Ukraine. (It hasn't sent arms to a country at war since 1939, when the Soviet Union marched into Finland.)

The oligarchs who were scooping up luxury real estate outside Russia now fear losing their French villas, London townhouses and Manhattan triplexes. Their panic is such that some have tip-toed into open criticism of the man who made their fortunes possible.

Putin's right-wing fan club, meanwhile, is looking more the fool. When Italian politician Matteo Salvini was asked some time ago whether he was in Putin's pay, he responded, "I esteem him for free, not for money." The oligarchs at least got rich off him.

A new CNN polls has 83 percent of Americans favoring increased economic sanctions against Russia. And there's almost no partisan divide, with 65 percent of those who lean Democratic and 62 percent of those who lean Republican on the same page. For all of Putin's efforts to sow political discord in the U.S., he's finally uniting us, at least for now.

We've heard so much about stresses plaguing our democracies — the COVID-19 restrictions, vaccines, immigration. They are real but are being put into perspective next to the sight of Russia violating an ethnically close neighbor who had done nothing to provoke it.

During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously visited a working-class London neighborhood after a Nazi bomb killed 40 in an air-raid shelter. Someone in the crowd shouted: "Good old Winnie! We thought you'd come and see us. We can take it. Give it 'em back."

On Monday after a brutal weekend, folks in Kyiv were pushing grocery shopping carts out of supermarkets. They are carrying on, as Londoners did during the blitz.

Putin is stuck, humiliated and probably mentally ill. That makes for scary times ahead. Are Western democracies tough enough for the threats of 2022? So far, so good.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.com

Why Trump Could Never Be A Putinesque Strongman

Why Trump Could Never Be A Putinesque Strongman

A good title for the entire Trump-Putin saga might be “The Naïve and Sentimental Dictator.” Assuming, that is, that it all plays out as farce—certainly the direction events are trending in the White House.

What did Vladimir Putin think he was getting? Is it possible that he mistook an egotistical buffoon like Donald J. Trump for an apprentice strongman? If so, he badly misunderstands America. It’s not simply Russia with better plumbing. Granted, Trump himself lacks the self-discipline for autocracy. But he also lacks the servile population.

Putin is known to regard western ideals of liberty, freedom and democracy as sentimental illusions. Trump disdains all laws that impede him. But if Congress accomplished nothing else by imposing new sanctions against Russian meddling in our politics, it proved that Putin’s best American friend has become the weakest president in living memory.

Not that Trump can’t still do enormous damage. But sentimental illusion or not, he won’t be able to undo the Constitution.

For all his bluster, Trump’s increasingly becoming a figure of fun—almost as laughable as his comic opera mini-me, The Mooch. His falsehoods expire overnight, often due to his own foolish tweets.

Nobody fears Trump, not really. See, he can’t have me thrown into prison for mocking him. Also unlike Putin, he can’t have Senator Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican, shot dead in the street for denouncing his own party’s “Faustian bargain” with Trump.

“Silence in the face of an erratic executive branch is an abdication,” Flake writes in Politico, “and those in positions of leadership bear particular responsibility.”

Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan: he’s talking to you.

OK, so that makes a total of four Republican senators with spines. A few others have also made noises. Ultimately, this country isn’t going to be run like a World Wrestling Entertainment spectacle.

But back to Vladimir Putin. No, we definitely don’t need another Cold War with the Russians. Never did. But it’s the Russian dictator that badly overplayed his hand—possibly why his diplomats are already hinting that mutual accommodation might still be possible.

Meanwhile, Trump might like to undo the sanctions, but he hasn’t got the power. He’d also like to rid himself of Robert Mueller, the investigator systematically probing exactly what Putin’s got on him. However, Trump can’t make that happen.

Another Republican Senator with at least a vestigial backbone: South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham: “Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump Presidency unless Mueller did something wrong.”

One theory is that Putin never really imagined that his efforts would bring about a Trump presidency—that his real motive was sowing confusion and Russian-style cynicism about democracy itself. Certainly, Russian operatives’ approach to the amateurish schemers in Trump Tower last June was like something out of a Donald Westlake comic crime caper.

(My favorite Westlake novel is Bank Shot, in which crooks haul off a temporary bank housed in a mobile home, realizing too late that cops have blockaded every bridge off Long Island. Oh, it’s an island? Who knew?)

Writing in the New York Times, former CIA chief of station Daniel Hoffmann argues that what looks like incompetent Russian tradecraft indicates a baited mousetrap Donald Trump, Jr. clumsily jumped into. An email from an intermediary vowing Russian government support for the Trump candidacy and promising to deliver dirt on Hillary Clinton?

An email? Permanent, ineradicable evidence?

So naturally Trump, Jr. copied and forwarded the incriminating message with the helpful subject line “Russian—Clinton—private and confidential.”

An email?

Not the sharpest tool in the shed, Junior.

Has anybody ever not read a message so marked? Except we’re expected to believe that boy genius son-in-law Jared Kushner never did, although he attended the meeting with those Russian operatives anyway. A big bust, he claims, a real nothing-burger.

Although two days later, candidate Trump promised a blockbuster speech detailing Hillary Clinton’s many crimes—a speech he never did deliver.

So now the Washington Postreports that the president himself drafted a deceptive statement after word of the suspect meeting first materialized in the press. The meeting was about Russian orphans, see, not Clinton dirt.

Followed, as day follows night, by the appearance of the aforementioned “private and confidential” emails.

So which is more incompetent, Team Vladimir or Team Trump?

The CIA’s Hoffman thinks he knows: “to me, the clearest evidence that this was a Russian influence operation is the trail of bread crumbs the Kremlin seemed to have deliberately left leading from Trump Tower to the Kremlin. This operation was meant to be discovered.”

But why? The commonest use of kompromat, as the Russians call incriminating evidence, is blackmail.

Too late now. Russians commonly say that Putin’s a cunning plotter, but a strategic dope. If he wanted Trump in his pocket, looks like he’s got him.

But the end result is chaos.

Header image: Wikimedia Commons.