Dictator Dreams
We are in a time of dictator fears and dictator dreams. Parts of the world are indeed beset by dictators—not many, but enough to make those fears seem plausible. But for the United States at least, however possible it is for a president to assume the mantle of a dictator, it’s not probable. In fact, it is so improbable that the continued warnings and rumblings are becoming a veritable panic, yet it’s a panic almost completely detached from any future reality; it’s not doing anyone much good; and it needs to stop.
As the United States approaches the presidential election with T-minus six weeks and counting, a substantial majority of Americans believe that not only are Trump and Harris on the ballot but that democracy is as well. As of summer, according to a Fox News poll, nearly 75% of Democrats and more than 60% of Republicans said they were “extremely worried” about the future of democracy, and nearly all the rest said they were “very worried.” Multiple polls have shown similar results.
What’s striking is that both sides perceive the other as a clear and present threat to democracy. Democrats, to an overwhelming degree, view Trump as a wannabe dictator, with the prospect of another Trump term being seen as a major step in that direction. Trump’s rhetoric, of course, fuels that fear, with his talk of being a dictator “only on day one” not exactly allaying concerns. Yet, for Republicans, Harris is the one to fear, and Democrat policies in general, especially what they perceive as the weaponization of the justice system to go after the former president. Elon Musk recently tweeted (X-ed?) an AI-generated image of Harris as a communist dictator, and Musk has become an increasingly reliable guide to the feelings of MAGA-world.
Equally striking is the degree to which each side sees the other as utterly blinkered and irrational. If you tell a group of New York friends at dinner that many Republicans genuinely fear an increasingly intrusive administrative state—one determined to raise taxes, increase regulation, and enforce the cultural orthodoxies of the left as threats to freedom—you’ll likely be dismissed. Conversely, if you tell a group of Texas Republicans that their northern counterparts truly believe Trump harbors dictatorial ambitions, they’ll laugh it off as paranoia, brushing aside Trump’s extreme rhetoric as bait that Democrats and their liberal media allies can’t resist taking.
I’ve been thinking about this “looking-glass” world more this week because I’m in Istanbul for a few days, and the example of Turkey and its president Recep Erdogan has loomed large for many as a cautionary example of where the U.S. could be heading. Along with Hungary, Poland until last year, Mexico under Amlo, India under Modi until his spring election set-back, Brazil under Bolsonaro, Turkey is held up as an example of democratic backslide, where a country that once seemed headed for rule of law, a free press and open elections gave way to various levels of autocratic control. And those examples are the ones invoked especially by those in the United States who fear that Trump and his behavior on January 6 augurs a dark future for American democracy.
It would appear from many of Trump’s statements that he has, shall we say, a casual relationship to democracy and rule of law as opposed to the rule of one leader. What makes the case against Trump – and the case for serious concern about the fate of democracy – is what unfolded in the weeks before January 6 culminating in the attack on the Capitol.
So, let’s go back to that time and briefly look at what might have happened. The real challenge wasn’t that the rioters who stormed the Capitol would invalidate the results of the election. If anything, the riots weren’t quite violent enough to unify the public around the rejection of everything that happened before that afternoon. Let’s say that Republican efforts before the riots had led to multiple state results being rejected by Congress, or even before Congress could ratify, by state election boards in Arizona and Michigan in particular. If those state legislatures had sent alternate slates of electors, then Congress would have ratified a Trump victory on January 6.
What if the results had been rejected and turned back to the states to reassess their own count? That then would have raised the specter of an unresolved election on January 20th . That could have been decided by the Supreme Court in an emergency decision that would have echoed the Bush v. Gore drama of 2000. It could also have been decided by state legislatures sending new electors, or by the House of Representatives, and most of those paths would have led to Trump back in the White House despite the overwhelming reality that he fairly lost both the popular and electoral vote.
That would certainly have been characterized as an anti-democratic coup by perhaps a majority of Americans. However, a substantial minority might have viewed it as an unfortunate but necessary response to an election they believed had been hopelessly corrupted by Covid-era changes in procedures and the slow, sometimes messy, counting of mail-in ballots in states like Arizona and Pennsylvania. They could have pointed to, or been pointed towards, the elections of 1876 and 2000 as examples of irregular procedures that led to the installation of a president through means other than a straightforward popular or electoral vote. Judging from the language of the many lawsuits at the time (and the preemptive ones being filed now), they would have framed the outcome in terms of election integrity.
OK. I know for many of you, the blood is already starting to boil and the eyes starting to roll at the thought that this alt history could be characterized as anything other than an anti-democratic coup. But unless we begin to unpack what went on and how a large portion of the population still views the world, we will be hopelessly mired in a tightening spiral of regional and political tribalism.
Yes, there are of course Americans who would embrace some degree of authoritarianism, and yes, it may be that Trump personally is a narcissistic twit who would prefer to rule rather than govern within a system of laws. But there is zero evidence that a large enough slice of Americans would be willing to sacrifice their right to vote in perpetuity or have their votes not count. Many of those who might have supported a scenario that returned Trump to office in January 2021 were demanding that their votes count, which would suggest that they would have fully expected a cleaner election process in 2024, not no election process or an opaque corrupted one. In short, they might have supported one irregular election, but it is doubtful that they would have supported two.
These are, of course, hypotheticals, including a hypothetical about what “most” people will countenance. But there is very little evidence that any significant or meaningful portion of Americans have any interest in authoritarianism, and most of what each side accuses the other of are things that remain within the law – most, not all, but most is what matters systemically, not whether there is some corruption or some abuse. Our democratic system has never been free of abuse or corruption.
People have asked me over the years what would really alarm me. My answer? If someone showed up at my door with the power of the state and its monopoly on force because of something I wrote or said. The sheer, unbridled—and for now, untouchable—freedom of speech is the most powerful guardrail against what most people in the U.S. fear. It’s the great guardian of democracy, which is why it’s enshrined in the First Amendment. Yes, authoritarians can exploit the noise and chaos of a free speech world—especially with the rise of AI and deepfakes—to sow confusion that can erode civic engagement. But even some infringements on speech—or more than some, as in the case of Modi in India—may not be enough to weaken democracy. So far in the U.S., we’ve had almost no meaningful infringements, and we have the unequivocal principle of free speech enshrined in law, reaffirmed time and again by the courts.
So, while many fear for democracy and are beset by nightmares of dictatorship, those are only that – fear and dreams, monsters under the bed. They tell us something about ourselves, and in my view, what they show is that Americans across the spectrum treasure and cherish democracy, the rule of law, and whatever we define as freedom—abstract concepts, but deeply felt and vital. That zealous, fierce passion for democracy fuels those fears, and it's that passion that truly matters. It’s what will prevail—perhaps not guaranteed, but if I were a betting man, that’s where I’d place my bets.
Okaaayy. So those of us who understand that the creators of Project 2025, the dark money billionaires, and the judiciary that’s been poisoned by rightwing extremists are ACTUAL threats to democracy, and that there is a concerted and well-funded movement to turn America into a Christian Nationalist white-ruled autocracy/theocracy — with or without Trump — are merely delusional worrywarts? We just need to understand that the “rule of law” and Constitutional precedent will save us? Have you noticed SCOTUS’ latest rulings? Like the immunity one that defies legal logic and the Dobbs one that trashed precedent? Are you aware of the MAGAfication of law enforcement, the sovereign citizen movement, and the presence of MAGA loyalists in the military?
Yeah, call me whatever you want: Cry baby, delusional liberal, whatever. There is a direct threat to our nation’s existence by neo-fascists with money and arms. I for one am gonna be worried af and do whatever I can to prevent their nightmarish plans.
But thanks for weighing in.
Those of us who have studied history know how dangerously naive this thinking is. Relying on the guardrails of a vague and rickety 18 century document written to assuage the concerns of enslavers is hardly comforting. The Supreme Court that interprets it is hopelessly corrupt and interpreted it in a way that provides for unlimited presidential power. There is nothing, nothing, standing in the way of a violent and extreme Trump dictatorship. But if it makes you feel better, there’s about a 50/50 chance it doesn’t happen.