How does an authoritarian come to power in a representative democracy and crush it?
Trump seems too stupid to have a plan, but he has the instincts of a dictator. He’s a cartoon version of Mussolini as a mindless oaf.
A historian who studies the deaths of democratic governments might give us some answers. Timothy Snyder has said that the first step for an elected authoritarian is to destroy the social institutions that stand in the way of absolute power.
An authoritarian might go after the courts, for example, or the press. If he can delegitimize the legal system and convince the voters that reporters are liars, he might also get voters to believe that truth itself is different for each of us. That means there is no such thing as a truth or certainty we share in common, an idea floated in the fascist origins of early postmodernism. I may be sure that global warming endangers hundreds of millions of people. You may be sure that global warming is a liberal hoax promoted by folks who are evil for no reason. Or you might be of two minds about it and hire on as a columnist for the New York Times.
How do you stop a national power grab? Alone you can do little; join or form groups to resist.
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