You Don’t Have to Think Trump Is an Authoritarian to Worry about His Presidency
there are three types of conservative at present: “Trumpers,” who believe that “Trump has made good appointments” and is “working to keep campaign promises” and should therefore “be vigorously defended from criticism”; anti-Trumpers, whose “argument is that despite the areas of policy agreement between conservatives and Trump, Trump’s characterological problems present” a sufficiently large peril as to make realistic the prospect that he will “[lose] the republic”; and “anti-anti-Trumpers,” who are “reluctant to criticize Trump, but who aren’t particularly interested in defending him, directly.”
.. there are three types of conservative at present: “Trumpers,” who believe that “Trump has made good appointments” and is “working to keep campaign promises” and should therefore “be vigorously defended from criticism”; anti-Trumpers, whose “argument is that despite the areas of policy agreement between conservatives and Trump, Trump’s characterological problems present” a sufficiently large peril as to make realistic the prospect that he will “[lose] the republic”; and “anti-anti-Trumpers,” who are “reluctant to criticize Trump, but who aren’t particularly interested in defending him, directly.”
.. I was concerned that Trump lacks character and knowledge; that he is a habitual liar; that he has an embarrassing tendency to lash out verbally at anyone he dislikes; and that, on balance, he might end up ruining the party he was conscripted to lead. In describing him, I used the word “authoritarian” on more than one occasion, but my intent in so doing was to warn against Trump’s approach, not to hype the likelihood of his rendering America a tyranny.
I was concerned that Trump lacks character and knowledge; that he is a habitual liar; that he has an embarrassing tendency to lash out verbally at anyone he dislikes; and that, on balance, he might end up ruining the party he was conscripted to lead. In describing him, I used the word “authoritarian” on more than one occasion, but my intent in so doing was to warn against Trump’s approach, not to hype the likelihood of his rendering America a tyranny.
.. Throughout his life, Wilson was openly hostile to the Constitution, had nothing but loathing for the separation of powers, described as “nonsense” the “inalienable rights of the individual,” and submitted that the United States should move “beyond the Declaration of Independence.”
.. As president, he championed the Espionage and Sedition Acts (under which it was a crime to criticize America’s efforts in World War I, to use “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” against the federal government, and to mail opinions critical of the state through the U.S. Postal Service); had tens of thousands of Americans arrested and prosecuted — including after the war (see: Palmer Raids); and, in 1915, uttered these incredible words during his State of the Union address:
I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within our own borders. There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue. Their number is not great as compared with the whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been enriched in recent generations out of virile foreign stock; but it is great enough to have brought deep disgrace upon us and to have made it necessary that we should promptly make use of processes of law by which we may be purged of their corrupt distempers.
Wilson also took it upon himself to re-segregate Washington, D.C., thereby reversing one of the few civil-rights victories of the post-bellum world.
.. That much of what Roosevelt did was popular is neither here nor there; properly understood, authoritarianism is structural, not substantive. Indeed, as David Frum warns in the essay Last cites, “many of the worst and most subversive things Trump will do will be highly popular.”
In fact, I concluded that there can be no such list, because many of the worrisome things that an antidemocratic president might do look just like things that other presidents have done. Use presidential power to bully corporations? Truman and Kennedy did that. Distort or exaggerate facts to initiate or escalate a war? Johnson and George W. Bush did that. Lie point-blank to the public? Eisenhower did that. Defy orders from the Supreme Court? Lincoln did that. Suspend habeas corpus? Lincoln did that, too. Spy on American activists? Kennedy and Johnson did that. Start wars at will, without congressional approval? Truman did that. Censor “disloyal” speech and fire “disloyal” civil servants? Wilson did that. Incarcerate U.S. citizens of foreign extraction? Franklin D. Roosevelt did that. Use shady schemes to circumvent congressional strictures? Reagan did that. Preempt Justice Department prosecutors? Obama did that. Assert sweeping powers to lock people up without trial or judicial review? George W. Bush did that. Declare an open-ended national emergency? Bush did that, and Obama continued it. Use regulatory authority aggressively and, according to the courts, sometimes illegally? Obama did that. Kill a U.S. citizen abroad? Obama did that, too. Grant favors to political friends, and make mischief for political enemies? All presidents do that.
.. But whatever one’s preference, we should acknowledge that all of these things happened, and that they all seemed like crises at the time. Moreover, we should try to avoid the worst form of arrogant hindsight, under which we conclude that because we’re okay now we must never have been under threat in the first place. “All’s well that ends well”