Talk of a Trump ‘dictatorship’: What’s behind the fears
As he interviewed former President Donald Trump in front of a town hall audience in early December, Fox News host Sean Hannity tossed out what seemed an obvious softball. Could Mr. Trump just reassure America, once and for all, that he “would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”
Mr. Trump, however, had other plans.
“Except for Day 1,” he said, straight-faced and staring at Mr. Hannity. He paused for the briefest of beats, and then turned to the audience with a glimmer of a smile.
“He’s going crazy,” said the former president, pointing at Mr. Hannity as the audience chuckled.
“He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’” Mr. Trump continued. “I say no, no, except for Day 1. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that – I’m not a dictator, OK.”
As the Iowa caucuses and the official beginning of the 2024 election cycle arrive, the question of whether a second Trump term would result in the collapse of American democracy as we know it has gripped much of official Washington and U.S. pundits and political insiders.
Mr. Trump’s own words have fed this narrative. Among other things, he’s dehumanized political opponents as “vermin” who need to be exterminated, proposed that shoplifters be shot, said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and suggested that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley should be executed after a trial for treason.
His critics say those words should be considered against the background of past actions. They point to what the former president actually did in the wake of the 2020 election, when he falsely insisted the election had been stolen despite lack of evidence and numerous court rulings against him. He pushed state officials to overturn their results, tried to shut down the Electoral College vote count in Congress, and considered seizing voting machines with the U.S. military.
Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney calls Mr. Trump the “most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office” in her new memoir. Noted in The Washington Post arguing a Trump dictatorship is “increasingly inevitable.” The Atlantic has published devoted almost entirely to its dire vision of a second Trump White House.
