Greg Sargent: Trump's Slow-Burn Authoritarianism

[Nevilledog]

https://newrepublic.com/article/185487/trump-maga-legal-war-slow-burn-authoritarianism

No paywall link
https://archive.li/nSfcn

If Donald Trump wins in November and launches a full-blown authoritarian presidency next year—as he has promised to do in his own words—what exactly would that national nightmare look like?

One set of oft-floated worst-case scenarios looks something like this: Trump orders his pliant pick for attorney general to prosecute Liz Cheney and other high-profile critics and frog-march them before the cameras. Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to dispatch the military into cities to crush mass protests. Trump unshackles deportation forces to drag millions of undocumented immigrants from homes and workplaces. Trump purges our nation’s intelligence services, stocks them with loyal foot soldiers, and unleashes them as a domestic spying force to gather information on designated enemies of the MAGA movement.

It would be folly to dismiss these possibilities, since Trump has repeatedly threatened to carry out something resembling every one of those things. He has vowed to prosecute his political opponents without cause. He has loudly called for the indictment of members of the congressional committee that investigated his January 6, 2021, insurrection attempt. He has mused aloud that he might send the military into Democratic-run cities. Trump and his advisers have floated plans for mass migrant removals facilitated by huge detention complexes and even potentially carried out by the military. Trump has repeatedly pledged to purge the supposedly corrupt “deep state”—his shorthand for federal law enforcement and intelligence services—and has openly suggested he would use state power to persecute domestic enemies he describes as “vermin.”

Yet as horrifying as all that is, another, less-garish scenario also potentially looms—and in some respects it might be a more plausible one. A second Trump presidency could unleash a kind of lower-profile, slow-burn authoritarianism, something that unfolds much more quietly and largely behind the scenes. In its targeting of internal enemies and its efforts to carry out revolutionary changes via far-right governance, it could end up being much less dramatic, visible, or splashy—but at the same time, extremely insidious, difficult to track, and very challenging to mobilize against.

*snip*

[live love laugh]

1. ⚠️⚠️⚠️

[ananda]

2. Slow burn? Really?

I don't think so.

[missingfink]

3. Democratic Underground might well disappear

The result of a Trump win could make so many of our freedoms go away - like in North Korea.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Not so much a "slow" burn, as a less publicized one. Long article but worth the read.

tfg has made it clear he plans to do anything and everything he can get away with if his useful idiots will only let him get elected again. And there are precious few effective safeguards to stop him from ruining his critics' lives so thoroughly they will have little choice but to silence themselves, or leave the country. Don't think that living in a blue state will protect you, either.

However "worst-case scenario" these ideas may seem, none of them is much more than a variation -- if that -- of ideas tfg and his evil minions have already touted in public speeches and interviews. Don't imagine for a second that they wouldn't really go that far. They'll eventually go too far for even his most rabid supporters, but by then it will be too late.