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When can we call this a dictatorship?
There is still resistance of a sort within the government, but dictatorships don't require 100% consolidation of all power into the Executive. And if that struggle is being ignored by the Executive, then what difference does it make?
I think we are well on our way to a fascist and authoritarian consolidation, but at the same time I feel the need to stress that these people are not unbeatable, are not particularly popular, and effective resistance is and can still be made. Every challenge to their illegal deportations, illegal freezing of funds, every time a republican congressperson faces a hostile audience at a town hall, every weekend of large scale protests moves the needle a little bit. I don't think it is unduly optimistic to note this and in fact it provides me some modicum of comfort and motivation to try and do more. Unironically, this is the time to #resist where you can.
Autocracy! I've been catching a lot of fashas by asking them what it means. It's the opposite of democracy. That's the realistic threat, dictatorship is a much higher bar to clear. The fact that Donald Trump is an autocrat is undeniable, given his failed auto-coup.
I've been pleasantly surprised at how few of the fashas even know that's a word. It's pretty easy to encourage their own research on the subject.
I don't speak English natively. Can you explain what the this means? It's just the "consolidation" part I'm a little confused about.
I was hopeful seeing the recent protests. Numbers said hundreds of thousands, others said millions. This seems to be the first mass protest against Trump so while long overdue in my opinion, I am very happy it seems to start happening relatively often.
Consolidation of power—power moving into a small group or a specific person.
It depends on the reference. I would probably require for all the branches of government to completely lose autonomy. Supreme Court, congress, etc. EDIT: Because that's how it happened in Brazil and that's how it usually happens in Latin America. Until then it is dictatorship-like in my view. But anyone's free to use "dictatorship" rhetorically to express how this feels to them. Statements that are not literal are allowed to use words in non-literal ways. Many statements are really about emotions and that is a valid use of language.
How does that differ from the US in recent weeks? The Supreme Court is being flouted and the President is immune from prosecution for official actions, which that is. Congress doesn't seem to be passing anything significant except what Trump wants. Doesn't seem significantly different to me.
Dictatorship implies absolute rule of the dictator. We are walking down that path but competitive authoritarianism is probably a more apt description until the point where we actually cease to have fair and free elections.
There are still many other centers of power in the US. Particularly in the states who run elections. See the recent Wisconsin election for a good example of a still functioning democracy at the state level.
We are in a bad place, but I don’t think dictatorship is a useful description of the power centers we still have for resistance.
At the federal level though, we very much are coming to a point where Congress or Court is going to need to authorize removal of the president, whom may just refuse unless done via physical force.
Let's hope the military does the right thing.
Dictatorship might imply absolute rule to some people, but plenty of people who have generally been considered dictators don't have absolute rule.
The next presidential election stands a growing chance of being that first unfair and not free election, given the "bad-is-good restricting voting access for more free and fair elections" work in progress.
You can say what you want, but I wouldn't use the term because I'm not a doomer. I still expect elections to happen on schedule and I think the Democrats have a good chance.
It seems too early to give up hope. Why give in to despair?
Calling something what it is, is not the same as giving in to despair.
That's true as far as it goes, but I don't think it applies in this case. Sometimes vocabulary use gets pretty political. It isn't purely descriptive. It's used as a form of political expression. And I don't like the vibes.
I mean, we're talking about a President utilizing powers not granted to him by the constitution, without substantive pushback from at least one side of the US political spectrum (the Republican Party and those that side with it), along with a Supreme Court that is willingly defying decades of "settled law". I say we need to call a spade a spade - when our government is controlled by, and enforced for, the whims of a single person ... I think it's fair to call it a dictatorship.
I agree, when we're talking politics it makes sense to use political vocabulary, particularly as a form of political expression! You don't have to like the vibes for the description to fit. I feel like if "we" continue to let the situation slip - to say that "it's not really dictatorship/autocracy/fascism/etc yet, because of <insert disqualifying reason>" - is to miss the forest for the trees. It is always a continual slide downwards of varying degrees, but we're well along the path into - not toward - a dictatorship. It didn't even start with Donald Trump!
When scholars on fascism start fleeing a country due to its increasing fascism, maybe it's time to start acknowledging that reality.
The courts move rather slowly. Many lawsuits are still in progress. I don't think we know yet how that will play out.
I'm particularly interested in seeing whether Trump's tariffs will be ruled illegal. I don't think that can be determined in advance?
It will seem clearer in hindsight.
It always does seem clearer in hindsight. I agree.
I don't disagree but he still does not have absolute authority. It is not single rule yet. Courts still block things that he tries to do. There are still elections (..maybe).
He is authoritarian, not a dictator.
... what's the difference? Is there a real, tangible difference between an "authoritarian" and a "dictator"? I'm a believer of dictionary descriptivism - that the dictionary describes how words are actually used, rather than describing the "true meaning" of a word (prescriptivism). Merriam Webster says, of Authoritarian and Dictator (emphasis mine):
Authoritarian
Dictator
Trump may not have absolute authority, sure - but when he makes an executive order, people in government, people in Congress, are seemingly bending over and accepting it. Even when those executive orders aren't actually binding and cross the lines into the powers of Congress themselves. As others have pointed out, not all autocrats/dictators in history have wielded "true" absolute power - but when the power is concentrated enough into one person, they are still considered an autocrat/dictator. Hell, one of Europe's first examples of an autocratic, dare I say dictatorial ruler ... is Augustus. The Roman Senate continued to exist, continued to "function", during his reign - but they had no real power; this is being somewhat emulated today, as Trump continues to make executive orders which rob Congress of their power, and Congress is not stopping him.
So, are we as far along into authoritarianism or dictatorship or whatever you want to say, as the Romans were under Augustus? Maybe; probably not! But are we far enough along that it's fair to point out that we are under the rule of a tyrant, who is robbing the other branches of government of their power, shelling out institutions that could stop him, and what branches he hasn't destroyed are either not stopping him, or are actively working with him? Absolutely.
I guess it's a dictatorship in practice but maybe it's kind of a tenuous one. Maybe the elections in 2026 will remove enough republicans so that an impeachment can happen. Obviously there is a big effort to disenfranchise a lot of voters and otherwise make the election a sham.
The only thing that is allowing this is that congress is not acting. He could be impeached very quickly and removed. Or at least the tariff nonsense could be ended very quickly by congress if it would assert it's constitutional responsibilities. But the republicans in congress are not doing that.
If you notice one thing about American politics, it's almost always about political party. Democrat and Republican. And the members of the parties collude with other members of the same party to nullify the most important part of the government, the checks and balances that are designed to prevent one branch from wielding too much power.
Congress should have removed Trump from office years ago but failed to because of the power of political parties to put their own power ahead of the fundamental structure of the government.
So we have a corrupt judicial branch, and a corrupt congress, and a corrupt president, all under a single political party, where members of the party have little meetings and create strategies to override the checks between the branches.
And we have a very cynical and propagandized population who votes against their own interests over and over again.
To be perfectly clear, I am not arguing that both sides are the same. The Democratic party is corrupt and captured by capital and don't fully represent their constituents. So they suck. On the other hand the Republican party is basically fascist, only represents their donors and their own power, and nobody should ever vote for any of them again.
In general we would be so much better off if political parties just disappeared.
Alternatively, you could say that the U.S. is on a path toward authoritarianism.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump
A dictatorship is a form of authoritarianism, and I think a lot of people would say the US has been quite authoritarian for a long time.
You do you! That’s why I hedged my comment. Anyway, it’s a great article if you’ve not read it. Written by some authoritative academic voices.
…I swear the pun was an accident.
I'd say it's pretty extreme to start now. Like many things you might technically be right, because dictatorship has a somewhat wide definition like many things in political science, but there's still a lot of thresholds that can be crossed before I'd personally say it's official.
The big "litmus test" is likely going to be the midterms.
Right now the republicans are more than happy to sit back and let trump do whatever he wants, the courts are more complicated but since most of this is winding up at the SC it's BAD but not as bad as it could be (or as bad as I thought it would be). Thus I see a few things to keep an eye on:
Of note while I doubt it'll happen without major electoral interference of fuckery (which yes would also cross the line), in theory the populace could just continue to vote in trump flunkies, which is its own, but distinct from dictatorship, style problem.
The next major litmus test will be how things are handled if there's pushback post midterms, and the obvious "3rd term" thing.
If Trump "doesn't run" but just happens to be a valued assistant for the next republican candidate, who so happens to be given all the access one could need, (in a "no putin doesn't lead russia" sort of way) that's obviously horrible, but if people vote for that because the dems run some other fantastically kneecapped attempt at the presidency, well....you're in a weird state? At that point what you call it doesn't really matter beyond an academic level, but again to be precise in this I don't think that's a dictatorship yet? Just extremely fantastically likely to be one?
More likely he does try to straight up run on some terrible bullshit excuse and how the country handles that could determine a lot as well.
Unfortunately I feel that a lot of these cries, while venting reasonable feelings and concerns, aren't really accurate and somewhat distract from the problem. Are we a dictatorship? Probably not. Things could absolutely be worse, and i don't think we meet a reasonable definition. It also doesn't matter? We could be a democracy voting for horrible people/rules and that would still be a problem, as is an oligarchy or any other problematic government.
I think once they send people they consider undesirable to brutal prisons without any sort of trial or due process.
For me I think it's too early call this a dictatorship because in my mind, the system is 'working as intended'. I don't much like what that system is producing. But both parties have been consolidating power into the executive for a long time. The legislative still has the power to step in, but they choose not to. The judicial was always intended to move slower, and it is.
I'm really interested in the question "When can we call this a dictatorship?" though. Because I'm not keen on riding the slippery slope to an actual dictatorship (or separately, but more likely and scary in my mind, a fascist democracy).
Right now we're here because people voted for this (over long and short timescales). It could all go away if people stop voting for it; and we would clearly be over the line if that were to stop being the case (u/Eji1700 makes a great point about midterms). Similarly the executive branch bypassing checks of another branch would be over the line (like if the president prevented the marshals from enforcing a supreme court ruling). But I'm interested in other ways that we'd know we were at that point.
I don’t have a good answer, but I suspect there will be civil war before there is full dictatorship, and a chunk of the country will be gone. The west coast could conceivably secede and thrive on their own. Maybe the northern tier from mn to me. CO would probably try to go with the west, maybe also nv and nm. VA and nc are wildcards. But the rest of the country would coalesce into dictatorship pretty rapidly.
“When”? Well, you can it anything, anytime.