Autocracy in America
A conversation with Anne Applebaum, and a round-up of some things I'm reading
A year in, the pattern of democratic backsliding under Trump is undeniable. The rise of authoritarianism feels more like a sprint than a creep. Whereas other authoritarians eroded institutions and asserted control over the course of years, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy, Trump is acting like a man trying to make up for lost time. It is not just that democracy in America is slipping: it is in free-fall.
The Financial Time data journalist John Burn-Murdoch has provided a visual confirmation of the speed of democratic backsliding in America. And it is striking.
Murdoch does not mince words about what the data shows:
While US history is hardly free from political violence or maltreatment of disfavoured groups, this blitz on America’s citizens, institutions and — by many estimations — the constitution itself ranks as arguably the most rapid episode of democratic and civil erosion in the recent history of the developed world.
To come to this conclusion he looks at metrics like the independence of the civil service, political prosecution of enemies and the use of state force against civilians. You can read more about the data and methods he employs here, but for many of these criteria, the Trump administration does not believe there should be any limitations on its power. It has proudly embraced a theory of government centered on personalized power and retribution. Civil servants should not be independent, political prosecutions are justified payback, and state force against civilians is necessary to maintain order.
Others have come to similar conclusions, using similar measures. This is from the Century Foundation, who say:
In the first year of Trump 2.0, the United States went from being a passing if imperfect democracy to behaving like an authoritarian state…The typical post-World War II democracies to which the United States is most often compared—Canada, Japan, and those in Europe—have not had these sorts of democratic declines. Other less healthy democracies have experienced similar collapses, but only after coups, attempted coups, or major shocks. The democratic decline in the United States over the last year is remarkable in modern history.
These erosions are mirrored in people’s sense of what is happening. Bright Line Watch has found that “Overall ratings of American democracy dropped significantly among every group surveyed — academic experts, the public overall, and Republican and Democratic members of the public.”
Murdoch does find reasons of optimism. He distinguishes between actions by the autocrat and lasting policy changes. Trump has done more of the former, but less of the latter. He also notes that in the US most of backsliding occurs via shocking abuses of power rather than Trump capturing other institutions. This offers, he says “a glimmer of hope for the US in the fact that many of its institutions and processes appear far more resistant to takeover than those that have crumbled underfoot elsewhere.”
We certainly need hope, but I might read the data a little differently. Trump was able to get many institutions in line because they were already politicized (our legal system and Congress), or because he could scare them into submission, e.g. large sections of higher education, law firms or the media. Trump has not felt compelled to more aggressively pursue institutions because they have offered little resistance.
Lets take a specific example. The President of the United States is asking the IRS to pay him $10 billion. This would presumably be coded as an executive action, one that has barely made a ripple, but is the predictable outcome of fellow Republicans on SCOTUS giving Trump immunity for actions in office. I also do not expect such abuses to stop them from handing Trump more power over the executive branch. Unitary executive theory increasingly feels like a dogma that is turning the constitution into a suicide pact. The courts remain nominally independent, and many lower court judges are responding admirably, only to be constantly disappointed by the Supreme Court.
More openly partisan institutions, like Trump-aligned media and the Republican Party have for some time now been willing to go along with anti-democratic practices. This graph from 2019 is based on expert assessment of party commitment to democratic principles and protecting minority rights. There is a a huge distance between Republicans (the red dot on the upper red corner) and Democrats (the red dot in the opposite corner), with the GOP appearing broadly opposed to individual rights and liberal democracy. This was the institution that Trump built his anti-democratic project with, ineptly at first, but now with greater sophistication.
I spoke with Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic about how Trump’s politicization and purges of the civil service are a central part of his broader authoritarian project. It is part of her Autocracy in America series. You can read the interview here, or if you are a podcast person:
In the interview I noted how many federal employees no longer felt they could stay in government: “It’s a red flag when you see so many people saying, My god. This is so illegal that we cannot, in good conscience, stick around any longer.”
We are seeing so many examples of this now. Consider that six Department of Justice career prosecutors and an FBI agent resigned rather than lead what they viewed as a sham investigation into the wife of Renee Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent.
The FBI agent leading Atlanta’s field office was pushed out when he raised objections to FBI’s seizure of 2020 election ballots, which stands as an ominous portent for how far the federal government will go to undermine state-run elections before the midterm. Remember, these are officials who stuck through DOGE and the firing of colleagues involved in the January 6th investigations. The fact that thy are making the choice to resign now provides a very credible signal that the administration is becoming more lawless.
Elections was also something I also discussed with Applebaum. Let me note we did the interview before the current raids on election administration offices in Georgia. In other words, what we are seeing now was predictable:
Moynihan: One part of the authoritarian checklist that Trump has struggled most with is elections, and that’s partly because the constitutional system delegates the actual running of elections to state governments. And historically, the federal government has had minimal involvement over these processes. And, you know, right now that seems like a very good thing. But that doesn’t mean that a weaponized Department of Justice couldn’t sue or investigate or harass states or individual election officials for what they regard as improper behavior, which could be behavior that’s actually trying to maintain a free and fair election. It doesn’t mean that the president might not deploy the National Guard to election sites, or put ICE around election sites, on the claim that mass fraud is taking place. It is, I think, the area where Trump has made the least progress. But he’s clearly interested in this as a topic, and he’s issued executive orders claiming authority over elections that, constitutionally, he doesn’t seem to have—as he has done in other areas.
Applebaum: This seems, to me, to be the central point: the possibility of elections being shaped or manipulated by the executive. It’s not necessarily going to happen, but it’s also important that we take the possibility seriously. How do you think we should be thinking this? Should we be behaving differently; should we be acting differently?
Moynihan: We’re currently operating under an administration where you probably can’t retain a significant job if you don’t go along with the idea that somehow the 2020 elections were crooked. It does mean that the leadership of these agencies, like the Department of Justice, are going to be very much driven by people with this conspiratorial worldview, who are perhaps less dedicated to constitutional principles.
So I think in the blue states, you will have attorney generals who will be anticipating these efforts and will be, in some cases, responding to Department of Justice investigations. In red states, you’re gonna have this partisan alignment between the president and the actors in charge of individual states. And so I think, in both cases, public support for elections, public support for maintaining the integrity of elections, will become very important. Visible demonstrations by members of the public, if they can start to realize that there are real threats here, will become, I think, useful in reminding society as a whole that these elections do not run themselves.As some are resigning, many are hiding even as they perform what are clearly not the mission of their organization.
Many public employees are not choosing to resign, but to go along with democratic backsliding. Georgia Fort, one of the journalists arrested in Minnesota this week took this image of a masked Drug Enforcement Agency official at her door.
What does the DEA have to do with media covering immigration protests? Not much. But as I noted before, Trump is creating a paramilitary omniforce to serve him by purging those who might object, merging other parts of law enforcement into immigration enforcement, and surging these forces into blue cities. This official is no longer really a member of the DEA, and no longer really serving the mission of his organization. He is part of the omniforce now.
What else I’m reading
Mia Sato profiled Nick Shirley, arguing that referring to him as an online influencer is misleading. He is, in fact, a slopagandist. Only in the clicktatorship can a slopagandist become a policymaker.
Dan Kaufman writes about Trump’s union busting spree. Whatever your thoughts on unions, they have been one of the few institutional defenders of public employees against Trump’s purges.
Henry Farrell offered a fantastic perspective on why Mark Carney’s speech on Davos was so meaningful on the Ezra Klein show. He reflects on it here.
If you worked in federal government tech, we would like to hear from you. The Better Government Lab is joining with the Federation of American Scientists and the Beeck Center to try to captures the lessons learned and skills lost with the purge of digital talent from govt.
And Bondi’s letter to Gov Walz, requesting voter roles in exchange for withdrawing ICE surge after Pretti was killed.