My Op-Ed: How Trump is Paving the Way for His Authoritarian Takeover

The former president's grand plans are working. Be afraid.

Donald Trump will be a dictator on Day One. He will seek revenge against his adversaries. He will fire civil servants not loyal to him. He will pardon insurrectionists and terminate the constitution. 

Those are not my statements; they are statements made by Donald Trump himself describing his intentions should he return to the White House. One might expect such authoritarian declarations to take a candidate’s campaign. But Trump does not make these statements by mistake; he does does so in response to questions from his closest allies in conservative media, as was the case during an interview June 5 with Sean Hannity. He makes these statements by design. 

An age-old gambit from the authoritarian playbook, the strategy behind Trump’s statements is one that worked in Nazi Germany, in the Soviet Union, and other repressive regimes throughout history. Evil intentions are floated. Reaction is assessed. Weaknesses are exploited. Intentions are repeated. Wrongs become desensitized. Scapegoats are named. Opposition is divided and conquered. Power is grabbed. Distractions are created. Dissent is squashed. Then, with the groundwork complete, what was once considered unthinkable becomes reality.

Trump, like aspiring authoritarians before him, is fostering a national environment in which his self-first vision of governance can be achieved. He is conditioning and reconditioning Americans to tolerate central tenants of authoritarianism. Sadly, the sinister strategy is thus far working. Each time he speaks of eroding the norms of American governance, our national and individual alarm bells ring a little quieter than the time before. Numbness permeates about the grave danger he represents.

Horror movies become less scary each time they are watched, and Americans have viewed the Donald Trump horror show on repeat for nearly a decade. The villain does not change, but the viewer’s response calms dramatically. No matter what Trump says or does, Americans have seen this movie before, and we’ve seen it so many times that what once shook us at our core is now just background noise.

Propaganda is another hallmark of authoritarians. They create their own reality and convince the masses to reject information from the free press if it conflicts with the alternative universe they seek to create. What remains of independent media fears to challenge the authoritarian, the exact travesty CNN inflicted on America for 90 minutes during the first presidential debate. Institutions and rule of law that are building blocks of modern civilization become casualties. Much of our country has already adopted the Trump reality over the reality of facts and science. Only one man’s word is trusted, and friends and family are turning against one another as our once pluralistic society is becoming unrecognizable. This was Trump’s plan all along.

As Trump’s repeated authoritarian behavior wears out America’s ability to counteract it, that behavior also provides tantalizing red meat to his base. MAGA diehards are thrilled by Trump’s every suggestion of upending norms in America because they wish to live in a country in which Trump is their all-powerful leader. They want Donald Trump as their Vladimir Putin or their Kim Jong Un.

Trump wants the same, both because he considers himself a genius who can do no wrong and because the only way he can overcome a system he believes is rigged against him in every way is to destroy that system. He makes no secret of his admiration for Putin and Kim, and the simple reason he lavishes them with so much praise is that he dreams of being like them. He was as ecstatic about his letter from the North Korean dictator as a Swiftie getting an on-stage shoutout during the Eras tour. The difference is that if Taylor Swift were to commit crimes against humanity, she would no longer be the concert goer's idol.

Former president and convicted felon Donald Trump has told America who he admires, who he is, and how he intends to destroy the foundations of our republic. After years of conditioning, many voters will dismiss the former president’s statements as hyperbole and nothing more than ‘Trump being Trump.’ Others will wrongly believe that sweeping changes could never come to pass in America, even if he is elected. Millions adopted a similar mindset throughout history, and like authoritarians before him, Trump is counting on mass complacency.

Authoritarian regimes come to power when the population fails to take threats to their freedoms seriously or when the population fails to recognize emerging authoritarianism until it is too late. To stop Donald Trump from becoming the dictator he wishes to be, the American people and our institutions must recognize what he is doing and be vigilant enough to stop him. Specifically, we must defeat him on November 5.