A New York Times report noted over the weekend that Donald Trump and his allies have embraced a post-2024 vision “that would upend core elements of American governance, democracy, foreign policy and the rule of law if he regained the White House.” That might sound overdramatic. It is not.
The former president, with little subtlety, has touted an authoritarian-style vision for the United States. Under the Republican’s preferred approach, he would seize control of government departments and agencies that have historically operated with independence, enact radical anti-immigration plans, use government powers to crack down on journalists, and hire right-wing lawyers who will be positioned to help Trump politicize federal law enforcement and exact revenge against his perceived political foes.
He’s also been quite candid about issuing pardons to politically allied criminals and labeling his opponents “vermin,” seemingly indifferent to the word’s 1930s-era antecedents.
With this in mind, Trump is aware of the fact that he’s running for the nation’s highest office effectively as an opponent of democracy. He also realizes that a growing number of observers — journalists, scholars, voters, et al. — have noticed. The Republican’s response to the burgeoning controversy, however, is eerily familiar. The Associated Press reported over the weekend:
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday attempted to turn the tables on his likely rival in November, President Joe Biden, arguing that the man whose election victory Trump tried to overturn is “the destroyer of American democracy.” Trump’s allegations about Biden, a Democrat, echo the ones that Biden has been making for years against his predecessor.
In the same remarks, delivered in Iowa, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination also accused Democrats of having “fascists” among their ranks, adding that Democrats are trying “to crush free speech, censor their critics,” and “criminalize…
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