By now, it’s hard to deny that Trump has a narrow but plausible path to authoritarian rule in the United States. Polls show he could well win next year’s election. Trump allies are openly developing an elaborate blueprint to transform a second term into full-blown autocracy. Prominent columnists have demonstrated in great detail how it might succeed.
But certain versions of this argument have grown seriously problematic. It’s sometimes said that our institutions and civic culture have withered so much that resistance to Trumpian tyranny would be incapacitated, rendering its onset all but inevitable.
Such a reading of the moment risks leading us astray.
If it was just Trump we had to worry about, I’d say that there was little reason to worry. After all, Trump’s so incompetent that he’d try to become a dictator, get distracted by some petty grudge, trip over his own feet, and leave office without having destroyed democracy. (Though he’d definitely still wound it.)
The bigger problems are the people Trump would appoint into positions of power. While Trump distracted us with social media feuds, these people would be filling the government with loyalists and forcing out anyone who valued the rule of law over the rule of Trump. Then, when they did horrible things, they would have no pushback and they’d be able to have courts rule that it was perfectly legal for them to break our democracy. These people are the bigger threat.
Maybe our fears are overblown and we’d emerge fine, but it’s not something I’d bet on. If I were told to run through a deadly gauntlet with machine guns, poison darts, buzzsaws and the like, I’d refuse. Only if my refusal was denied would I hope that I emerged unscathed. And if I did so, then it wouldn’t mean that there was no danger there - just that I was extremely lucky. If Trump and company regain power and we don’t lose our democracy, it will mainly be due to extreme luck - not because there was no danger from Trump and company.