President Trump, Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Authoritarianism

Common Dreams
Steven Day
December 19, 2024

So, why did Donald Trump win? Or to put it another way, why did the American people decide to elect as their president one of the most despicable and dangerous human beings ever to dance (or perhaps trample would be a better word) through the pages of American political history? It isn’t as though we didn’t know what we were getting with Donald Trump. During his previous four years in the White House, he engaged in self-dealing, advocated violence, and embraced extremist groups including neo-Nazis, a group who, in his view, includes some “very fine people.”

When faced with a deadly pandemic, he deliberately understated the danger for political advantage, suppressed scientific data, delayed testing, discouraged mask wearing, and advocated fake cures and other nonscientific nonsense. According to studies in peer-reviewed journals, thousands of Americans may have died unnecessarily because of these actions.

Trump has also never been shy about sharing his plans to use federal law enforcement officers, taxing agencies, and prosecutors to act as his personal avengers. These are public servants he intends to morph into an army of thugs paid for by the taxpayers and available at his whim. He has also been remarkably forthcoming in describing his lust for dictatorial powers.

And knowing all these things, a plurality of American voters voted him back into office, effectively saying, “He supports neo-Nazis, political violence, use of federal law enforcement and the military to crush opponents, overthrowing democratic principles, and regularly acting with gratuitous cruelty... WOW, THAT’S THE GUY FOR ME!”

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You can’t cure a cancer by pretending it’s the common cold. And we won’t defeat Trumpism by pretending his 2024 victory was caused by ordinary campaign mistakes that can be fixed by a nip here and a tuck there. We have a bigger problem. There is a pathogen in the body politic of the United States that constitutes a mortal threat to our democracy. As noted, a large minority of Americans have told us that they are willing to accept an authoritarian leader. And it is that, not poor campaign strategies, we have to confront.