FLASH
Shkruar nga Boris Muñoz
Renowned American sociologist Larry Diamond says that Trump wants everyone to bend to his imperial will. According to him, the US is taking the first steps towards autocracy...
The winds of democratic decline began to blow long ago. Most democratic governments were still celebrating post-Cold War globalization, and the United States pursued its mission to democratize the Middle East—starting with Iraq—even at the cost of an unjustified war.
Larry Diamond, 73, a Stanford University sociologist and expert on authoritarianism, was among the few who saw the rise of a new generation of populist leaders. Figures like Hugo Chavez, Viktor Orbán and, to some extent, Vladimir Putin, were exploiting democratic processes to erode democracy itself, consolidating enormous power within the executive branch.
The so-called “electoral autocracy” was neither isolated nor accidental. There was a pattern of illiberal strategies and common denominators, a manual that Diamond called “the autocrat’s 12-step program.” This issue was hotly debated among academics, who discussed concepts such as hybrid regimes and competitive authoritarianism.
But while the authoritarian virus had not yet infected the great democracies of the West, few of them took the threat seriously. Then, Donald Trump rose to power in the most economically, technologically and militarily dominant nation in the world...
Since Trump’s return, there has been a great deal of concern about democracy in the US. Paul Krugman talks about an auto-coup; others say the United States is “becoming like the Latin American regimes.” In your book “The Winds,” you warned of the decline of democracy in the US. Are you worried about what is happening?
I am very concerned. We have already entered the early stages of a constitutional crisis, which will surely worsen further. Trump aspires to be an authoritarian ruler, to eliminate checks and balances, to weaken and psychologically intimidate opposition and criticism, and to dominate the political landscape, much like Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey, and Modi in India.
You say that American democracy is crumbling...
I don't think it's over, but it's extraordinary the speed with which Trump is moving toward creating absolute presidential power, and to weaken and even eliminate agencies authorized by Congress, which he has no authority to do under the Constitution. So he's violating the law, democratic norms and procedures. The courts have issued orders, and in certain cases he's ignoring them.
So has fascism arrived in the United States, or is it on its way?
Right now, we are in the early stages of a very disturbing authoritarian project and movement. There are elements of fascism in the ideology, organization, mentality, and aspiration of the MAGA movement. But if we simply use the label “fascist,” it can become reflexive, ahistorical, inaccurate, and polarizing.
How did the authoritarian wave spread in the United States?
The decline began in 2006. That year reversed the trend that had existed since the end of the Cold War, in the years 1990-2005, when many more countries were free than autocratic. Over these 19 years, we have seen a classic pattern of democratic decline. A president is elected legitimately through free and fair elections. Then, he finds that the power granted to him by the country’s constitution, with its checks and balances and limitations, is not enough. So he begins the process of reducing freedom for all independent actors in society.
Trump is accelerating the authoritarian process...
He's moving very fast. He has a much more ideological project than last time. It's called the Unitary Executive Theory, which can also be called the theory of the imperial presidency. It says that the president can do whatever he wants, that he owns and controls the entire federal government, that there can't and shouldn't be any independent actors in the bureaucracy.
That everyone, in the entire administration he hates, must show absolute personal and political loyalty to him. Now Trump is threatening Republicans in the Senate and Congress whose loyalty he has doubts about. I'm talking about the death threats that members of Congress are receiving, which have increased in the last two years.
What threats are you talking about?
Some Republicans in Congress and some election officials are concerned about their physical safety. You can’t understand fascism if you don’t understand the role of the threat of physical violence in intimidating people and making them unable to resist. Trump has removed Secret Service protection from people who investigated him in the previous administration. He’s sending them a warning, just like a mob boss.
You often use the word “emperor” for him. Do you think the ultimate goal is to become a Caesar?
He wants to be a dictator for 4 years, and he would like to continue even longer. But I don't think he will be able to do that. There is no chance that he will pass the constitutional changes he intends. His long-term project will face many challenges. But for now, he can do a lot of damage. /Adapted from "Pamphlet" by "El Pais"/
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