How Will We Know We’ve Become an Autocracy?
It's not as simple as waiting for a Big Moment at which Trump defies the Supreme Court or breaks the law
A few days ago, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo shared a few paragraphs from Harvard political scientist and sociologist Theda Skocpol about what is probably the most important and ominous aspect of the mammoth budget bill that Congress passed and President Trump signed into law on July 4th: a vast expansion of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Skocpol explains that until now her study of democratic breakdown in interwar Germany and Hungary had convinced her that federalism in the U.S. would stand in the way of Trump’s desire to create a centralized national police force he and aides like Stephen Miller could use to impose their will and punish their enemies. But not any longer:
Immigration is an area where a U.S. President can exercise virtually unchecked legal coercive power, especially if backed by a Supreme Court majority and corrupted Department of Justice. Now Congress has given ICE unprecedented resources—much of this windfall to be used for graft with private contractors Trump patronizes, but lots of [it] to hire street agents willing to mask themselves and do whatever they are told against residents and fellow American citizens. The Miller-Trumpites are not interested only in rounding up undocumented immigrants. They will step up using ICE and DOJ enforcement use to harass Democrats, citizen critics, and subvert future elections if they can.
This is the key story unfolding right now. Governors and civic groups and media outlets need to get clear on this imminent threat and work together across the board to reveal and push back against the emerging ICE police state.
When I shared this statement on Twitter/X over the weekend, the response from people I respect and consider intelligent and honest political analysts on the center-right was an eyeroll. These are people who recognize Trump is bad in various ways, but they’re convinced the political system will remain what it always has been, with regular free and fair elections, judicial review, separation of powers, and so forth. The chance of a descent into authoritarianism is miniscule—and that raises the question of whether people like Skocpol, who should know better, will take any kind of professional or reputational hit when their anxious premonitions fail to materialize. (The consensus seemed to be that there will be no negative consequence, which will be one more bit of evidence that the populists have a point in their anti-establishment furies.)
This raises an important question.
I was skeptical during the first Trump administration of those who warned about Trump overthrowing democracy and replacing it with a form of autocracy. (Back then I worried more about the prospect of civil war breaking out, even while considering that to be a fairly remote possibility.) But the opening months of the second Trump presidency have changed my mind, as I’ve narrated at some length in numerous posts. I now think the U.S. may well be evolving to become a competitive authoritarian system in which free elections are still held but fall far short of fairness.
But what to say to those who, in all sincerity, call this hyperventilating hysteria? What would convince them otherwise? Why don’t they see the mounting evidence? How can I be sure I’m not hallucinating—or projecting my fears onto the world rather than responding dispassionately and empirically to the facts and trendlines?
In a word: How will we know we’ve undergone a transformation into another form of government?
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