The Autocrat Will Be With You Shortly – A Dark Rumination
I received this message from a close friend and colleague who has recently moved from Seattle to Portugal, or perhaps Austria:
I’m writing these scattered thoughts for you, though I may or may not send you my actual address; I haven’t decided. America continues to warn itself that it is in danger of being ruled by an autocrat. In fact, he has already arrived and built a regime. He has told us so, and we should believe him: “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m president of the United States”, he declared at a recent cabinet meeting.
Less than a year ago, the second statement would have erased the first. But the era of American autocracy is now here, and there seems little the country is ready to do about it. It is a historical moment with many historical precedents: the dictator and his regime are willing to break laws but the people are not.
Why has there been no organized movement against this state of affairs? Is it because the Democratic Party has no stomach for the fight or is too feckless to wage one? In fact, no. The reason has much brutal simplicity. Trump owns the current Republican Party—he owns it exhaustively, organically, and relentlessly. He owns it not only in Congress, but in every state legislature, city, county, town, and schoolboard where Republicans have a majority. That he does not entirely own the federal judiciary has made a minor difference. Many legal decisions against his policies must be ignored or worked around. Yet neither tactic has proven to be a problem.
Take the recent ruling by a Federal Appeals Court that most of his tariffs are illegal. It is doomed to fail. The president is appealing the judgment to the Supreme Court, where he has won a fairly solid majority of big cases. But even were he to lose here, it would be too late to reverse the global response that has been established. According to the WTO, 70% of its members continue to obey its rules (more or less) and trade as they have in the past. Unfortunately, this doesn’t include the largest economies on planet Earth, including those whose currencies are the most traded and fundamental to the global economic order (dollar, euro, yen). A negative decision in the Supreme Court, moreover, would only provide a challenge to regime insiders to find a go-around, as they have done repeatedly. They are quite good at this, as you know. There is no reason to think they will get any worse.
Our Supreme Leader has been given many names by commentators who despise and fear him. “The emperor president,” “America’s first king,” etc. The eminent classical scholar, Mary Beard, has said “the commonest question I have had from journalists…has been ‘which Roman emperor is Donald Trump most like?” We can imagine some answers that might have flashed through her mind—Nero (“burn, baby, burn”), Caracalla (terrible with finances), Caligula (“I am a god!”), perhaps Commodus (killed by an Australian actor). Not Ceasar (assassinated!) and certainly not Marcus Aurelius.
I’m being sardonic, I know, not to stare too long into the abyss. Such may also be why so many smart people in media, academia, and elsewhere continue to declare the U.S. is “on its way” to dictatorship and could be there “very soon” if things don’t change.” It's understandable, I suppose, however much it flies in the face of the evidence. Genuine autocracy is not supposed to happen here, in the nursery of modern democracy. Thus, the Trump regime is still “pursuing an all-out attack on America.” The attack, however, has succeeded; the victors are in the throne room, enjoying the spoils. Assaults will continue, to be sure. An autocrat is always at war, always seeking to crush opposition. He consistently inflates the force and evil of the enemy until he believes it himself.
Do you doubt this? What do you think the military invasion of major cities in Democratic states is about? Not crime, certainly, nor distraction from the Epstein files. It’s about intimidation. No dictator can survive without control and use of the military. These are fundamental things, as you know. The media seem clueless.
Consider the list of the Trump regime’s other achievements: rejection of Constitutional limits, political control of the Justice Department, liquidation of independent government voices, forced deportations and exile, raids on political enemies, assault and intimidation of universities, demotion of scientific truth and research, industrial leaders bending the knee, sending the military into cities with Democratic mayors, $billion in “emoluments” for the leader, and the overall process of demolishing a government created by democratic administrations and restructuring it so that all power flows to and from the top. Cabinet positions, together with a wide array of other federal offices, serve the president’s personal interests, as there are no longer any real “national interests” separate from Donald Trump.
Which brings me to a troubling forecast. How likely is it for the regime and its supporters to seek (let us call it) influence over the outcome of the midterm elections in 2026. I mean beyond gerrymandering and the president’s call for a federal ban on mail-in voting (used by a third of voters). Trump has already established the false fact of election tampering by Democrats; what limits might restrain Republicans from doing whatever is needed to retain their majority in Congress?
This, as you know, was the great worry of the founders. Hamilton, for all his acumen, perhaps blinded by the glow of Washington, proposed the presidency should be held for life. This was early on during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and it was summarily voted down. Hamilton seems to have later regretted the idea, perhaps along the lines of, “What, dear God, was traversing my brain at the time?” Most of the founders did not want political parties, either— Madison in Federalist #10 and Washington in his famous Farewell Address of 1796 both warned against them. But they warned in vain. Parties were already in evidence as Washington stepped from the podium. They would soon tear the young nation apart in the venomous and infamous 1800 election, which has stood as the worst of the worst thus far. Perhaps we should anticipate a new standard in 2028.
Trump has on several occasions waved the possibility of a third term. Is this just a taunt, or a worm on the hook? It would require altering the Constitution, or, as he has done thus far, ignoring it. Would a declaration of martial law work?
Whatever happens, it is evident that a sizeable mass of the country doesn’t want or care about democracy. If the economy goes bad, as economists predict, could MAGA evaporate as a force? But Trump has held power over Republicans for a decade. And there is always the danger that if he goes, the regime might remain.
Still, you know my view on this. Democracy will not die in the U.S. or elsewhere, at least not for very long. Writing in 1940, Orwell saw that “the democratic vistas have ended in barbed wire.” But it didn’t stay that way. Liberal democracy, not totalitarianism, is the real genii that modernity let out of the bottle.
I hope things go well for you, whatever you decide to do. Meanwhile, I think it’s best for now if I keep my whereabouts quiet.
Scott L. Montgomery is an author, geoscientist, and affiliate faculty member in the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle. He has 25 years' experience in the energy industry, where he worked on projects in many parts of the world. His many technical publications include papers, monographs, articles, and textbooks, mainly focused on cutting edge hydrocarbon plays, technologies, related impacts and issues.
Photo by nappy
