Interview With General Stanley McChrystal

"I even have a problem with the word warrior. Traditionally, warriors were separate from soldiers. The difference between an army and a mob is discipline and leadership and uniform code of military justice."

~~ General Stanley McChrystal (retired)

 Did President Trump fall for the myth of surgical warfare? Gen. Stanley McChrystal joins the columnist David French, both veterans of the Iraq War, to discuss what may have been overlooked in the planning of Operation Epic Fury. McChrystal, who retired from the Army in 2010, argues that the United States often overestimates the decisive power of aerial bombing while underestimating the weight of historical grievance. And the general weighs in on the current culture of bravado coming from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. 

Interview transcribed from the New York Times

David French: General, thank you so much for joining us.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal: All right. David, please call me Stan — even though you are a former JAG officer. We have to set the table at the beginning.

French: It’s going to be hard for me.

We served together in very different capacities. I was a JAG officer for an armored cavalry squadron in eastern Diyala Province during 2007-8. You were orchestrating one of the most effective and efficient Special Operations missions our nation’s ever seen, which really helped turn the tide of the war.

I want to actually begin our discussion of current events there, because there is something that I have seen since this most recent conflict with Iran broke out, which is that the veterans’ perspective on this conflict is different than the perspective of the folks who didn’t serve, especially in Iraq.

So, even if someone maybe objects to the way that this conflict began or has some questions about its prudence, there’s a lot of feelings about Iran and Iran’s role in the Iraq war and the losses and damage it inflicted upon us.

When I was in eastern Diyala, we lost guys to explosively formed penetrators planted by Iranian-backed militias.

So, General, if you could table-set, what has been the recent American experience in our long-running conflict with Iran?

McChrystal: If we go back to the American experience starting in 1979, I was a young Special Forces officer, and I remember that the American Embassy in Tehran was seized, and there were people chanting “death to America.”

That was upsetting. And that was only a few years after Vietnam, so I think America was vulnerable emotionally.

Then suddenly you had this country that had been our ally, at least in the minds of most Americans during the Peacock Regime of the Shah, from 53 to 78, we felt comfortable with that. They were the bulwark of stability — and then suddenly in ’79 we saw the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. And he doesn’t want to negotiate.

We watched a war break out between Iraq and Iran, and most of us were far enough away to say, “Wow. Good. Somebody’s taken on the Iranians. They don’t like Americans, so it’s somebody taking them on.”

Then in 1988, the U.S.S. Vincennes mistook an Iranian airliner for an attacking F-14, and they killed 290 civilians. If you take that period, Iran seemed like a recalcitrant enemy that hated us for some reason that we couldn’t really understand.

Then we get into 2007, when you were in Diyala and I’m leading a counterterrorist task force.

We had to stand up an entirely new task forcefocused on the Shia militia that were supported by Iran — the explosively formed projectiles and all of the things that Iran did to give them capability — and it became a bitter fight.

So, in the minds of someone like me and my force, of course, they were the enemy. They were killing us and we were killing them. It looked as though they were also a threat to not just the mission in Iraq, but the stability across the region.

It becomes emotional; Iran feels like our lifelong enemy right now. I’ll stop there. But I think that’s only part of the story.

French: Well, of course, if you say that’s only part of the story, we have to keep going. When the surge started to wind down around 2008, 2009, 2010, there was a real sense that we had won in many ways, that we had really turned the tide by the time I left in late ’08.

I remember the statistics when we got there. If you drove out of the front gate of our base, it was about a 25 percent chance of enemy contact — whether it’s an I.E.D., sniper fire, rockets, mortars, whatever. By the time we left, it was less than a 1 percent chance.

But the story doesn’t end there. The story keeps going, and Iranian-supported militias have been a thorn in our side in Iraq ever since. So, let’s pick it up after the surge. What happens next?

McChrystal: Well, let’s really pick it up before that, because I think it’s important.

We have a tendency in America to view things in very short periods — our year in Iraq, or in my case, five years in Iraq. We tend to come in and say we are going to fight the war to end all wars, at least in our minds.

But for the Iraqi about my age — I’m 71 now — for an Iraqi, it really starts in 1953, when the U.S. and British intelligence services overthrew the constitutionally elected prime minister and put back into power the Peacock Regime of the Shah.

They oppressed the people tremendously, particularly through Savak, the secret police. So, when the Iranian revolution erupts in 1978, we may have been surprised, but the Iranian people were not surprised.

When they suddenly say “death to America,” most Americans are saying, “What’s your problem? Why are you angry at us?”

Then, of course, we spoke earlier about the Iran-Iraq war, which was for eight years. It was a brutal bloodletting. Iran survives this eight-year, extraordinary experience, twice as long as the First World War. And it sets a mark upon the Iranian population that we shouldn’t forget to this day — because the baby boomers are veterans of that experience, and the clerics get a lot of support from them.

After 2002, when George W. Bush names Iran to the “axis of evil,” reportedly to their surprise, you start to continue this set of grievances. So, I try to remind people whenever we think of what’s happening now: If we don’t understand that journey to this point, we don’t understand the attitudes that are going to drive decisions people make.

French: I’m so glad we have dived into this from the Iranian perspective, because I think understanding the Iranian perspective really helps us maybe understand how the rest of this war might go, what kind of staying power, for example, the Iranians might have.

There have been comparisons, for example, to the lightning-quick raid to get Maduro out of Venezuela. There was some expectation that you could do something very rapid, a very fast decapitation strike, and really alter the behavior and composition of the regime in a substantial way.

My perception of that from the beginning was that that was a bit of a vain hope, because you have a very different composition of the enemy when you’re talking about, say, a South American strongman versus an Islamic Revolutionary regime — the level of commitment that exists within the regime is theological. Sometimes it’s apocalyptic.

When we were in Iraq taking on Shia militias, the level of their commitment was such that, for example, the medics who were treating wounded Shia fighters would sometimes report that the Shia fighters, even gravely wounded, would try to bite them or harm them in some way, even though they were gravely wounded. That was the level of commitment.

So, we hear a lot that the Iranian people are ready to rise up, that they’re ready to overthrow this government. But at the same time, we have seen extreme levels of commitment.

How are you judging the state of the Iranian opposition at this moment? Is it brittle? Is it fragile? Or are you seeing that 47-year-long commitment continuing?

McChrystal: I really want to go two lines on this. The first is that question, because the Iranian opposition is not really evident. We saw in 2009, they came out in the streets and were beaten back into submission, and then reportedly thousands of Iranians protesting were killed by the regime in recent months.

But I couldn’t name the opposition leader. I couldn’t tell you the liberation front of Iran. I know that the shah’s son is going around, but I don’t think he’s a legitimate alternative. I think that we can’t gauge the actual strength of the desire of Iranian people to change.

And, of course, a war will often cause people to coalesce around their government. In your really well-written article , you said something I really believe in. You said, I’m an American. I want our side to win.

I feel the same way, even though I disagree with many of the things my government’s doing, I’m unequivocally on this side. And that may be the case.

The other thing I wanted to talk about, though, because you brought up the Maduro raid: There are three great seductions that happen to American administrations and to the military.

The first is the idea of covert action. A new president comes in, and he’s told by the intelligence community, “We can create this great effect and it will be covert. No one will ever know who did it, and it’ll just be a good outcome.” And in my experience, it never stays covert and it rarely works.

French: Right.

McChrystal: But it’s seductive because it seems like an easy approach to a knotty problem.

The second seduction, which I lived as a part of, is the surgical Special Operations raid. That is probably epitomized by the Maduro raid. I would argue that we demonstrated extraordinary competence that night, but not much changed. I don’t think that we actually demonstrated the ability to change the facts on the ground to any extent.

Which gets to the third great seduction, and that’s air power. We all love air power. In World War II, we went into the war with the Douhet theory, that air power, the bomber, will always get through, and therefore air power will be dominant.

It was certainly very, very contributory, but it was never dominant.

When we got into Vietnam, which was the classic case, we developed a strategy that said: For North Vietnam, we will have an escalation strategy, and we will raise the pressure on them until we hit the point at which they’re willing to quit.

It’s not worth it anymore. What we didn’t perceive is — like the Shia wounded that your medics ran into — there was no point for North Vietnam. They were asymmetrically committed to the outcome.

So, we entered Iraq in 2003 with “shock and awe,” and then we spent a decade there fighting after it.

I think, in this case, we again fell for the seduction that if we bomb key targets, we will produce the outcome we want — but the outcome’s in the minds of the people. And unless you’re going to kill all the people, you may not affect that outcome.

We may be at a point — you used the word “quagmire” in your article — but we may be at a point where we’ve run into a country that has an extraordinary capacity to be bombed.

French: General, let me make the case to you that has been made to me about air power in this current war, and that is: Everything that you’ve walked through — from the daylight bombing raids in 1943 to the air war over Kuwait during Desert Storm, all of those things — we just weren’t as capable then as we are now.

We have loitering drones, we have high visibility over the battlefield. We have, in connection with the Israelis, deep penetration into the Iranian regime. This time it is different. This time we have more capability.

What’s your response to that argument?

McChrystal: Since I’ve retired from the military, I’ve been involved in some investing, and I love that line: “This time it’s different.”

I go, “OK, I agree the capability is so much more.” And I have to keep an open mind that it is possible that the dynamic has changed so much that we finally hit a tipping point where it will be decisive.

But I’m not seeing that, and I don’t feel that. The other part that I would bring out is we thought really early in Afghanistan that the people on the ground who we were targeting would be awed and intimidated by the bombing and that they would respect our capability. In many ways, what we found, particularly with the tribal members, is that they were disdainful of it.

They knew you could bomb them. But they said, if you’re not willing to get down on the ground, look me in the eye, and fight me mano a mano, then you are not morally on my level. I think that we can’t forget that people fight because of their passions.

It’s not a geopolitical calculation that’s going to drive what Iran does eventually. It will be what’s in their hearts.

So, this idea of decapitating the regime, and now we’ve got this current leader where we killed his father and we killed his wife, we apparently banged him up pretty good. Then we say, “Well, that will make him more willing to negotiate.” It wouldn’t have that effect on me.

French: No. And it’s 100 percent opposite of my own experience in dealing with Al Qaeda.

One of the things that you see when you’ve been in the military and you’re out of the military, one thing I’m very grateful for, is that the military is still the most highly respected public institution in the United States. I think there are a lot of good reasons for that. But it has also sort of led to a sense that we are supermen, that the military can accomplish almost the impossible.

And so we look at a situation like the Strait of Hormuz , and we think, “We can open that. Of course we can open that.”

Just give us some perspective on, as a practical, realistic matter, why is it hard? Why would it be hard to force open the Strait of Hormuz? Or would it be hard?

McChrystal: Yeah, it would be hard to keep it open. It is like what we found in Iraq. We could bomb Iraq pretty easily; we could even take Baghdad with relative ease. We could get rid of the existing government.

But once we wanted to change the reality on the ground, who actually controlled things, how things worked, now you’re not at 30,000 feet. You’re at six feet.

And you’re the same height as your potential opponent. I tell people about this war, if you like this war, enjoy this first part, because this is the best part. Because everything after this will be harder, because it will be more equal, even though we will have bombed them. We’ll have to get down to a level.

In the Strait of Hormuz, we’ve got ships potentially facing mines or even autonomous surface and undersurface vehicles — all the different threats that they can bring out, just to make it lousy.

They’re not all coming after U.S. warships. They don’t have to; they only have to shoot a civilian tanker or a cargo vessel once a week, and then people go, “Well, I don’t know what day they’re going to strike somebody, so I’m not going to let my ships go now.”

So, they can have an effect with a fairly low level of effectiveness.

French: And the insurers won’t insure the ships in that circumstance. The financial risk becomes unacceptable, which renders it virtually impossible to transit the Strait because nobody’s doing that with total financial exposure.

So, General, when we’re talking about the risks of the current war, there’s been such an emphasis on the economic risk. In other words, if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed or nearly closed, we’re going to talk about higher gas prices, rippling economic problems across the globe.

We’ve been hearing about budgetary risks. The administration is seeking $200 billion or more. But there’s also another risk, which is above these — the risk to the human lives of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines who are out there.

How are you seeing the risk here to human life? What kind of escalating risks could we be facing to our own service members in this conflict?

McChrystal: Yeah, I think it’s great to bring up because we’ve fortunately suffered few casualties today, but every casualty has a family and carries a loss, and we need to remember that.

But if the war were to drag on, and, for example, if it gets grittier — if we get forces on the ground, whether they’re inside Iran or in neighboring areas — casualties will go up. Frustration will go up.

We have a volunteer military now, so it’s largely limited to people who self-selected in. But the reality is there is part of our society that goes in the military, and there’s a lot of our society that does not. There starts to be a divide that comes from that and a resentment. Those are dynamics that you don’t see early in a war, but over time come home.

French: One thing that concerns me is this civilian-military divide — that we do have only a very small percentage of people who serve. I believe it’s still the case that the greatest indicator of service for you is that you had a family member serve. So, it’s a small, self-perpetuating part of our culture.

I’m not sure that’s necessarily healthy for us over the long term — that we essentially have a soldier caste or a warrior class that defends this democracy, but is increasingly separate from the rest of our society and culture.

One of the questions I have is, do you see that yourself also? And do you think that could potentially result in too great a willingness to use force? Obviously, we have an extremely respected military, very trusted military, but do you see warning signs in that kind of divide?

McChrystal: Well, I do, in several ways. One, I agree with you that it’s not healthy to have a military caste grow up, even though it’s been largely professional and apolitical and all the good things.

But if you think about it, the propensity to go to war, at the end of the day — people who are professional soldiers have a reason to want conflict. The reality is it gives you a chance to work your craft and promotions. They wouldn’t even really think about it directly, but you become incentivized for the kinds of military actions that give that opportunity. Plus, it increases defense budgets and whatnot.

Then the other great danger is the more insulated the force is, the more potential for politicization. Particularly in the current environment, where there have been generals fired simply because they don’t fit in politically to the current administration.

You start to shape that military, and it starts to maybe align with a certain political leaning. When I was in the service, you never knew what your peers felt politically. You never talked about it. And I think that that’s under pressure.

So, I think the danger of having this separate entity is that after a while, it starts to think of itself, as we’ve seen in some countries, as the guardians of the republic or of the nation.

French: Right. Let’s even get a little bit bigger picture for a moment. How do you see this conflict fitting in with a more global grand American strategy? Or does it fit in with a particular grand American strategy?

We’ve had a lot of debates over the 10 years of the Trump era — is he isolationist? — and I think that people have turned the page on that. Is he a guy who is interested in spheres of influence? Where are you seeing the Trump, for lack of a better term, grand strategy in Trump 2.0?

McChrystal: I think the first thing we saw that was obvious is the “America first” idea. Economically, the tariffs were designed to encourage on-shoring, things like that. The direct confrontation economically with China, it’s the same thing.

But then you step back from that, and you say, “OK, what really provides security in a world that’s interconnected?”

We can onshore things, but the reality is it’s still interconnected, and it’s going to stay that way. We’re not going to undo that. In my view, it is credibility in the world. It is alliances, it is relationships you can trust. It is the rule of law writ large, international norms and rules and things like that.

I think President Trump took most of those on and said, “They’re unfair to America. You allies don’t carry your weight on any number of things.” So, he weakened institutions. He challenged norms. He, in many cases, eliminated relationships that we had under the idea that that was going to advantage the strongest dog left on the block — which would be us.

I think that’s proven not to be true. You can’t be that strong to do that. I think the recent adventurism, I’ll call it, comes from this idea that there was a fair amount of success in threatening people early.

I could threaten Canada, I could threaten Greenland, and there was no cost to it. Now, there was no military action taken. But there was no cost to it.

And then shooting at the drug boats in the Caribbean was a muscular way to do something. I don’t think it had any effect.

But the Maduro raid, I think, crossed a point in which the president got seduced by one of the things I mentioned — the idea that you can do something on the cheap if you’re clever enough and you can pull it off.

The thing about Special Operations missions is they are high risk. We say, “Well, they’re high risk, but they always work.” No, they don’t. That’s what makes them high risk.

I think he got emboldened by that. And then I think that the other dynamic was, of course, Israel.

The Oct. 7 attacks created a dynamic in Israel, then the operations in Gaza. There has been a dynamic driven by Prime Minister Netanyahu, largely to expand Israel’s security, expand Israel’s power, expand all of the things that he would like and to do away with the boogeyman, which was Iran.

Those became just absolutely defining objectives that President Trump had always been in sympathy with. Now, I think he got caught up in the current of it.

French: Well, there was a phrase used before Oct. 7: “mowing the lawn,” or “mowing the grass,” where essentially you periodically have conflict with Hamas or Hezbollah, and you knock them back. You knock them back on their heels, and it takes them months or years to recover, and you can just cycle, rinse, repeat and just keep doing that.

But I think Oct. 7, in my view, should have blown up that idea that they had “mowed the grass” time and time again. And then Hamas, far from being cowed, was plotting this horrific, purely evil massacre.

So, that creates this situation: You have threatening enemies, you have enemies who wish you harm, you have an enormous capacity to damage them, but you have no real capacity to eliminate them, to destroy them. It’s a serious strategic dilemma.

McChrystal: It is, and we’ve seen it around the world. You see it in the West Bank now. You see the reality that all of the resentment you create through what you do now at some point comes back to you.

I think that for everyone we kill in bombing Iran, they have a brother, sister, father, mother, and they are unlikely to go, “Oh, yeah, it’s OK. You killed my father, but it was geopolitical necessity on your part.”

That’s not the way we respond.

Sometimes it’s necessary. I don’t deny that some wars are just and required, but no wars that I’m familiar with are neat, clean or produce the kind of outcome we actually want.

They produce this messy thing that might be better than before the war. It’s not a lot better.

French: Let’s move on to some other issues. One of the things that I’m often asked about is leadership and leadership within the military. You have been described as one of the finest leaders of men in combat in the modern American military.

And what we are seeing right now in the current secretary of defense is an enormous amount of bravado, a sort of, “We are lethal. We will kill you. We will destroy you.” You’ve got the bench pressing and the push-ups and everything.

I get a lot of questions about this. How does this land with soldiers? In my perspective, it has been: With some soldiers, it lands, they really like it. They like it when a senior leader will get their hands dirty. They like it when a senior leader is fit and that they can do the same things that the guys on the line do.

But at the same time, in my experience, bravado is not necessarily really appreciated. It’s more of a show-don’t-tell culture in the military.

You’ve led men in combat for much of your life. Talk to me a bit about that line between bravado and cool, calm professionalism. How do you see all of that?

McChrystal: I’m disappointed by the current atmosphere that is communicated from the top. I had the honor and opportunity to serve with some of the most elite forces, people who really did some extraordinary things, but they didn’t beat their chest about it.

They weren’t braggadocious.,. That’s just not the way they behaved.

The danger of some of that verbiage now is that much of the force is 18 years old, and it’s influenceable. They see that and they go, “Wow, that’s the way we ought to think. That’s the way we ought to be. We are superior.”

And there’s another reality that, particularly in today’s military, the number of people who really need to have big biceps and be able to kick open the door is minuscule, because most of the force is intelligence, communications, logistics — all the enablers that allow you to, with great accuracy, put in that very small number of operators.

So, when you say, “All people should look like me” — that would be a disaster.

I think people ought to look like whatever they look like so that they are capable in their jobs. I think the idea that we wouldn’t want gay or transgender service members to serve — if they’re good — is preposterous. I want whoever’s good to serve.

You also get different perspectives. What we found in the counterterrorist force, when I was young, it was sort of homogenous. It was white males with good posture. And by the time you got to Iraq 2007, as we had matured, it had become a meritocracy of older men and women, young people, all this difference, because they had proven they were contributory to the fight.

So, your ticket to being accepted was no longer just your bench press. It was, “Are you smart? Are you committed? Will you be a good colleague?” That became a much healthier force, if we would think that way.

I even have a problem with the word warrior. Traditionally, warriors were separate from soldiers. The difference between an army and a mob is discipline and leadership and uniform code of military justice.

It’s why we operate in a certain controlled way — because when you give young people the ability to carry weapons that can take life, you have to have a level of discipline, part of which is values and culture. And part of it is just military-prescribed discipline. It’s essential.

French: Yeah. If I think of it like this, big brains are more important than big biceps.

And if any military force in the world is teaching us that right now, it’s Ukraine, which has used innovation, especially in drone warfare. They’re still surprising us. It feels like — you may be less surprised than me, General — but Ukraine is consistently surprising me every six to nine months with its extraordinary resilience.

Just to switch gears a tiny bit from Iran, it feels to me as if one of the outcomes — if we are able to achieve a satisfactory resolution in Ukraine’s fight against Russia — that at the end of the day, we’ll have added to the Western alliance one of the most capable militaries and most potent militaries in the world at the end of this conflict.

McChrystal: There is no way to take away the value of on-the-ground experience and that experience of having to innovate. Armies don’t innovate well in peacetime, right? Too many limitations. In wartime, particularly to survive, Ukraine has been just a hotbed of constant innovation.

So, if we’re not going to school on that, and if we’re not trying to replicate that energy to innovate in our force, then we’re missing a requirement.

French: Well, General, you’ve been very generous with your time, but I want you to give you a chance to tell me how wrong I am about something. And that is: You’ve been an advocate for a mandatory national service for young people.

I’m a huge believer in service. One of my greatest regrets in my life is that I didn’t join the military until I was in my mid thirties. I wish I had done it when I was much younger. General, I can tell you, a 36-year-old lawyer in Officer Basic is not the greatest sight in the world. But I made it through.

I’m a huge believer in service, whether it’s joining the military, Teach for America, Peace Corps, you name it. But that libertarian side of me is saying it’s too much to make people do it. We should urge them. We should not make them.

But my understanding is you’re an advocate for a mandatory national service — not a conscription into the military necessarily, but national service. Tell me your perspective on that. Why is my voluntary emphasis going to be ultimately wrong?

McChrystal: It’s funny because when I first thought about national service, I thought it should be mandatory.

Then they talked me off the ledge, and they said, “No, it needs to be voluntary.” So, for a decade, I held to the line that it should be voluntary but culturally expected.

I’m back to mandatory now. I go back to: Why did 36-year-old David French go into the military and go to serve? Because he was not the same person that he was at 17 or 18. If you had been as mature then, you’d have done service then. Maybe Teach for America or something.

My life choices at 17 or 18 weren’t the best, and they were on record as having been very problematic. But the point is, I think if we wait for everybody to arrive at the right answer, just way too many young people are affected by their peers and whatnot.

I think if we just said, “To heck with it, it’s mandatory,” and gave people a range of different options, what I think it would do is it would be a great leveler in American society. It would be something that every American had to do. And they would, when they got together later in life, they might joke about stuff, but they’d start the conversation: “Well, where did you serve?”

“I taught in New Orleans,” “I did X” or whatever. It would be a way to bridge divides. All of us could use a period in our lives when we’re doing something that’s inconvenient or maybe unpleasant. We come out better for it.

And, I know, who am I at 71 to tell young people what they ought to be doing? Well, if I can’t do it now, when can I do it?

French: Well, General, this has been a real pleasure. I really appreciate you giving me the chance to pick your brain on some of the most thorny issues that we are dealing with right now as a nation and a culture.

I very much appreciate it.

McChrystal: Well, you’re kind to have me, Dave. Thank you.

 

 

 

Supreme Court Set To Green-Light More Vote Suppression

Vote suppression is on the docket at Supreme Court. 

At issue is whether a Mississippi law, which allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they are received within five business days after the election, is legal given that federal law requires votes to be cast by that day. Most states have similar laws.

Trump has encouraged Republicans to support legislation outlawing mail-in voting and his regime backed the challenge to the Mississippi law, in hopes of halting vote counts that continue after Election Day.

The Republican-led Mississippi legislature adopted the law allowing late arriving ballots to be counted in 2020, during the pandemic. It is being challenged by the Republican National Committee and Mississippi’s state GOP. During more than two hours of argument on Monday, the court’s six conservative justices repeatedly pressed the lawyer for Mississippi on what is required to make a ballot selection fully complete, suggesting that federal law sets out Election Day as the day ballots should be considered final.

The court’s three liberal justices appeared to defend the Mississippi law, noting that federal law allows the states to set their own election regulations. They also appeared concerned the challenge could endanger all early voting and make it harder for members of the military to vote. The Mississippi leaders asserted that under the “plain meaning” of the word “election,” Mississippi voters make their choice by casting and submitting their ballots by the date of the election, even if some of the ballots are not received by election officials until after that day.

The conservative justices' only concern seemed to be that the decision would cause problems for election machinery already in progress, and not whether changing the law makes it more difficult for people to vote. 

Trump and his cult of sycophantic followers have maintained without the slightest scintilla of evidence that mail-in ballots, as well as early voting, are rife with fraud. There has been a constant churn of local and national laws aimed at putting up roadblocks and hurdles to voting, based on these hallucinations about fraud, including the belief that millions non-citizens are voting. A study by the conservative Heritage Foundation came up with fewer than 100 voting attempts by non-citizens in over 25 years. National bills like the SAVE Act are a maneuver that will further disenfranchise voters. 

Similar to Blackstone's ratio: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", I'd rather see the law allow some fraud to slip through than to see legitimate voters deprived of their right to vote. That's where our legislators and jurists should be aiming.

Cult!

How many times have we heard that THIS is was the thing that was going to cause Trump's cultish followers to turn against him? There have been so many lines in the sand that have had the media, both traditional journalists and social media keyboard warriors, predicting that Trump was done. There would be stories and posts about some Trump supporter claiming that they regretted voting for him. There have been rumblings when something that actually affecting his base happened. When he mocked the Q-Anon faction for falling for a "Democrat Hoax" in regard to the Epstein Files, when grocery prices failed to come down, and now, when we can watch gas prices go up every day, people were convinced that he was done. 

I don't believe it. 

Every one of these events has resulted in infighting among Trump voters, and every time the supposed outrage had faded away. They stayed loyal to their cult leader. I spoke with someone the other day who spoke vehemently about the stupidity of starting the war with Iran, but after barely taking a breath he wanted to know why anti-Trump people couldn't just admit the good that he was doing, or why "they" couldn't just get out of his way and let him do his job. He was already backpedaling before he got the end of his sentence. 

I was part of a religious cult for a significant portion of my adult life. Cult don't have to be, and usually aren't, peopled by glassy-eyed zombies chanting whatever the leader told them to say. They generally aren't sequestered away in a "compound" somewhere, or ready to commit mass suicide at a moment's notice. Cultists often have opinions that differ from what the cult leader is saying. There are occasionally internal turf wars. But what they always agree on is that they will defend the leader and his people from outsiders. No matter how divorced from reality Trump's words and actions become, no matter how his actions make their own lives more difficult, they will always close ranks against the Democrats, the liberals, the foreigners.

Maybe they will no longer be mesmerized now that the latest thing hits the fan.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Impunity & Ego

One of the things that we hear all the time with regard to Trump is that 'A' is a distraction from 'B". The Epstein files, ICE depredations, corruption,  weaponizing the Justice Department, attacking the press, Trump's mental state, the war on Iran...what is the distraction and what are we distracting from?

While I do believe that there are stories that Trump doesn't want told, it's not because he thinks it will get him into legal trouble, or it will prevent him from executing his agenda. It's been demonstrated that he's not going to get in any legal trouble, and he doesn't care about his so-called policy agenda, as long as he's making money and can continue to boast about how great he is. The perception he's doing things to distract from other things is for the very banal reason that he doesn't like the image that it conveys. Trump isn't really concerned about getting anything done — for him it's all about how it makes him look. He does things, not for any strategic purpose, including the strategy of distraction to avoid consequences, but just because he feels like it. 

Even as recently as the instigation of the war against Iran, no consistent rationale has been forthcoming. About the best we can get is that he "had a feeling". He refuses to answer questions, attacking the questioners (usually women) because the act of questioning unveils his ignorance or incompetence in whatever area in which he is being questioned. He governs via an ongoing pursuit of the pat on the head. This carries over to the people that he has appointed to what used to be responsible positions in his government. Have you ever watched the video of a Trump cabinet meeting? A gathering of all the top people in government? They go around the table taking turns praising him. Some of them know better, but they all understand that if they're going to retain power they will have to feed Trump's ego. Not to mention be prepared to be thrown under the bus on occasion. Look what happened to DHS Secretary Puppykiller — she wasn't removed because her ICE goons had killed people, or were arresting citizens, or any of the myriad DHS depredations, but because she honestly (as far as we know) admitted that Trump had approved something that was turning into an embarrassment...to Trump. 

Even his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election can be traced back to his ego. It was obvious that he didn't have any specifics to back up his allegations that the Democrats cheated to get Biden elected. It all came down to to his belief that his self-perceived greatness was enough to re-elect him. Even going back to 2016, it wasn't sufficient that he secured a comfortable win in the Electoral College, he regularly bragged about winning "by a lot", or referred to a nonexistent landslide, or claimed that he would have won the popular vote (again, by "a lot") if "millions of illegals" hadn't voted. He was at it again in 2024, when once again winning wasn't enough. His Electoral College margin was about the same as his in 2016 and Biden's in 2020 — he received more votes that Harris, but a fraction of a percent under 50% — but again he was claiming a "mandate", a "landslide" and that he won "by a lot". Even now, he can't bring himself to admit that the miraculous, magical, recovery of the economy that he promised on "Day One" still hasn't materialized — he's made it worse with his insane tariffs and the war in Iran boosting the cost of consumer goods and now gasoline. 

What makes it all worse is that despite the cost to the country, and the damage that it's doing to the Republican Party (The Republicans will probably lose the House in November) he personally will not be subject to any consequences. The Supreme Court has taken anything that could possibly be construed as an official act off the table for future prosecution. Even if a case could be made in 2029 after he is out of office, how likely is it that the clock won't run out before he kicks the bucket. He doesn't care about his party losing power — he's governing as a dictator and even with a Democratic Congressional majority there will never be enough Senate votes to remove him after impeachment. (The Constitution requires 2/3 of members present, 67 out of 100 — never going to happen). Even without the ability to move what is laughably called his agenda forward, he's still getting richer from all the corruption he's can still cosplay as a world leader.

There's nothing that anyone can do about it and he doesn't care.

Wannabe Dictator, Autocrat, Authoritarian, King...

If you've been paying attention, this isn't new...but if you haven't...

The New York Times recently published an article Are We Losing Our Democracy? where they looked at various signs of dictatorship or autocracy and whether we had crossed that line. (I also provided the text in a Facebook post for those without NY Times access). I am going to look at each segment in turn and provide my own thoughts. (All twelve segments are combined below)

#1 An Authoritarian stifles dissent and speech.

One of the excuses Trump supporters gave before the 2024 election was that Harris, and indeed the Democrats, would put an end to the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment. 

A clip from a speech that Vice President Harris made in 2019 when she was a Senator running for president was making the rounds on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Typically the tweet would start with something along the lines of: "Kamala: I will censor content on X that I don't like", followed by a clip where she doesn't say anything like that. In the clip she is actually saying:

"We'll put the Department of Justice of the United States back in the business of justice. We will double the Civil Rights Division and direct law enforcement to counter this extremism. We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy. And if you profit off of hate, if you act as a megaphone for misinformation or cyber warfare, if you don't police your platforms, we are going to hold you accountable as a community.”

She is addressing the NAACP, a Black advocacy organization, and there had been a number of killings inspired by racial animus that had been abetted by social media posts. She specifically invokes the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. It's unclear from the context what she intends by "hold them accountable". What is clear is that does not mention censoring social media platforms or shutting them down. I can draw some conclusions based on who she is speaking to and what was going on nationally. 

 One can infer from her remarks that she is targeting online incitement to violence. I have seen arguments that what she is saying amounts to de facto censorship, if not censorship de jure. If Harris' 5-year old speech is indicative of her current policy position and it means censorship, of course I was concerned, but I don't believe that's the most logical, reasonable inference to be made. (More on this subject here)

But what actions has the supposed free speech president taken since his inauguration? What comments has he made that point to future actions?

• He claimed that criticism of him on television was illegal. Recently his FCC Director pressured ABC/Disney to remove Jimmy Kimmel for remarks he made critical of Trump, that the regime characterized as celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. ABC/Disney reversed their initial decision to remove Kimmel, but Trump has pushed for other comedians and talk show hosts who were critical of him to be removed. 
• Pam Bondi, his Attorney General claimed that "hate speech", which she suggested was speech that the regime didn't like, was not included in free speech. 
• Non-citizens, including those who were in the United States legally, had their visas or green cards revoked for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. 
• Trump says that peaceful protesters should be put in jail
• Universities are being forced to change their curricula if it does not line up with his ideology
• Investigations have been ordered into liberal organizations
• News organization covering the Pentagon were required to sign an agreement stating that they would not report information that hadn't been pre-approved
• Associated Press was removed from the White House press pool for refusing to use the term "Gulf of America"
• News organizations that reported negatively about Trump were threatened with investigations
• Private companies that have Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies are being threatened with federal investigation on the pretext that they are discriminatory
• Secret Service protection has been withdrawn from former officials who criticized Trump
• Several news organizations have been sued by Trump personally and have settled for hundreds of millions of dollars
• Pro-Palestinian activists are being investigated for their speech, characterizing it as "material support for terrorism"
• Law firms who represented clients opposed to Trump are being pressured
• Department of Justice employees who were involved in prosecutions of Trump were fired
• Of course, the most recent is the pressure from Trump and his top officials to go after anyone who spoke negatively about Charlie Kirk 

Some of these items are overt actions, some are threats, others are just talk. But even the threats and  talk have the effect of stifling dissent and free speech when it comes from the administration and the president himself. Trump supporters have attempted to debunk the opinion that Trump's actions amount to autocratic maneuvers. They say that since I can speak my mind and haven't been locked up (yet), and that millions have been able to protest on No Kings Day, that proves we are not a dictatorship. But elimination of a free press, freedom of speech and freedom to peacefully assemble to let the government know what our grievances are, doesn't necessarily happen all at once. The First Amendment is being chipped away, bit by bit, not blown up with dynamite. But it's heading in that direction. 

#2 Persecution of Political Opponents

Trump reliably got applause throughout the 2016 campaign with by encouraging his followers to "lock her up", referring to his election opponent, Secretary of State Clinton. He never did, but it was a threat that always seemed to be hanging over the heads of his opponents. 

From the Times article:

"In addition to restricting speech and dissent, autocrats use the immense power of law enforcement to investigate and imprison people who have fallen out of favor. Mr. Trump’s Justice Department has become an enforcer of his personal interests, targeting people for legally dubious reasons while creating a culture in which his allies can act with impunity.

Following the president’s demands, his appointees have secured indictments of a few critics (including Attorney General Letitia James of New York and the former F.B.I. director James Comey and ordered investigations of others including Senator Adam Schiff of California. Some of these appointees were once Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers. Mr. Trump has also used executive orders to go after perceived enemies, including law firms representing his critics. And he has systematically fired government employees who played roles in earlier investigations of him or his allies.

Mr. Trump has simultaneously shielded his own supporters from legal consequences for their actions, including through blanket pardon of the January 6 rioters.

True authoritarians go much further than Mr. Trump has, but he has already targeted his opponents with legal persecution in shocking ways."

There's not much I can add to the words of the NY Times editorial, but it's getting worse, not better. Trump recently was quoted as saying, in regards to his political retribution:

"I hope they're looking at all of these people, and I'm allowed to find out. I'm allowed, you know, I’m in theory chief law enforcement officer.”

Well yes, in theory, but predominantly in the Unitary Executive Theory, which imbues the president with almost monarchial powers. The Justice Department, while under the authority of the president, has been viewed by presidents of both parties as functionally independent, with the president uninvolved in prosecutorial decisions. Thus it's the Attorney General, not the President, who is in practice the chief law enforcement officer. Trump's remarks seem at odds with his other remarks stating that the law is what he says it is and his serial lawbreaking since being re-elected. 

In addition to the targets named in the Times article, former Special Counsel Jack Smith and former FBI Director Christopher Wray have been threatened with investigations and former National Security Advisor John Bolton has been charged with retaining government documents. George Soros has been mentioned as a potential target, as well as an ill-defined number of liberal fund raising organizations. Just today, as Trump's name has featured prominently in thousands of emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein, Trump has ordered Attorney General Bondi to open investigations into Epstein links to several prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton. 

Trump's campaign isn't some high-minded crusade against corruption and impunity by public officials. He is motivated by nothing more than a desire to get back at those who treated him "unfairly" or had the temerity to publicly criticize him. 

He has turned the government into a vehicle to exact revenge upon those who he perceived as having wronged him.

#3 Bypassing the Legislature

This is one area where the Republican majority in Congress has enabled Trump's authoritarian tendencies, refusing to rein him in by asserting their authority. The Constitution makes clear, in Article I, that Congress alone has the "power of the purse".

From the NY Times article:

His administration has violated federal law at least six times by withholding funding authorized by Congress for libraries, preschools, scientific research and more, the Government Accountability Office found. He has gutted or dismantled congressionally authorized agencies like the Department of Education and U.S.A.I.D. He has also imposed new taxes — his tariffs — without congressional approval. Since the current government shutdown began, he has used donations from billionaires to pay troops and finance the construction of a ballroom at the White House.

Anyone who paid attention in social studies class, or even watched Schoolhouse Rock, knows that laws, including annual budgets, originate in Congress and are then sent to the president for his signature (or veto). Once the president signs, the bill becomes law and it's the president's responsibility to carry out that law, including implementing the budget. It's true that the president has wide discretion regarding how the laws are executed, but he does not have the discretion to ignore the law. He especially does not have the discretion to ignore the Constitution. 

Contextually, presidents have been chipping away at Congress's authority for quite a while now. The issuance of executive orders in lieu of Congressional action has become almost routine. Most of the time, executive orders are statements of policy, or formalize a president's priorities, but Trump's executive orders, starting with the blizzard of them on Day One, go far beyond that. The most egregious of them is the executive order overturning part of the Constitution! He actually issued an executive order claiming that the part of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to children born here would no longer be interpreted that way. He was editing the Constitution by fiat. I wrote an article about his Day One EO's where I looked at each one. 

In addition to attempting to reinterpret the Constitution, the bulk of his executive orders circumvented the law by empowering The "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) to gut whole Congressionally authorized departments, fire thousands of employees, cancel contracts, eliminate inspectors general, and make it clear that previously passed laws and budgets don't apply to him. In the recent government shutdown he decided who would get paid and who wouldn't, even withholding available SNAP benefits. Of course, there's the tariffs, aside from the sheer idiocy of how they're applied, ordinarily tariffs, like all taxes, are set by Congress, not the president. Trump has declared an economic national emergency in order to justify usurping this authority.  

Some of the blame lies with the Republican leaders of Congress, who have failed to fight his power grabs. Their complicity does not change the fact that these power grabs have been illegal.

In full autocracies, legislatures often formally transfer some of their authority to the executive, and some congressional Republicans have proposed such changes.

Trump supporters seem to have no problem, either ignoring the authoritarian nature of his actions, or rationalizing that he "getting things done". 

It's still illegal, and it's still dictatorial.

#4 Using The Military For Domestic Control

Even democracies occasionally use their militaries on home soil. The military can keep order and protect citizens after a devastating storm. In extreme and rare circumstances, troops can enforce the law when local authorities refuse to do so, as happened in the segregated South in the 1950s and 1960s.

Authoritarians use the military much more frequently and performatively — to suppress dissent, instill fear and convey supreme power. Mr. Trump deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles to crack down on protests, despite local officials’ insistence that they had the situation under control. He attempted the same in Portland, Ore., and Chicago, before being restrained by federal courts. He has also begun to treat the military as an extension of himself, firing several high-ranking officials without good reason and summoning hundreds of leaders to Virginia to listen to overtly political speeches by him and his appointees.

In addition to the points that the New York Times made, I would add that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has, under Trump, become a quasi military/national police with branches of the military and National Guard working with ICE, blurring the supposed bright line between the military and law enforcement. Army and National Guard units have been stationed at the southern border since Day One, engaged in border security. 

Trump has stated that he envisions using our cities as training grounds for the military. The repeated use of the military to support ICE, and the more dangerous use in supposed law enforcement or crime fighting roles is not only illegal and unjustified, but is a clear effort to intimidate opposition office holders as well as any citizen protesters. 

Trump, via his Secretary of Defense, has purged the top ranks of generals and admirals deemed insufficiently loyal. He has purged the Judge Advocates General divisions of their most experienced legal officers. He has threatened to use the military against Venezuela and Nigeria. He has ordered the Navy to conduct extralegal executions of alleged drug smugglers—arguably illegal orders. The specter of illegally ordered operations motivated six members of Congress, mostly veterans, to remind service members to refuse to obey illegal orders. In response the Secretary of Defense is considering recalling Senator Mark Kelley, a retired Navy Captain, and court martialing him. The FBI is reportedly "investigating" the other five. 

Trump is turning the military into his personal enforcement militia—ridding it of anyone who would stand up to him. 

#5 - An Authoritarian Defies The Courts

"Would-be authoritarians recognize that courts can keep them from consolidating power, and they often take steps to weaken or confront judges."

Donald Trump has spent his whole life getting away with illegal activities. Before he ran for president he routinely waited out people who took him to court—dragging out proceedings through technically legal means until the plaintiffs simply ran out of money. Even when the occasional civil ruling went against him the fines were a drop in the bucket and didn't materially affect his bank account. He used the same strategy when faced with criminal charges after he lost the 2020 election, although this time he wasn't waiting until the other side ran out of money, but he and his lawyers delayed and delayed, making any charges moot when he was re-elected president in 2024. Even the one set of felony convictions in New York carried no penalty other than the stain on his reputation.  

Trump has always viewed the law and the courts as something that applied to other people. 

Article III of the Constitution states that "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." It is sometimes misunderstood that it is only the Supreme Court that has the authority to rule on issues of national significance. The Constitution disagrees. While the Supreme Court does have the last word, federal district and appeals courts have the constitutional authority to rule whether any act, law or statute is legal. And they have been doing so.

Another misunderstood item is the "presidential immunity" that the Supreme Court has bestowed. It does not give the president permission to take extralegal or unconstitutional actions. It immunizes the president from criminal prosecution for actions taken as part of his official duties and carries a strong presumption that any action is official unless clearly outside a president's duties. Courts can still rule on the constitutionality or legality of specific actions and order that such actions be stopped. The problem is that the courts have no mechanism for enforcing their rulings against the president, since the technically the executive branch, headed by the president, is the enforcement mechanism. Trump and his team have stated that their position is that the courts have no authority to interfere in his exercise of executive branch functions. 

"Mr. Trump has baldly defied federal judges on several occasions. In March, for instance, his administration ignored a federal judge’s order to turn around airplanes that were deporting migrants to El Salvador. More often, the Trump administration has engaged in gamesmanship, going around orders rather than directly disobeying them. One example: After a federal judge blocked his deployment of the Oregon National Guard, the administration moved to deploy National Guards from other states instead.

So far, Mr. Trump has defied no Supreme Court orders and has pledged not to. But the justices have too often played into his strategy by failing to stand up for lower courts."

The Supreme Court, while ruling against him on occasion, seems more willing to dig for interpretations that support Trump, or to rely on overly technical viewpoints which results in legal gridlock. 

The mindset that the courts have no authority over the executive branch is what is disturbing. 

#6 - Declares National Emergencies On False Pretenses

Authoritarians often curtail democracy by declaring an emergency and arguing that the threat requires them to exercise unusual degrees of power.

There are legal guidelines that describe a president's emergency powers. The National Emergencies Act of 1986 was passed to create a standardized and formal process for declaring emergencies. This law replaced over 450 statutes that granted emergency powers in a variety of circumstances that were inconsistent regrading their use, or most importantly, the emergency's termination. 

From The Legal Clarity.org website:

A declaration of a national emergency does not grant the President a blank check; instead, it unlocks more than 130 specific statutory powers that Congress has previously passed into law. The specific authorities available depend on the nature of the emergency and the laws cited in the President’s proclamation.

Unlocked powers include the ability to control or shut down communications facilities, including radio stations, telephone services, and internet traffic. The President can also gain the authority to redirect funds that Congress has appropriated for military construction projects, allowing for the rapid building of facilities deemed necessary for the emergency response. Other statutes permit the seizure of private property, though legal processes and compensation requirements typically still apply.

In situations involving international crises, a national emergency declaration can activate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). This act allows the President to impose economic sanctions, freeze the assets of foreign governments or individuals, and regulate or prohibit foreign exchange transactions. These financial powers are among the most frequently used, forming the basis for many of the over 40 national emergencies that currently remain in effect, with the longest-running active emergency dating back to 1979.

The courts can hear challenges to an emergency declaration, and the courts or Congress can end the national emergency, which in any case ends after one year if no other action is taken. They can be renewed indefinitely. 

Previous presidents have used their ability to declare emergencies, sometimes questionably. The reason there is an emergency powers statute is that sometimes the situation calls for quick action. Trump, like so many other things, has abused this authority in order to bypass Congress. 

He has used manufactured emergencies to sidestep Congress and impose tariffs, deregulate the energy industry, intensify immigration enforcement and send the National Guard into Washington. Chillingly, he has claimed that a Venezuelan gang invaded the United States to justify the killing of foreign civilians in international waters, in defiance of U.S. and international law.

The most egregious use of emergency powers has been to declare various groups as terrorists, or even an invading army. He has designated some immigrant groups this way in order to facilitate deportations. He has designated opposition groups as domestic terrorists in order to quell dissent. He has labeled Venezuelan nationals, piloting small boats that may be carrying drugs that might eventually end up in the United States, as a national security threat, justifying murder on the high seas. 

He is sidestepping constitutional order and making everything an emergency to allow him to rule without guardrails.

#7 - Vilifies Marginalized Groups

Authoritarians tend to demean minority groups, trying to turn them into a perceived threat that provides a justification for a leader to amass power. Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that marginalized groups are responsible for the nation’s problems.

Trump has had, from the day he announced his candidacy in 2015, a hatred for immigrants. Not just criminal immigrants, not just those here illegally, but all immigrants. This goes beyond the arguably legitimate desire to secure the borders and to properly vet anyone wanting to come here. He has characterized immigrants as "poisoning the blood" of the nation; called them animals; referred to some nations as "shithole countries"; he framed previous surges as "an invasion"; he has recently focussed on Somalis, saying "their country stinks" and called them "garbage". The crackdown by ICE seems to be designed to not only carry out the law, but to humiliate and dehumanize those who are caught in its net.

One of his executive orders issued on Inauguration Day was an attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  If the Supreme Court agrees with him, children born in the United States will effectively be stateless, creating a permanent class of people with no right to be here, and no home to go to. 

He has vilified transgender Americans and barred them from military service. He has fired women and people of color from leadership posts and ended programs that promote workplace diversity. His administration has attempted to erase aspects of Black history, including by removing books on slavery and segregation from military libraries and pressuring Smithsonian museums to minimize those subjects. At the same time, he has suggested that white people and Christians are victims, which echoes the autocratic habit of claiming that majority groups are in fact oppressed.

His focus on eliminating anything related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, and erasing anything that he labels as "woke", rolls back decades of civil rights advances. 

By attacking powerless populations and erasing the historical record of depredations against them, by turning them into a bogeyman responsible for all the nations problems, he is creating a scapegoat to distract from his own shortcomings. 

#8 - Attempts to Control Information and News Media

Democratic governments prize accurate information as a guide to decision-making. Authoritarians seek to suppress inconvenient truths.

While this overlaps somewhat with Part I - Stifling Dissent and Free Speech, it goes much farther than that. Trump, going back to his first term, has been working overtime to undermine faith and confidence in a free press. Whatever you think about the major, mainstream, news organizations, however biased you believe they are, however beholden to corporate interests, they have resources and access that we, as ordinary citizens, do not. Trump, with his dismissal of any reporting that he doesn't like as "fake news" has convinced half of the voting public that anything negative about him is a lie. He has painted most of the media as "the enemy of the people"—a choice of words any dictator would love. 

Not satisfied with killing their reputation, Trump has weaponized the courts, filing lawsuits against ABS, Paramount (owner of CBS), Meta (owner of Facebook), YouTube—all which have settled for millions of dollars. Lawsuits against the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are underway. He has pressured Congress to defund NPR and to eliminate the Corporation For Public Broadcasting. News organization that cross him are barred from covering the White House; those who report on the Pentagon, other than a handful of right wing pseudo-journalists, have been banned for refusing to sign a restrictive agreement to only report pre-approved information. 

He has used his so-called Department of Government Efficiency to shut down departments that compile statistics critical for informed governmental decisions. He fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency reported disappointing job growth this summer. He shut down federal data collection efforts related to climate change, presumably because the information might encourage people to take action.

In place of an independent and free press, Mr. Trump evidently hopes to create a shadow ecosystem willing to promote his interests and talking points.

#9 - Attempts To Take Over Universities

Authoritarians, recognizing that universities are hotbeds of independent thought and political dissent, often single them out for repression. Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan have closed universities. Mr. Modi’s government has arrested dissident scholars, while Mr. Orban has appointed loyalist foundations to run universities.

Trump was once famously quoted as saying that he loved the poorly educated. He has more recently commented that smart people don't like him. There is definitely an anti-intellectual streak among those who are his strongest supporters. He's playing to their distrust of "the elites", but he's also attacking a segment of society most likely to see through his authoritarian tendencies. 

His attacks on universities came via two main approaches: opposition to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and purported support for Jewish student who were recipients of antisemitic attacks. DEI was a Day One target, pushed by the Heritage Foundation and their Project 2025 attack on anything progressive. It started out as a "DEI Purge" throughout the federal workforce, spearheaded by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. It quickly expanded to an effort to eliminate DEI initiatives even among private entities, especially universities, reviled by the Right as "woke". 

Other than the obvious mission of universities to educate, they are also where much of our scientific research takes place, often funded by federal government grants. Trump has threatened to withhold university funding for those that have anything to do with DEI, including classes that touch on the issue. Trump is using this fiscal threat to mold what is taught in university classrooms. 

While there is no question that some demonstrators protesting Israel's actions in Gaza have targeted Jewish students with verbal abuse, and sometimes even violence, the majority are focussed on the government of Israel, not individual Jews. Trump has accused universities of antisemitism due to their supposed failure to protect Jewish students and threatened sanctions based on that pretext. Trump's Justice Department has also conflated protests in support of Palestinians in Gaza with support of Hamas and accusing them of materially supporting terrorism. They have used this excuse to revoke the visas of foreign students who were studying here legally. 

A signature policy of Mr. Trump’s second term has been his attack on higher education. He has cut millions of dollars of research funding, tried to dictate hiring and admissions policies and forced the resignation of the University of Virginia’s president. It is a sustained campaign to weaken an influential sector home to many political progressives who do not support him — and to many young people, who typically form the crux of anti-authoritarian protest movements.

Trump is using the threat of withholding government grants to control universities, knowing that much of the opposition to his policies come from university faculty and students. 

#10 - Creates a Cult of Personality

       

Emperors and kings often glorified themselves by displaying their portraits everywhere. The American tradition has rejected that kind of hagiography for living presidents. Our leaders haven’t needed to puff themselves up this way, until now.

That Trump fosters a cult of personality has been obvious since before his first term. The trappings of this go beyond, and are separate, from the cultish way his core followers unquestioningly believe everything he says, even when he contradicts himself. As he campaigned for the presidency the first time he insisted that "he alone" could fix the problems that he claimed that plagued the country.  Here is a list, in no particular order, of the ways that he has put himself on a pedestal and sought to equate the nation with himself.

• He posts a meme wear he wears a crown
• Proposes a prescription referral service called TrumpRx 
• The new permanent resident visa, are being called the "Trump Gold Card" and will have his image on them
• He renamed the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center 
• The United States Institute for Peace is now the Donald J. Trump Institute for Peace
• Child investment account that were part of the 2025 tax bill are called Trump Accounts
• Government building have giant banners with his face on them hanging in front
• There is talk about minting a one dollar gold coin with his face on it
• The ballroom that will replace the destroyed East Wing of the White is supposed be named after him
• Lavish military parade on his birthday
• He has ordered a new class of naval vessel class called The Trump Class

I've possibly missed some things, but isn't that enough? 

The Trump cult of personality plays into his claims — common among autocrats — that he possesses a unique ability to solve the country’s problems. As he put it, “I alone can fix it.” He seeks to equate himself with the federal government, as if it does not exist without him.

#11 - Uses Power For Personal Profit

Authoritarians often turn the government into a machine for enriching themselves, their families and their allies. Mr. Trump glories in his administration’s culture of corruption.

A fallacy about the super-rich who run for public office that they have so much money that they can't be bribed. That story was told about Trump as he campaigned for the presidency in 2016. It's a fallacy because rich people don't look at their bank accounts and list of assets and at some point decide that they have enough. It's never enough. In some ways it's a method of keeping score. Or maybe it's simply greed. Trump has always found ways to enrich himself at the expense of those around him. When he was busy bankrupting casinos and his companies were losing money on real estate transactions, he always made sure that he personally got paid, even if the company that he was was running was failing. There's plenty of information available documenting this. 

He openly uses the presidency as an opportunity to pad his bottom line, in ways that range from the comically petty (like charging the Secret Service up to $1,200 per night for rooms at his hotels) to the shamelessly greedy (like the $40 million that Amazon paid for the rights to a Melania Trump documentary or his recent demand that the government pay him $230 million because he was investigated for breaking the law). He solicits favors from foreign governments, including an airplane from Qatar. His children also profit from their father’s position, through real-estate deals, crypto, a private club in Washington and more. And he rewards those who enrich them, recently pardoning the head of a cryptocurrency firm who worked with the Trump family.

In the first six months of this year, the Trump Organization’s income soared to $864 million, up from just $51 million a year earlier, according to a recent Reuters analysis. It’s worth noting that recent Supreme Court decisions have made corruption harder to police.

His second term has seen an expansion of his monetizing of the office. The Supreme Court decision effectively immunizing him from virtually any act, and Congress's unwillingness to remove him from office, even if they do impeach him, has emboldened him to turn the White House into an extension of his businesses. 

And he doesn't even try to hide it any more. 

#12 - Manipulates The Law To Stay In Power

 Authoritarians change election rules to help their party, and they rewrite laws — or violate their spirit — to ignore term limits.

Trump follows two parallel paths in this segment. In the first, he is mostly a passive beneficiary of the Republicans longstanding attempts to place roadblocks in the way of people's ability to easily vote. Gerrymandering, voter I.D., closing polling places, purging voter rolls, shortening early voting and placing restrictions on mail-in voting, all benefitting Republican candidates. Locking in compliant Republican office holders makes it easier for Trump to act unilaterally without oversight by Congress. 

In addition to the traditional Republican chicanery, Trump has also pushed states with Republican legislatures and governors to further gerrymander their Congressional districts. 

Mr. Trump’s biggest attempt to follow this playbook failed, when he was unable to undo his election defeat to Joe Biden in 2020. But that effort showed Mr. Trump’s willingness to break the law to remain in power. He issued an executive order in March that seeks to interfere with how states run their elections. 

The other path Trump has taken is his ongoing "jokes" about running for a third term or cancelling elections. He regularly "jokes" about scenarios where this could happen. Even if he isn't serious, subverting the Constitution isn't something that the president of the United States should be kidding about.  However, if anyone doubts his willingness to ignore the results of an election we have only to look at his actions in 2020 and early 2021 when he literally attempted to ignore the results of an election. 

The NY Times ended their series with this quote:

The clearest sign that a democracy has died is that a leader and his party make it impossible for their opponents to win an election and hold power. Once that stage is reached, however, the change is extremely difficult to reverse. And aspiring authoritarians use other excesses, like a cowed legislature and judiciary, to lock in their power.

The United States is not an autocracy today. It still has a mostly free press and independent judiciary, and millions of Americans recently attended the “No Kings” protests. But it has started down an anti-democratic path, and many Americans — including people in positions of power — remain far too complacent about the threat.

I disagree with the NY Times that we are not yet at the stage where we are in an autocracy. While there still exists a free press, many outlets are self-censoring or settling with Trump when sued. Lower courts are attempting to block some of his maneuvers, but the results are not uniform, and the Supreme Court has not upheld all the blocks. Trump in many ways is incompetent. He is clearly in the early stages of dementia. He is ignorant of how things work. He is not an efficient autocrat or dictator, but he rules as if only his word matters.

What else do you call it?

 

Changing Gears & Abandoning Principle

One of the most resilient of Trump supporters' beliefs is that those of us who oppose him do so out of an irrational hatred whereby we can't recognize or give him credit for the good that he does. They further believe that he would do even more good if everyone would just get out of his way and let him do his job. You've heard the term tossed around, usually on social media, if not in person: Trump Derangement Syndrome. The Trumpists are incapable of understanding that we may have reasonable, logical reasons for opposing him. Part of this is that they often truly believe that what Trump is doing is good for the country, although that is usually paired with a disregard for the price that is paid. 

One could argue that reducing the size and cost of the federal government is a positive achievement, and Trumpists are aghast that progressives are against what Trump unleashed with DOGE and that federal judges have attempted to roll back some of what was done. However, the DOGE actions was not a thoughtful, considered review of government programs, it was an ideological purge by people who had no understanding of how government worked, or what most of these agencies actually did. It's hard to view something like that as an achievement when it represents a dismantling of programs that you believe are necessary. The regime's border policies are often cited by Trumpists as an achievement and described as "closing the border" as opposed to Biden's "open border". But what has been done is the shutting off of the ability of people fleeing violence and persecution to claim asylum.  The immigration system infrastructure still hasn't been fixed — instead the government is hunting down undocumented immigrants and revoking previously agreed-to temporary legal status for asylum seekers. Recently a Trump voter pointed out how I had benefitted by the new bonus standard deduction for seniors — a Trump initiative. It's true that many taxpayers saw their tax bills reduced due to the senior deduction, as well as partial deductions for tips and overtime, but personally I'd rather pay the higher taxes than live under this increasingly despotic regime. 

And now, in addition to the 14 months of autocratic rule by an ignorant bully, we are involved in a war in the Middle East...and those always go so well. 

I have written often about how Trump support is a cult. The Iran War, along with the attack on Venezuela and the possible attack on Cuba, is another item that supports that assertion. Trump campaigned very clearly and vociferously on staying out of the affairs of other countries and not starting any wars. He lobbied shamelessly for the Nobel Peace Prize and recently inaugurated his "Board of Peace". He and other Republicans characterized Vice President Harris and other Democrats as warmongers and predicted that we would be at war if she were elected. Yet most of his supporters have seamlessly transitioned to supporters of war in Iran. Just like their top stated reason for voting for Trump was his promise to end inflation and bring prices down as inflation continues and prices continue to rise. Few things that a president does have any meaningful effect on inflation...except tariffs. If he had just left well enough alone the trend started in Biden's final two years would have resulted in low inflation and Trump could have taken credit for it. Few things that a president does have any meaningful effect on gas prices...except war. And the reasonable gas prices that he had been taking credit for are now rising. And through it all, the Trumpists change gears, and seamlessly adopt the new Trump position.

Who is it that is deranged?