Confronting Our Autocrat-In-Waiting: Part II
Larry Diamond offers a list of concrete prescriptions for beating back incipient authoritarianism.
This article is part of an ongoing project by American Purpose on “The ‘Deep State’ and Its Discontents.” The series aims to analyze the modern administrative state and critique the political right’s radical attempts to dismantle it. Click here to subscribe to Francis Fukuyama’s blog and American Purpose at Persuasion to receive future installments into your inbox!
In part 1, I explored the numerous threats to America’s democracy posed by a second Trump term. Defending democracy in the face of these threats is a daunting challenge, and can be informed by lessons from other countries backsliding from democracy.
The core dilemma is that average voters are mainly preoccupied with issues other than democracy itself—the prices of essential goods and services, the availability and affordability of housing and health care, income security, job prospects, crime, immigration, and cultural and symbolic issues involving respect for their status and beliefs. Loosely adapting Abraham Maslow’s theory of a “hierarchy of needs,” it is only when people feel physically safe, secure, sustained, and socially connected and respected, that they are willing to prioritize issues like freedom and self-determination, or democracy. In its pure form, the argument is too crude and deterministic, but it helps to explain why right-wing authoritarian populists like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Narendra Modi in India have been able to win reelection repeatedly even as they trashed checks and balances and attacked civil liberties and press freedom. Hence an effective strategy to push back against creeping authoritarianism must follow certain strategic principles.
First, prioritize what to resist. Senator John Fetterman (one of the Democratic politicians best able to connect with Trump voters in the working and middle classes) recently warned, “If you freak out on everything, you lose any kind of relevance.” The democratic opposition to Trump (including not only Democrats but also some Republicans and Independents opposed to Trump’s antidemocratic tendencies) needs to define clear red lines of constitutionalism, civil liberties, and the rule of law that it will defend vigorously. But it must also recognize that Trump is the legitimately elected president and has a right to take sharply different policy initiatives. Leaders in Congress, state governments, and civil society have a right to oppose Trump’s policies, but it will often require a more “normal” kind of opposition, making the substantive and practical case for why Trump’s policy proposals are wrong, dangerous, counter-productive, and costly to ordinary Americans.
For example, it is not difficult to explain why Trump’s vow to impose immediate steep tariffs on all imports from Canada, Mexico, and China will raise prices and inflict widespread economic pain on American consumers. His policy is not illegal or unconstitutional, it’s just reckless. The plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants will similarly inflict severe damage on the American economy by depriving American farms, restaurants, shops, and other businesses of workers in a tight job market. One recent (and avowedly cautious) estimate put “the cost of a program aiming to arrest, detain, process, and deport one million people per year” at $88 billion, not including the cost of hiring tens of thousands more enforcement agents and acquiring more transport equipment. A recent Brookings estimate found that large-scale deportations actually hurt the job prospects of U.S.-born citizens “because unauthorized immigrants work in different occupations from the U.S.-born, because they create demand for goods and services, and because they contribute to the long-run fiscal health of the country.”
There are also strong moral reasons to oppose the traumatic separation of large numbers of families who, whatever their offense in entering the U.S. illegally, have worked hard, paid taxes, love America, and aspire to the American dream. Mass deportation needs to be fought on these economic, practical, and moral grounds, rather than denounced as intrinsically “fascist” or anti-democratic. The allegation of an action being anti-democratic should be reserved for actions that violate the law, the constitution, and long-established norms of democracy. (Were Trump to use the military to track down and round up undocumented immigrants within the U.S., for example, that would trespass against democratic laws and norms.)
Even with regard to violations of democratic norms, there may be so much coming that it will be necessary to prioritize those that represent the gravest threat to democracy and the rule of law. Democracy defenders should prepare right away to vigorously challenge the following: efforts to weaponize the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS to intimidate opposition and stifle dissent; the misuse of the military for domestic law enforcement, including rounding up and detaining undocumented immigrants; the abuse of the military justice system to attempt to court-martial perceived critics of Trump in the serving and retired officer corps; and wholesale pardons for those convicted of attempting to violently prevent the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021. Another priority would be radical policies that can mobilize broad coalitions of opposition (for example, any effort to withhold federal funding as political punishment to certain states, and public health initiatives that could cause a rapid spike in communicable diseases).
Second, don’t capitulate to antidemocratic demands and expectations. The first of Timothy Snyder’s twenty lessons in On Tyranny—which urgently bears rereading now—is, “Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it will do.”
Fortunately, Senate Republicans have already shown some independence by signaling that they would not confirm Matt Gaetz, prompting Trump to abandon his nomination. As of now, Trump has not proceeded with a demand for a Senate recess to permit a wave of unilateral appointments. But we are likely to see many alarming demands for radical expansion of presidential power and pressure on mass media, businesses, foundations, universities, and other institutions to rein in dissent and bow before a radical new agenda. Organizations and individuals should show respect for the office of the presidency, the legitimacy of Trump as president, but at the same time reaffirm and defend core principles of pluralism, independence, freedom of expression, and academic freedom. The Congress must defend its separate constitutional role—for example, the Senate’s right to review and confirm or reject presidential nominees, and the power of both houses to appropriate funds for programs that the president cannot kill by unilateral fiat.
Third, defend the targets of political retribution. Autocrats amass power by stoking fear, division, and demoralization among their opponents. Their logic is to defame and destroy leading critics, and thereby bully others into silence or compliance. Once the targets are isolated and left to their own devices, they become easier victims, and their victimhood discourages others from standing on principle. Even patently politically motivated and ultimately groundless investigations can cost the victims hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Whether they are hounded by a politicized Justice Department or by congressional committees seeking political vengeance and fame, the targets of political retribution should not have to stand alone in defending themselves. The new Trump era will require substantial legal defense funds to support these individuals; lawyers with experience, skill, and courage; and independent journalists who can help the public assess the validity of the allegations against these people. In addition, newspapers, think tanks, universities, and other elements of a democratic civil society must muster the courage to defend their own employees when they are targeted for political purposes.
Most alarmingly, some individuals may require physical protection for the growing incidence of death threats against alleged enemies of Trump or the MAGA movement, and against election officials. They may also need financial support for measures they have had to take to secure their homes. (Bob Woodward revealed that after General Milley left office, he had to install “bulletproof glass and blast-proof curtains in his home” because of the volume of personal threats he was receiving.)
Fourth, hold Trump loyalists to their stated principles of restraint of government power. The combination of a president with unchecked power and a government with unchecked ability to spy on individual Americans and abuse their liberties constitutes a staggering authoritarian threat. This is well understood by critics of Trump. Yet they have paid less attention to the writing of some Trump theoreticians who, while advocating for an expansion of presidential power, have also endorsed strong limits on federal government power. In the same 2022 essay where he advocated for a radical revision of constitutional precedents in what he characterizes as a “post-Constitutional moment,” Trump’s former and now renominated Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Russell Vought, a key strategist in the Trump political movement, complained about “organs” of “the national security state” (like the FBI and the CIA) being “weaponized” against the American people and “putting political opponents in jail.” He also cited as a threat the NSA (the National Security Agency, which provides foreign signals intelligence to the U.S. government) “surveilling the conversations of citizens.”
In the Heritage Foundation’s policy manifesto for the next Trump Administration, Project 2025, Vought revealed a tension in the political philosophy that motivates many conservatives in the Trump orbit:
The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power— including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people. Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states. (p. 44)
Vought seeks radical action by the OMB on behalf of the president to rein in the regulatory state and generate “the least burdensome rules possible.” His ideological adversaries on Capitol Hill and beyond will raise acute concerns about the practical consequences for public health, the environment, non-discrimination, and so on, but they should welcome his endorsement of the 1974 Privacy Act, which recognizes “the right to privacy” as “a personal and fundamental right protected by the Constitution,” and which requires federal government agencies to observe transparent and fair “norms for collection, maintenance, access, use and dissemination of records.” Vigorous defense of privacy rights could be one mechanism of constraining the potential to weaponize the federal government against critics of Trump and his administration.
In the Project 2025 essay, Vought also endorsed James Madison’s warning in Federalist No. 47 that “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Republicans have regularly criticized the resort of Democratic presidents like Obama and Biden to executive orders to accomplish their aims, and North Dakota Governor (now Interior Secretary nominee) Doug Burgum even accused Biden of dictatorship. Democrats should quote the words of Trump officials back to them when necessary and remind them of their own declarations for separation of powers and against “tyranny.”
Fifth, cooperate where possible. Democrats in Congress and state governments would be wise to show a readiness to cooperate with the Trump Administration to find practical solutions to pressing policy challenges, and to compromise where common ground can be found. For example, most experts agree that some reform of the civil service is needed. The non-partisan Partnership for Public Service has put forward a five-point plan for civil service reform that promises much greater gains in government efficiency and effectiveness than Trump’s specious “Schedule F”; it ought to appeal to members of both parties.
Meanwhile, as an expert at the Bipartisan Policy Center recently testified to Congress (stating what members and experts have long known), “Social Security’s primary trust fund… is heading for depletion within the next decade” and is in urgent need of reform to put it on “a fiscally sustainable path.” For decades, bipartisan cooperation to reform social security has been the holy grail of efforts to govern America better. We ought to at least try for it.
There is also broad political agreement that steps must be taken to strengthen enforcement at the border, provide more resources for border and immigration security, and restore a narrower interpretation of the grounds on which migrants can seek asylum in the U.S. Although the bipartisan Senate bill negotiated by conservative Republican Senator James Lankford would have made substantial progress toward these goals and other Republican concerns, it died when President Trump declared his opposition early this year. Democrats should reiterate their willingness to negotiate a compromise on this and other urgent issues. If President Trump refuses any compromise, they can make a winning issue of his refusal to negotiate workable solutions.
There will be a tendency among Democrats on Capitol Hill to oppose Trump on everything to avoid giving him policy victories that Republicans could convert into future electoral success. This is shortsighted and bound to backfire. Trump’s executive actions and policy priorities will very likely hurt so many Americans—including a broad swath of the electorate that voted for him in 2024—that the political pendulum will be well poised to swing back in 2026 and 2028. Democrats shouldn’t give Trump unnecessary grounds to claim that he failed only because they opposed him reflexively on everything.
Sixth, bridge partisan polarization. Beyond pursuit of some bipartisan compromises lies a broader societal and cultural imperative for Trump’s opponents: to find ways to engage Trump voters who are anxious about their personal circumstances and alienated from the nation’s liberal institutions and elites. It is politically self-destructive for Democrats to write off defectors from their once core constituencies—blue collar workers, farmers, and Latino, Asian, Black and other minorities—as selfish, sexist, ignorant, or a “basket of deplorables.” Many voters gravitated to Trump (often very reluctantly) out of economic frustration or anxiety, or a concern that the country had lost control of its borders, or a feeling that the Democratic Party had gone too far in elevating identity politics and “woke” cultural issues. One can debate the merits of any of these positions, but it is condescending to dismiss them as selfish or ignorant. Every voter in every election has a right to define what his or her interests are.
It would be equally blind to deny that there is still racial and religious bigotry in American society, and that it motivated some voters. But in the wake of their national election defeat, many Democrats in Congress quickly called out their party’s growing distance from the concerns of working-class voters, with some suggesting the party has been too influenced by its “high-income base.” The core fault line of political realignment in the U.S. today is education, with Democrats becoming the party of the college educated and Republicans the party of the working class (and the extremely wealthy). This trend has been underway for some time, including among minority communities. Astute Democrats realize that they need to bridge this divide and listen to the concerns of alienated constituencies. Senator Chris Murphy has been one of those urging more humility, more listening, and a refocus on the economic pain and anxieties of non-college-educated Americans. “Real economic populism should be our tentpole,” Murphy posted on social media after the election. “But here’s the thing - then you need to let people into the tent who aren’t 100% on board with us on every social and cultural issue, or issues like guns or climate.”
Progressives need a cultural reset to broaden their tent. In Turkey, the opposition to the long-ruling autocrat, President Erdoğan, made big gains in municipal elections in 2019 and 2024 through a campaign of “radical love” that deliberately cut against the drift of bitter partisan polarization. With an attitude of humility and respect for Turks who had supported the ruling party in the past, the principal opposition party (the CHP) reached beyond its more educated voter base to express empathy and solidarity with working-class constituencies, and to do so with concrete, accessible, folksy narratives. The leader of this campaign, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who against all odds was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019 (and reelected by a bigger margin in 2024), advised his followers: “Find a neighbor who doesn’t think like you and just give them a hug.”
Seventh, condemn violence and extremism from all directions. The threat of substantial political violence in the United States has been rising along with political polarization throughout Trump’s time as a central figure on the political stage. We should worry about the signal Trump will send to violent, extremist right-wing groups if (as seems likely) he pardons all or even many of the January 6 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol.
But the democratic opposition to Trump should have zero tolerance—absolutely zero—for death threats or other hints or suggestions of violence against Trump or any of his political appointees or supporters. It is conceivable that the November 26 wave of bomb threats and “swatting” incidents against many of Trump’s new appointees was the subversive work of a foreign power (two days later, six Connecticut Democratic lawmakers received similar threats). A highly sophisticated Democracy Fund Survey found generally low levels of public support for political violence, with more than 80 percent of Republicans, Democrats and Independents consistently agreeing between 2019 and 2022 that “Violence to advance political goals is never justified.” However, an April 2024 poll found one in five respondents agreeing that “Americans have to resort to violence to get our country back on track.” Republicans were much more likely to agree with that (28 percent) than others, but 12 percent of Democrats also agreed.
And no less disturbing was the Democracy Fund finding that across several surveys, barely a quarter of the representative sample of American voters was consistently supportive of democracy, and even though Democrats were more often supportive, that higher proportion was only 45 percent. Moreover, almost as many Democrats (8 percent) as Republicans (11 percent) were consistently authoritarian across the surveys. In short, Democrats have work to do among their own constituencies to reaffirm unconditional support for democracy and to condemn violence and extremism as unacceptable.
Democrats should be prepared to respond quickly and unequivocally if protests against Trump’s more extreme policies veer toward violence, or if unidentified provocateurs infiltrate peaceful protests and attempt to incite violence either to discredit the protests or give Trump a pretext to unleash a crushing response. Democratic mayors and governors must not shy away from mobilizing a rapid and robust law enforcement response to violence against persons or property. If they don’t respond vigorously, Trump will, and it will be ugly.
Eighth, prepare to defeat incipient authoritarianism where it is most vulnerable: at the ballot box. Illiberal and authoritarian populist projects around the world can be challenged and potentially contained by pushback from the courts, the parliament, the civil service, the business community, and ultimately public opinion. But the latter renders its most decisive opinion at the ballot box, and where the populist slide toward autocracy is reversed, it is most often through elections. The key imperative for democrats (as demonstrated in Greece, Brazil, and most recently Poland) is to prevail in the electoral arena before authoritarian ambitions so tilt and distort the playing field that it takes a massive swing of public sentiment and herculean organization to overcome the authoritarian advantage—a feat still not yet achieved nationally in Hungary, Turkey, or India.
The United States has two advantages in this regard. First, as a federal system, elections are administered independently in each of the 50 states, and an overbearing president cannot easily manipulate the rules or gerrymander the districts at a national level. And second, none of the seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) has a MAGA purveyor of election skepticism as its chief electoral officer (in fact, the only Republican among them, Brad Raffensberger of Georgia, famously refused to do Trump’s illegal bidding in 2020).
To repeat, winning the next election (and the one after that) does not require Democrats to obstruct everything Trump tries to do. That would be bad politics and bad policy. Rather, they should set the table for 2026 by clearly warning of the consequences his policies will have for issues voters care about most: consumer prices, disposable income, decent jobs, economic fairness, health care, and the safety of their communities (both from crime and from environmental degradation). They should also work relentlessly to expose corruption, self-dealing, and crony capitalism, and the multifold ways that Trump is betraying his promises to “drain the swamp” and make life better for ordinary Americans. Historically our own national experience, and more recently the varied experience of many embattled democracies around the world, suggest that these tangible issues are what most move voters. In preparing for this contest, Democrats must put their ear to the ground and listen to what voters are saying on the economy, immigration, and the desire for strong leadership to bring about change. Even though a majority of voters had an unfavorable view of him, Trump won because he spoke more effectively to these concerns.
Ninth, win the information war. It doesn’t matter what the truth is if people don’t believe it. One of the secrets to Trump’s remarkable political success has been his riveting theatrical skill in peddling lies and disinformation nonstop. Democrats must dramatically up their game in the spheres of social media, podcasts, and other digital formats. They need to go into the lion’s den of Fox News and Joe Rogan and make their case directly to voters who distrust them. They need to find innovative ways of engaging young people, including young minority voters (particularly men) who either withdrew from electoral politics in 2024 or swung to Trump. They need to go on the offensive, especially when voters begin to feel the repercussions of the electoral choice they made. And they need more rapid, creative and multidimensional means of countering blatant disinformation. It can’t all be dreary facts and statistics. They need to make more rapid and effective use of humor, ridicule, and shock, which should not be difficult given the shocking vanity, greed, and immorality of some of Trump’s nominees and associates. Democrats must make their memes go viral. They have the creative talent to do it, but they need better strategy and messaging.
Tenth: Relax, recharge, return. Many rank-and-file Democrats are demoralized and burned out. They worked hard for Kamala Harris, writing postcards, making calls, knocking on doors. Some flew to other states to campaign. Many gave financially till it hurt. They knew it was close, but they thought they would win. Now they feel crushed and can’t even bear to watch MSNBC. I don’t try to talk friends out of this mood. They need and deserve a break where they reconnect with their families, the movies, music, and the outdoors. The best thing these worn-out Americans can do right now is take a break, relax, enjoy the holidays, and recharge their spirits. The battle will be waiting for them on or after January 20. But we need them back. In every country where authoritarian populism was checked and defeated, mass civic mobilization and engagement proved indispensable. We will need these citizens to recommit to a noble and historic purpose—to defend this precious and vulnerable 236-year-old experiment in self-government.
It helps to get some perspective not only by looking at our own history, when we overcame daunting threats to freedom and prosperity, but also the struggles of other countries these days. It helps to have a little knowledge of what people have done and how they have coped in countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Turkey, Tunisia, Georgia, and Zimbabwe—countries that once had democracy, or something close to it, then lost it and have been struggling to get it back. These people have had it a lot worse politically than what most Americans can imagine, and they aren’t giving up. One of the leaders of the Venezuelan opposition—and now of a global movement to draw together people fighting for their freedom—is the former presidential candidate, Leopoldo López. After many years of political struggle, house arrest, imprisonment, escape, extended refuge in the Spanish embassy in Caracas, and then a final daring escape into exile, he had some words of advice recently at Stanford University for democrats everywhere. “Pessimism is not a good ally in the fight for democracy. You are never going to convince someone if you aren’t convinced. Having optimism is very important. With it comes the will to fight. Find small ways to be optimistic. Find small fights to win.”
The next four years will severely test U.S. democracy. Every American who believes in its promise must summon anew the will to fight, each in their own way, and the confidence that the battle for democracy will once again be won.
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, both at Stanford University.
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And for the future, because there will never be any shortage of Trumps, teach the Constitution of the United States to all high school students. One can hardly expect a population to defend what it may not really understand because too many members of it have never really been taught about this extraordinary design created in that hot hall in Philadelphia.
We are the primary laboratory in which the most crucial experiment in human government ever attempted is being tried. If we do not understand the nature of that experiment, we can hardly defend it effectively.