Donald Trump's Dictatorial Plans Can Work
Donald Trump's Dictatorial Plans Can Work
Next time around Congress won't just stand by—it'll be a participant
There’s been a steady churn of mainstream-news reporting recently on Donald Trump’s vision for what can only be described as dictatorial rule in the United States.
These articles have detailed Trump’s plans, which interact with one another, to stuff the government full of loyalists and sic them on his political enemies. His DOJ would manufacture prosecutions of officials who had the temerity to hold him to the rule of law; his military would occupy cities where people had the temerity to protest his administration. And he’d be able to pull this off in part through an unconcealed intention to turn the security services into his own personal enforcement arm. The right-wing Heritage foundation has drawn up the playbook he intends to use to impose loyalty tests on bureaucrats, and summarily fire those who fail; Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has, for months, blocked military officers from receiving their routine promotions, creating vacancies that Trump could fill with (for example) acolytes of disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
He would rampage through the government and compromise it so thoroughly that, even if ultimately forced to back down, the damage would be irreparable. Just change facts on the ground before our limp checks and balances kick in.
Though the press has identified the scheme’s individual components, it’s been up to analysts to explore how Trump might get away with it, given its obvious contempt for the letter and spirit of the law.
Most of the analytical focus has fallen on the administrative side, where Trump will have the greatest range of motion. But almost as much turns on the likelihood that Trump will have carte blanche if not active participation from Congress.
The administrative law scholar Donald Moynihan sees a three-stage strategy to seize control of the policymaking and enforcement apparatuses without authorization from Congress: First, fill the government with loyalists; second, assume the power to fire most career bureaucrats and purge those deemed disloyal; third, replace government lawyers with lackeys who will green light the whole Trump agenda even when it conflicts with the law.
Because this vision depends for its success on the power of intimidation, some will be tempted (as they always are with Trump) to dismiss it as bluster. Most of Trump’s first term was messy. He really was incompetent, and it really did limit the scale of authoritarian abuse. Furthermore much of the underlying reporting today is sourced from within Trump world, which suggests he wants all of this hanging over the political system as a threat—as sop to the base, or a high sign to Trump loyalists who want to participate, or an oblique way to bully the officials holding Trump to the rule of law right now.
We shouldn’t dismiss it as bluster.
First, Trump became less incompetent over the course of his four years, and even then he was able to abuse power in considerable ways. Many people shorthand his failed presidency by stipulating that his incompetence impeded his malice. He wanted to feed his enemies to DOJ, but failed to do so. This is actually not true. He may not have tormented as many people as he wanted, but he managed to co-opt DOJ’s enforcement powers and turn them on his enemies anyhow; he’ll just be better at it in term two.
Second, as Moynihan warns, his administration will be staffed with loyalists, and he’ll have the experience he needs to corrupt the government much more efficiently.
But there’s another: