We Only Have One Chance to Get This Right

Has there ever before been a wannabe tyrant as open about his intentions as Donald Trump? This transparency—absent in everything else in his politics and his life—is nothing short of astonishing. This is a man who lies every time he opens his mouth. Yet, as to this one, immeasurably important, subject he’s been remarkably frank, openly embracing one characteristic of an authoritarian after another. He even expressly announced his desire to be a dictator, if only for one day.

One cannot help but wonder if this openness is because the drive to be an autocrat is one of the few things to which he has ever been deeply committed.

He makes no effort to hide his distaste for the rule of law, bragging publicly about plans to turn the Justice Department into his personal avenger, prosecuting and jailing his political opponents. These will be prosecutions not intended to prevent or punish crime, but as a means of attacking those with the nerve to oppose him.

The same is true of his lust for political violence, another classic authoritarian trait. He has repeatedly, and again openly, encouraged his followers to engage in political violence—famously telling the crowd at one of his rallies in 2016 to “knock the crap” out of a heckler. And, of course, there is the granddaddy of all political violence—sending a fired-up crowd to the capital on January 6, 2021, with orders to “fight like hell.”

He is a man who regularly celebrates dictators. The only foreign leaders he seems to be comfortable with are totalitarians, people like Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, and, of course, his favorite squeeze (“We fell in love”) Kim Jong Un.

Yet despite all this, some progressives still intend to either stay home or cast a protest vote for a minor-party candidate. And in a close election like this, if enough people in the wrong states do stay at home or vote for a third-party candidate, Trump could win because of it. And if that’s the choice you make, which is certainly your right, all I can say is enjoy casting your protest vote, savor the experience, because if Trump wins it is likely to be the last act of protest you will ever participate in where you won’t be putting your life on the line or risking a long prison sentence.

The ugly truth is that if Trump becomes president, especially if he has a Republican Congress to work with, he will have all the power he needs to rig the game such that he, or his chosen successor, will be all but guaranteed to win future elections. That is precisely how Orban ended meaningful democracy in Hungary.

Trump has been up front on this subject as well. If people protest his actions, he intends to call out the national guard, or even the military, to shut them up. To shut you up. Although it is hard to see why he would bother with the military. Trump already has no shortage of thugs, his own personal Brownshirts, who would be more than happy to beat the life out of a few liberals. After all, if they get arrested he can just pardon them in the same way he is promising to pardon the January 6 rioters.

Trump has studied at the feet of authoritarian masters—often taking his lead from the likes of Orban, Putin, and Kim Jong Un. At the same time, hundreds of Americans in right-wing think tanks and other far-right institutions are working hard, preparing to move quickly when Trump takes office. Don’t underestimate their goals. They are fighting for nothing less than revolutionary change, including election fixes that will guarantee that once in power they will remain in power indefinitely.

In most elections there are several weighty issues at the center of the campaign. But this time there is really only one issue—will the United States remain a liberal democracy. In saying this, I am in no way suggesting that other issues, such as a woman’s right to control her own body, are not critically important. They are. What I am suggesting, however, is that in this election all of those other issues of concern to progressives are wrapped up inside this one issue. If Trump wins, he will saturate executive departments, including the Justice Department, the FBI, the military leadership, the CIA, and many regulatory agencies with far-right fanatics—not to mention continuing what he started in his first term in packing the courts with even more far-right fanatics.

What chance will abortion rights, and other progressive causes, have in the United States then?

I understand that for some people casting a vote for someone they regard as “the lesser of two evils” will be personally offensive. I don’t feel that way in this election, but if you are one of those people, I understand where you are coming from. But do me a favor and make a list of all the things you love in this country that depend on federal action.

Please think twice before assuming that people are exaggerating the danger, or that we can get by and then vote the far right out of power in later elections.

If you try, you will have no problem coming up with a long list. Perhaps your list will include preservation of national parks and wilderness areas. Or maybe the protection of endangered species. Public education? Union rights? Fighting climate change? Fighting other forms of pollution? Protecting consumers from fraud and dangerous products? Then once you’ve made your list, take a moment to think about what will become of those things in a Donald Trump America.

Take that list with you when you go to vote and look at it one last time before voting, then hold your nose and mark your ballot for Kamala Harris.

One last point: Please think twice before assuming that people are exaggerating the danger, or that we can get by and then vote the far right out of power in later elections. The ugly truth is that if Trump becomes president, especially if he has a Republican Congress to work with, he will have all the power he needs to rig the game such that he, or his chosen successor, will be all but guaranteed to win future elections. That is precisely how Orban ended meaningful democracy in Hungary: after gaining power through elections, he used that power to change election rules, weaken the courts, and damage his opponents in other ways. Trump supporters have already started paving the way for such an assault in the 2025 Plan.

What this means is that if we lose our democracy in this election, we are unlikely to get it back, or at least to get it back anytime soon. As described in Anne Applebaum’s book, Autocracy, Inc, once an authoritarian gains power though elective office, it becomes remarkably easy for that autocrat to extend that power.

In other words, we only have one chance to get this right.