An Historian of Authoritarianism Looks at the Fragile State of American Democracy

An historian of fascism and authoritarianism recently made a checklist of how democracies collapse; things in the US look very, very bad.

Trump Preparing to Subvert Elections

If you haven’t been paying attention — and believe me, I understand if you haven’t the spoons to do so — Trump is winding up the machinery to subvert, challenge, or discredit the fall mid-terms.

Multiple news sources report ^[1] that Trump has fired all members of the bipartisan federal Election Assistance Commission. This is the poisonous fruit of the recent Supreme Court decision allotting him the power to fire anybody in the federal government (except the Federal Reserve), expertise or civil service or Congressional appointments be damned. ^[2] This is an absolutely unprecedented level of power, unseen in the US since the corrupt “spoils” system of the early 19th century. And now we immediately see why.

In the words of EL Green at the New York Times:

The move comes as President Trump seeks to cast doubt on the outcome of the upcoming midterms and impose control over how ballots are counted.

The Election Assistance Commission is important for election integrity, guarding against the very election matters with which Trump wishes to interfere in Republican favor:

The E.A.C., which was established in 2002, is a crucial guardrail for ensuring election security across the country. According to its website, it guides states in ensuring they meet voting requirements, oversees testing and certification of voting systems and disperses funding to help states meet requirements. It serves as a national clearinghouse for information on election administration and maintains the national mail voter registration form established by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

An Historical Perspective

If for some reason you find that insufficiently alarming, consider this talk by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a widely respected American historian at New York University, whose scholarship focuses on fascism and authoritarian leaders.

This video terrified me:

• About 70% of humanity now lives under some form of autocracy. It’s not just the US, it’s a weird disease that’s broken out world-wide. I still don’t get why.
• The patterns experts on authoritarianism look for in weakening democracies:

  • Electoral manipulation to benefit those already in power. This especially includes making it difficult or dangerous for people to vote, and removing opposition candidates from the ballots, either by technicalities or violence.

    Our racial voter suppression combined with gerrymandering are examples in the US. It is not at all a coincidence that the Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act just in time for the election.

    The goal is to undermine public confidence that elections are free & fair. Hence Trump’s endless assertions that the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden was somehow “rigged”, massive evidence to the contrary.

  • Weaponized government replacing civil servants with political loyalists.

    Trump now has more or less unfettered power to remove inconvenient regulators, except at the Fed. He has more or less complete immunity, and the IRS cannot investigate his family. The Department of Justice is now his personal law firm, used to persecute his enemies, not enforce law.

  • Press intimidation in which endless lawsuits against major media cause cowardly management capitulation. CBS, the Washington Post, and the New York Times have all fallen in line and under billionaire ownership or MAGA editorial control.

    However, there are independent sources on web sites, blogs, and video sites that are harder to suppress.

  • Normalization of extremism endorses ideas formerly thought of as extreme, like Nazi ideas, as just another policy option.

    All autocracies target minorities as a way of getting loyalty against common enemies. Jews, political opponents, etc.

    A through line of autocracy is homophobia, and LGBTQ groups have been targeted by autocracies throughout history, from the Nazis who sent LGBTQ people to concentration camps, to the Hungary of Orbán, the Italy of Giorgia Meloni, who say they are a danger to the quote ‘Natural family’, which is one man, one woman, both straight.

    In the US we’re targeting non-whites and immigrants, with stupid lies like the JD Vance claim they’re eating cats and dogs.

  • Transfer of power crises in which autocrats attempt to retain power despite losing elections. Numerous examples may be found abroad; Trump himself attempted this in 2021, having lost the 2020 election, with the January 6 mobs assaulting Congress and threatening to murder representatives.

    The authoritarian we now have in the White House is a direct result of not holding him accountable.

• Our institutions are heavily damaged, to the point of no longer functioning. Independent media may be a good point, but bloggers can’t quite save the day.

Ben-Ghiat things we will survive as a democracy, mostly because most of us now loathe Trump and his acolytes:

That is why I believe the US will come back from this experience of brush with autocracy, come back a stronger democracy with reforms of our institutions and resume our path toward being the world’s preeminent example of a multiracial and multi-faith democracy.

Democracy is not going to die in the United States.

Let us hope she is correct. Let us act to ensure that she is correct.

The Weekend Conclusion

Ben-Ghiat is more hopeful than I am, having watched our institutions quiver helplessly before overt criminal actions and collapse into subservience to a wannabe dictator.

Probably you should pay more attention to her than me. She’s deeply qualified to have an opinion, while I’m just a grouchy old lefty loudmouth nerd with a blog.

Probably. At least it’ll be less hard on your mental health in the run-up to the end of American democracy.

Because that’s what’s at stake.

(Ceterum censeo, Trump incarceranda est!)

(Et ceterum censeo, index Epsteiniani divulganda est!)

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Notes & References

1: EL Green, “Trump Administration Fires Members of Independent Election Group”, New York Times, 2026-Jul-10. NB: Regrettably paywalled; consult your favorite archive site. ↩

2: AE Marimow, “Justices Expand Presidential Power Over Regulators, but Not the Fed”, _New York Times, 2026-Jun-29. NB: Regrettably paywalled; consult your favorite archive site. ↩