By David K. Shipler
A couple of
years ago, Liz Cheney, the prominent Republican who broke dramatically with
Donald Trump, told me that to restore traditional conservatism and also
preserve constitutional democracy, Americans would have to defeat the
Republican Party all the way down the ballot. She was sure it would happen, and
it just did.
But will it be enough? Euphoric
rhapsodies perform very well right now. The rout of Republicans in the midterms
extended from Congress deep into state governments, even reaching some Trump
strongholds. The surge of disaffected voters generated a political upheaval. Democracy
demonstrated its formidable force.
But is this the end of the
Trumpists’ march to autocracy? Or just a temporary pause in the decline of
constitutional norms and pluralistic values?
In the first two years of his
second term, Trump has mobilized like-minded minions in the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches to award him one-man powers that undermine
the Framers’ ingenious structure of checks and balances. He has created a semi-dictatorship
with little accountability for the high crimes of political prosecutions and cruelty
by thugs wearing ICE jackets. He has placed white supremacists in key
positions; peddled racist slanders; ignored court orders; exacted retribution
for dissent; destroyed scientific research; provoked a brain drain from the
government and the country; compromised national security; ravaged the military
leadership; and punished universities, law firms, corporations, charities, and
news organizations that do not toe his line.
Whether these draconian policies
will change is a question. Predictions are unreliable in this age of volatility.
The most valid insights are offered by the present, which is a complex balance
sheet.
On the one hand, the sweeping
Democratic wins cracked Trump’s aura of authority; his unpopularity drove down
Republican votes and helped defeat his most visible hand-picked candidates, which
included those of damaged character.
Therefore, it seems possible, but
not certain, that his mafia-like threats against esteemed institutions and
members of his own party will be taken less seriously. It’s possible, but not certain,
that some Republicans will see their political interest in defying him. It’s
possible, but not certain, that his political appointees who have populated
executive agencies will be less deferent, especially when they’ll face
oversight by Democratic-led congressional committees. Those less visible appointees
will be important to watch, for no autocrat rules alone; every one relies on a
phalanx of willing subordinates.
On the other hand, the first
post-election reflexes have been combative. Trump’s new chief of staff, Stephen
Miller, has the sympathies and impulses of a white nationalist, denigrating generations
of immigrant cultures and declaring his wish for a regime without judges—that
is, without checks on executive power. His absolutism owes no allegiance to the
miraculous competition of ideas that has been the precious nourishment of
American society. He can be expected to wield dogmatic command over federal
agencies.
Furthermore, Trump has virtually
ignored the legislative branch, spending funds that were not appropriated and
withholding funds that were. Now his White House is mobilizing lawyers to resist
Democrats’ subpoenas and fight in court any charges of contempt of Congress against officials who refuse to testify.
Then, too, the House Republicans have
made a statement of combative radicalism by electing Jim Jordan as their leader.
Jordan, a former wrestler and wrestling coach, also knows no shades of
contemplation or compromise. He is a firebrand, relishing the rhetorical
triumph without the hard work of legislating. He is gearing for fight after
fight against Democrats who want to bring accountability to Trump’s White
House.
How this plays out for the
Republican Party is unclear. My conversation with Liz Cheney began with my
asking how she thought true, traditional conservatism might be restored, with
its principles of fiscal responsibility and small government—opposites of what
Trump’s revised party supports. Cheney, you’ll recall, lost the Republican primary
for her House seat from Wyoming after becoming vice chair of the January 6
committee, which detailed Trump’s attempt to block the peaceful transfer of
power. Wyoming voters valued the Trump cult of personality over the monumental
principles of the Constitution.
Cheney’s prescription for immense
electoral losses sounded like a wish for the party’s demise. The question is
whether something resembling the old, more moderate party can be revived. So
far, just a week after the election, its surviving legislators in Congress show
no signs of learning the lessons most voters sent.
As for those voters: On the one
hand, millions of citizens, deeply resentful of the status quo, generated a major
political turn not by going into the streets, as in France, but by using the
established, orderly process of elections. They thereby engaged with a system
that Trump has slandered and worked hard to undermine. And the system worked. “The
American people” (the catch-all label politicians are so fond of using ad
nauseum) distinguished themselves from residents of typical autocracies, where
defeated masses often withdraw into the sullen alienation that comes of
powerlessness.
Furthermore, the high turnout of
Blacks, who rallied against the Republican gerrymandering and Supreme Court
rulings aimed at diluting their voting power, helped elect Scott Colom as the
first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction. It was a close call,
but finally an inspiring surge of people power.
That’s on the one hand. On the
other, most of the rebellion at the ballot box was driven less by worries about
the dying democracy than by transitory economic hardships brought on by Trump
himself—and by the unseemly spectacle of him and his family ostentatiously
enriching themselves with more blatant corruption than any prior president.
Corruption is often the Achilles
heel of dictatorships. Some Democratic candidates adeptly juxtaposed Trump’s lust
for luxury with the everyday struggles of ordinary folks. (It’s worth
remembering that both the American and French Revolutions were also driven in
large measure by economic anger.)
Yet for those of us worried about
the rise of authoritarianism, a more satisfying revolt would have favored the
rule of law, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution’s separation of powers, the
insulation of prosecutors from politics, and respect for the country’s revered
institutions of pluralism.
I used to tell Russians who would
listen during my four years covering the Soviet Union that while they valued
the strength of a single idea, Americans valued the din of many ideas. I could
not say that with such confidence now, given a president, elected twice, who
decries that din, and who has just named a chief of staff who does the same.
Trump’s zealous activists have not
gone away, nor will they disappear from American culture even if a Democrat
wins the White House in 2028. They are well enough organized to sit on the
sidelines waiting for the wheel to turn again in their favor. They have tasted
blood in these two years—the blood of power and victory—and it’s easy to
imagine them regrouping, as they did after Trump lost in 2020.
What’s most frightening about them
is their totalitarian mindset. I use the term advisedly. I saw it in Soviet
Communist days: apparatchiks who seek to infuse a narrow set of ideological
principles throughout all of civil society, and to use whatever state power
they can mobilize to coerce that society into conformity.
These Trump years have provided
enough evidence of hero-worship and capitulation to caution against reading
this election as a permanent awakening. Despite Americans’ ideals of flinty
individualism, their weak civics instruction in schools and their susceptibility
to right-wing propaganda suggest a gullible electorate vulnerable to the next
autocratic demagogue.
As the New York Times columnist M.
Gessen noted recently:
“The experience of other countries
shows that autocratic leaders are peculiarly difficult to unseat, and not just
because they have a tendency to undermine the voting process itself. The more
instability voters live with—the higher the gas prices, the more tenuous their
access to health care, the more palpable the threat of war—the stronger the
autocrats’ appeal, even when it was their policies that caused the
instability.”
