Chris Murphy at Barack Obama rally 2%2C February 4%2C 2008.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: Ragesoss) Details Source DMCA
US Senator (D-CT) Chris Murphy explains how Trump is copying the playbook for the modern, time-tested way to destroy a democracy:
Donald Trump's plan to convert our democracy to autocracy is real, and I want to talk through how he's doing this in real time because the crisis is here now.
Trump is enacting an insidious coordinated attack on the institutions that keep our government accountable to the people, designed to crater democracy before next fall. MAGA has given up on democracy. I wish it weren't true, but it is. They would rather rule forever than run a fair election where a Democrat might win.
Ending democracy is required to get away with the thievery and corruption happening before us. A true democracy would hold Trump accountable for the mass-scale corruption -- Trump's crypto coin, the insider trading, Musk's self-dealing, etc.
Some people are looking for some high-stakes confrontation between Trump and the Supreme Court. They think that will be the five-alarm fire moment, and some believe it's here with Trump defying their ruling on the Abrego Garcia case. Don't get me wrong -- I'm furious about the disappearances, which I spoke out against early when the Columbia grad student was taken without due process. It's what happens in tin-pot dictatorships.
But a confrontation with the Supreme Court is not the endgame. The modern, time-tested way to destroy a democracy is NOT a coup or burning down the Parliament or a public confrontation with the judiciary.
It's a slow, methodical campaign to weaken the structures of accountability necessary for the political opposition to win elections. That was the playbook for Putin in Russia, Orba'n in Hungary, and Erdoan in Turkey, and Trump is copying it before our eyes.
Here's how it works:
ELEMENT 1: They legitimize political violence to keep critics silent. That's what the Jan. 6 pardons are about. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski recently spoke publicly about her worries of "retaliation." That is chilling.
ELEMENT 2: They silence the press. Trump does this in two ways. First, he co-opts the owners of the media and information ecosystems (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, etc.). Those who don't fall in line get harassed. That's what's happening with the AP over their refusal to use "Gulf of America" or FCC investigations into broadcasters like CBS.
ELEMENT 3: They silence protectors of the rule of law. In free societies, lawyers guard our rights. Despots can more easily trample our rights if the lawyers are silenced. That's why Trump is forcing the big law firms to sign what amounts to loyalty oaths.
ELEMENT 4: They silence universities. Two things that threaten their power happen on university campuses: youth protest and the guarding of objective truth. Neither is allowed in an autocracy. Thus, Trump's illegal campaign to force campuses to crush dissent or be punished.
ELEMENT 5: They silence the private sector. The tariffs are a means to force every business to get on Trump's good side and stop public dissent in exchange for relief from his regime. Withholding of federal funds from non-profits forces these orgs to stay quiet too.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
