When I was researching My book on anti-democratic politicsI find an interesting pattern in its modern incarnation – that these movements, almost uniformly, claim that their most aggressively anti-democratic policies are actually defense of democracy
When Donald Trump worked to overturn the 2020 election, for example, he insisted that he wasn’t trying to steal an election — but rather to “stop the theft” that Joe Biden had already pulled off.
When Trump returned to power this year, I expected the same rhetorical tactics to be deployed to justify his inevitable power grab. And indeed, many of Trump’s Day 1 executive orders did just that.
Take, for example, Trump’s revival of Schedule F — a move that could, in theory, allow Trump to fire thousands of nonpartisan government employees and replace them with MAGA cronies. Such a move would pose a serious threat to democracy, as it would consolidate key state powers in the hands of the executive in a way that would prove crucial to the rise of elected authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
Still in Text of the orderTrump sold the move as proof of democratic principles Because the president and vice president are the only members of the executive branch “elected and directly accountable to the people,” they must be able to assert greater control over civil servants “to restore accountability to the career civil service.”
The same applies to other executive orders that could aid Trump’s efforts to consolidate power.
A executive order “Restoring free speech and ending federal censorship” provides no specific protections against abusive surveillance or Internet control practices. However, it ordered the attorney general to launch an investigation into policies of the Biden administration that could serve as a pretext to harass and fire federal employees who do not share Trump’s politics.
A command demands war “Weaponization” of the Federal Government Similarly, Trump does little to stop, for example, ordering the attorney general to investigate his political enemies or the IRS to audit them. In fact, it forms the basis of two separate investigations into Biden administration policies that could target both federal employees and private citizens.
Ordering other workers“As a way to make the government “properly accountable” to the American people, the bill imposes greater political control over the Senior Executive Service (SES)—a higher level of the civil service. Among other things, it would require current employees on the Executive Resources Board to oversee appointments to these positions.” Fired everyone, and reappointed boards with “non-career officials” — meaning, presumably, the “majority” of Trump’s political appointees. need
Going forward, Trump almost certainly won’t do anything as brazen as canceling the election. Instead, every move would be given a democratic defense, every power grab would be described as a victory for the American people against the “deep state.”
The goal is to turn the reality of the situation into another partisan debate, where Trump says one thing and Democrats (and the media) say another. The erosion of core democratic principles, such as the separation of powers and political non-interference in government functions, would appear to many to be a perfectly normal part of democracy.
American origins of veiled authoritarianism
In the book, I argue that the practice of describing anti-democratic politics as true democracy is essentially American—almost as old as republics. John C. Calhoun, a towering figure in early 19th-century politics, did more than anyone to develop it.
Calhoun defined his politics in libertarian terms, stating that “government has no right to regulate individual liberty beyond what is necessary for the safety and welfare of society.” However, Calhoun’s belief in the natural inferiority of some people – especially blacks – meant that he believed it was right for the state to exercise “absolute and despotic power” over some people “to preserve society against anarchy and destruction.”
Calhoun’s argument, and his contemporary pro-slavery, Directly and self-consciously Echoes of European feudal logic about humanity’s natural inequality. Indeed, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the antebellum American South functioned like a continental aristocracy (as opposed to the more authentically democratic North).
But since the Calhounites could not openly argue for the virtues of an authoritarian worldview in a country that saw itself as an outpost of republican freedom, they devised tactics. Masking Authoritarian concepts in liberal democratic logic. Slavery was not a form of arbitrary and authoritarian rule, but an ancient freedom The white race is fit to exercise. Banning abolitionist newspapers was not a restriction on free speech, but a defense of the South’s peculiar freedom from Northern cultural dominance.
This practice perpetuated slavery, creating a new rhetorical facade in the Jim Crow South designed to justify the creation of state-level authoritarian enclaves in democratic terms.
Global spread of American-style authoritarianism
As democracy became ideologically dominant around the world, similar practices became popular worldwide.
Today, its most sophisticated practitioners are elected executives who have worked to subvert democracy from within — people like Orban, Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi.
Orbán describes his political project, which is in effect the construction of an authoritarian kleptocracy, as an attempt to wrest control of Hungarian democracy from the Eurocrats in Brussels — with specific tactics, such as restricting LGBT speech on television, being sold as an extension of that. The will of the Hungarian people.
When Netanyahu tried to impose political control over Israel’s judiciary in 2023, removing the only formally independent check on its majority power, he argued that he was simply restoring popular control over unelected branches.
And when Modi introduced a campaign finance reform in 2017, claiming it would clean up Indian elections, it turned out that he was actually making A system to maliciously funnel cash to his own team.
As the Trump administration progresses, it is imperative to counter this strategy: to insist that when Trump takes objectively anti-democratic actions, his claims to be pro-democracy are not credible.
It is not an easy thing. The way we think about politics and public debate in the United States, and who we give credibility to and why, needs to be reframed. But it is essential if we are to understand the true nature of the threat to democracy going forward.
