{"id":3292,"date":"2026-07-14T12:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=3292"},"modified":"2026-07-14T12:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:38:17","slug":"the-fatal-flaw-in-trumps-authoritarian-playbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=3292","title":{"rendered":"The fatal flaw in Trump\u2019s authoritarian playbook"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Speaking for the Tuesday podcast “Right Now” with Perry Bacon, Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, discussed President Donald Trump’s efforts to control government institutions, noting there’s a major flaw in the president’s authoritarian agenda. <\/p>\n

Read more Newly-revealed messages show attorney general\u2019s key role in Trump vendettas<\/a><\/p>\n

“You wrote this piece called ‘The Authoritarian Checklist,’ and you were arguing that we had now entered a competitive authoritarian period \u2014 that we lost democracy, and we were entering competitive authoritarianism \u2014 and you were describing the ideas that make an authoritarian administration,” said Bacon. “And let me start by saying, this checklist you had is not some kind of \u2014 it\u2019s not the political science authoritarian checklist. It was something you came up with yourself, right?”<\/p>\n

The Moynihan list is slightly different than others that have been proposed by historian Tim Snyder, for example. <\/p>\n

Moynihan argued that Trump and his allies have systematically weakened the civil service, politicized the legal system and used federal power to intimidate universities, media and businesses, while elections remain the area where structural limits still constrain him. His argument isn’t that the a switch is flipped where you have democracy to dictatorship, but the sudden tilting of the playing field. <\/p>\n

He told Bacon that it’s clear Trump\u2019s team, like Stephen Miller, learned from its failures of the first term and came back into office with “Project 2025,” an effort to take control of the bureaucracy, install Trump-friendly lawyers and use executive authority to flip the federal government into a weapon against political foes.<\/p>\n

The one theme throughout all of Trump’s actions includes the capture or coercion of civil society.<\/p>\n

Read more Military leaders sounding alarm about dangers Trump poses for US allies<\/a><\/p>\n

The two agreed that the court system has worked extremely well at putting a check on Trump. Where it has failed is at the Supreme Court level. <\/p>\n

“I think if you want to hold some actor other than Trump responsible for the moment that we\u2019re in, it is the Supreme Court,” said Moynihan. “They are the group that <\/span>has the standing, they have the role, they have the authority to say, This <\/em>administration is violating the Constitution, it\u2019s violating the law<\/em>. And again, they haven\u2019t done that. And in fact, they\u2019ve done the opposite. They\u2019ve bought into Trump\u2019s legal theories.”<\/p>\n

The good pieces, however, he said, are that states are still largely in control over Trump. Those “structural barriers remain.\u201d Among them are the voters themselves. <\/p>\n

“And so maybe Trump will do more \u2014 maybe he will send the National Guard to election sites, maybe he will ramp up more intimidation \u2014 but up to now, he does not control how people vote. And this does make the midterms all the more important,” said Moynihan. “But other than the power of the electorate, he said, Trump “does not have a button he can press that fundamentally changes the nature of our election experience in America.”<\/p>\n

Read more Judge\u2019s \u2018scalding\u2019 Trump takedown opens the door: \u2018Impeachment is next\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n