Nearly nine months into Trump’s presidency, there is but one saving grace: the early dystopian prediction that our democracy would be usurped by an authoritarian dictatorship has not occurred. Not for want of trying, mind you. Trump tweets, barks and snarls like a banana republic strongman, but when it comes to effectiveness, he more closely resembles a little old man behind a curtain, impersonating a wizard.
Those were some dark days after the November election. One publication declared the danger of pending authoritarianism to be severe. Another said the time was ripe for Trump to turn our democracy into tyranny. Two Harvard professors suggested the new president was positioning himself for an authoritarian takeover.
Our country is clearly at one of the bleakest moments in memory. The president has injected a despicable toxicity into our everyday lives, disrupting relationships, instilling fear in marginalized groups, dominating far too many of our waking hours. Trump’s got the fastest Twitter finger in the West, a cyberbully with nuclear codes. Life in these United States right now is anything but comfortable. Yet, an authoritarian Armageddon does not appear to be at hand. This president has been unable to get a single major bill through a Congress controlled by his own party. Heading toward the last quarter of his first year in office, Donald Trump is the opposite of a strongman. In terms of effectiveness, he has been a bastion of weakness.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly talked about how he, alone, could “drain the swamp” and return America to greatness. It sure sounded like a prelude to authoritarian rule. When he got into office, he started bonding with all of the ruthless strongman dictators around the globe: Russia’s Putin, Malaysia’s Razak,Turkey’s Erdogan, the Philippine’s Duterte, Egypt’s el-Sisi and Thailand’s Chan-ocha. Trump admired the ability of these despots to get things done, regardless of how many bodies had to be buried along the way. He wanted to be like them. And he might have been, except for three major differences between himself and his bully buddies: his tyranny mentors all had substantial military assistance and no significant legislative or judicial oversight. Trump, on the other hand, has had his baser instincts squashed by those same institutions.
Ironically, it was Trump’s affinity for the military that persuaded him to draw three former generals into his inner circle: Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary James Mattis. They have all struggled valiantly to pull Trump back from his odious moves. Their win-loss ratio has been uneven, but the effort has been a clear reversal of the military’s role with other totalitarian leaders. These generals are trying to contain the damage to our democracy. They reportedly spent the weekend trying to steady Trump’s hand on the North Korea crisis and urging him not to withdraw from a trade agreement with South Korea, at the very moment that such an alliance is so critical to our interests. When Trump taunted North Korea by tweeting that “talking is not the answer,” Mattis immediately issued a statement saying that “We’re never our of diplomatic solutions.” The defense secretary also deftly maneuvered around the president’s order to keep transgender people out of the military by tabling the policy while a panel of experts makes recommendations.
The generals are not alone. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, among others, have publicly distanced themselves from Trump, a previously unheard of move by a cabinet member. Tillerson has done it repeatedly: on North Korea, Qatar, nuclear proliferation, climate change and Charlottesville.
Eliot Cohen, a state department official in the George W. Bush administration, told the Washington Post that these White House objectors are keeping the country safe. He said: “Very few of them are there because they love him. Some of them are thinking: ‘This is potentially a very dangerous time for the country. I will go in and do my best, in effect, to save the country.’”
The judiciary has also played a significant role in holding Trump back, much to his constantly tweeted chagrin. His Muslim travel ban has been repeatedly scaled back by different courts, as has his attempt to withhold funds from municipalities refusing to cooperate in apprehending undocumented immigrants. When the Boston Globe last counted in May, it found 134 lawsuits filed against the Trump administration, setting yet another record for this president. Congress, too, has stepped up to the plate to stop the president from numerous pursuits, thus providing a major block for the would-be authoritarian.
That leaves Trump with only one real club: the power of persuading the American people to support his agenda. It’s here that the Donald’s real weakness shines through the emptiness of his tough talk and tweets. Unlike every president before him, Trump has made no effort to expand his base, to move independent and soft Republican voters into the “strongly support” column. The hardcore, rabid rally-goers and white supremacist marchers are the only audience he cares about, hardly enough to move Congress in his direction. Trump’s approval ratings are at the lowest of his presidency. Not only that, 55% of voters say he is not stable and 58% call him reckless. Politico reported on a recent focus group of Trump voters where the conclusion was that even his base is losing patience. Participants described him with words like “chaotic”, “scary”, “tense”, and “embarrassing”.
Despite all that, Trump can and will cause more damage and pain in the days that pave his uncertain future. At this point, however, there is solace in mitigation. The democracy-protecting strictures put in place by the country’s founders are holding up just fine. They, and other key players in this drama, are keeping the 1776 dream alive. And the very essence of that dream is governance by, for and of the people, not by the whim of a tyrannical king.