Here are some quotes about a politician: “demagoguery, baseless defamation and mudslinging”, “bullying, reckless and dishonest”, “pompous and condescending”, “makes exaggerated or false claims”, “a fraud and a hoax”, “wild twisting of facts and near facts”, “his accusations increase his popularity and gain him a powerful national following”, and “actions that confuse and divide the American people”.
If you think these quotes describe Donald Trump, you’d be right and wrong. They definitely fit Trump, but they come from the Wikipedia entry for Joseph McCarthy. From 1950 to 1954, GOP Senator McCarthy rode roughshod over American politics and the Constitution. He shot to fame by claiming Communists had infiltrated the State Department. How many? First it was 205, then 57 and a bit later 81. It changed depending on his mood and how sober he was. He died in 1957 at the age 48 from cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism.
Demagoguery and McCarthyism
Almost everyone was afraid of McCarthy. A mere accusation by him could ruin a person’s career. Even President Eisenhower refused to denounce him directly. Ike said he wouldn’t “get down in the gutter” with McCarthy.
A few stood up to this demagogue, among them the highly respected journalist Edward R Murrow. On his TV programme See It Now, he said: “His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind…his actions have caused fear and alarm… This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent.”
McCarthy’s downfall came during the 1954 televised Army hearings when 20 million Americans could see what a bully he was. The Army’s Chief Council Joseph Welch berated McCarthy after he claimed one of Welch’s legal assistants belonged to an organisation that was “the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party”. On live TV Welch asked McCarthy a much-quoted rhetorical question: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
With that, the Senate finally grew a spine and censured McCarthy. They shunned him until his death three years later.
Trump: the new McCarthy
I wrote the above in February 2016, comparing the political demagogue McCarthy to TV mini-demagogue Trump when it appeared Trump might win the GOP presidential nomination. It turned out worse than I could imagine. As bad as his first time around was, the first six months of Trump’s second term have been way worse. Many fear that he is attempting to turn the US into an authoritarian state. I beg to disagree. Trump has already succeeded in carrying out Phase One – 1984 in 2025.
Trump has bullied politicians, corporations, law firms, universities and even foreign governments into doing whatever pops into his head. Most of the time he can’t wait for Congress so he rules by fiat, which in the US is called executive order. As of 4 August, Trump had signed 181 executive orders.
Previously, Jimmy Carter had the highest average of 80 per year.
Trump has turned the presidency into a cash cow. Bloomberg reports that since he started his reelection campaign, he has more than doubled his net worth to about $5.4bn.
Trump does the outrageous because he gets away with it, like a ‘gift’ of the $400mn luxury jet from Qatar, saying it will be a new Air Force One; then he donated to the non-existent Trump Library. Or to commission a new giant ballroom for the White House, 90,000 square feet (8,361 square meters – about one and a half football fields), seating 650, at an estimated cost to American public purse of $200mn. Why not? The truth is whatever he says, although he lies like Pinocchio. In his 30-minute inaugural address, Trump lied 20 times, which is one less than the daily average of 21 during his first term.
Enemy of the people
Every tyrant worth the name has to invent an ‘enemy of the people’. For Hitler it was the Jews. For McCarthy it was Commies. For Trump, it’s immigrants, particularly black, brown and tan ones. They’re drug dealers and rapists, they’re gang members, they’re terrorists, they eat your dogs and cats. If not gotten rid of, they will take over our beautiful country.
Trump, with his GOP sycophants in Congress, has tripled the immigration police (ICE) budget from $10bn in 2025 to $150bn 2026–29. It includes funds to build concentration camps called ‘immigration detention facilities’ for at least 80,000, and to hire 10,000 new ICE agents. But they might not be enough to deport one million men, women and children in 2025. Tom Homan, Trump’s ‘Border Czar’, has given ICE a daily quota of 7,000.
The defence budget allocates $1bn to deploy military personnel to the border and to detain migrants. But not just the border. Seven hundred Marines went into Los Angeles in June to scare the bejeezus out of protesters. The military have also gone to the detention centre in Florida called Alligator Alcatraz (or Auschwitz…your choice) as well as to Louisiana and Texas. Where to next? California? New York? Illinois? Everywhere, come election time?
Why stop at migrants? At a press conference in April, Trump announced: “The homegrowns are next.” If Trump doesn’t like what Americans say about him, deport them to El Salvador. He told their president Nayib Bukele: “You’ve got to build about five more places.”
Trump and tyranny
In 2010, when Trump was still just a TV tyrant (“you’re fired”), Professor Timothy Snyder published a book titled On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century. Here are some excerpts:
- Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. Do not obey in advance.
- Authoritarians need obedient civil servants.
- It’s hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers.
- Institutions do not protect themselves.
- Defend the rules of democratic elections.
- Be wary of paramilitaries.
- To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.
The Trump presidency ticks every box.
How to fight autocracy in a democracy
What to do? It’s not as if Americans are passively allowing Trump to destroy democracy. On 14 June (Trump’s birthday), five to six million people, in 2,100 sites, participated in ‘No Kings’ demonstrations.
Gallop reports that Trump’s overall job approval rating is now 37%; but even worse, it’s 29% among Independents. Independents determine who wins elections. On every issue, Trump’s approval ranges from a not good 42% down to a miserable 29% (his big beautiful bill).
The question is how to fight autocracy in a democracy. One group follow Michelle Obama’s well-known phrase: “When they go low, we go high.”
On the other side, Ken Martin, the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, warned Trump: “We’re coming. This is a new Democratic Party. We’re taking the gloves off.”
The US government has three branches that are supposed to provide ‘checks and balances’. Not now. Trump has filled the executive branch with cheerleaders and enablers. GOP bobbleheads control the legislative branch. The judicial branch has many lower court judges who actually follow the rule of law and support and defend the Constitution. But then the Justice Department appeals their decisions up to Trump’s buddies on the Supreme Court who believe ‘let Trump be Trump’.
America has already entered Phase One of an authoritarian state. It’s too late to go high. It’s time to take the gloves off.
