Wake up and smell the autocracy — Trump is serious about dismantling American democracy

We already know that Trump plans to install himself as the American autocrat if he gets back into the White House in 2025. He wanted to do it the first time he was President but he foolishly appointed ordinary far-right Republicans to all the important positions that could have helped him get the job done. Even they realized Trump was Kim Jong-Un with bronzer and a bad combover and defied his craziest orders.

But Trump learned from his mistake and he's not going to let his last opportunity to stamp his boot on humanity's face slip away. This updated American Autocracy Threat Tracker from Just Security catalogs hundreds of statements and proposed policies that make it crystal clear that Trump is deadly serious about consolidating power, purging the government, rigging elections, weaponizing the justice system, and eviscerating free speech, all while enriching himself and his family crime syndicate.

His "comprehensive autocratic agenda" includes obliterating anything that isn't his vision of an ethnonationalist, Christian fascist state. On his to-do list:

  • Criminalizing news by the free press that he considers "treason"
  • Using military force against protesters and invoking the Insurrection Act
  • Firing tens of thousands of civil servants
  • Demolishing judicial independence
  • Unleashing mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants
  • Criminalizing abortion nationwide
  • Banning books and curricula from schools
  • Discriminating against LGBTQ people
  • Cozying up to fellow autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán while demonizing the "enemy from within" the United States
  • Purging tens of thousands of federal employees to "demolish the deep state"

Not exactly your typical Republican platform, is it? It would make Mussolini blush.

But for a bunch of people who supposedly love freedom and America so much, they seem ready to go all-in on Trump's road to autocracy after he spent years lying about the "rigged" 2020 election. Groups like the Heritage Foundation are salivating over the prospect of bulldozing away those archaic checks and balances.

If Trump tries to make good on even half of what's in this report, it's going to make the chaos of his last term look like Mister Rogers having tea with Postman McFeely and King Friday.