After Trump’s tweet last week in which he called mainstream journalistic news organizations “enemies of the people” for disagreeing with or challenging him, comparing Trump to dictators isn't enough anymore. Doing so assumes an inadvertence on his part that a) isn't warranted in light of actual authoritarian actions, and b) conspicuously affords him a tacit innocence that is part and parcel of white privilege.
As a rich white heterosexual Christian male, Trump is often unwittingly written-off as being intellectually deficient (or the people who voted for him are), mentally ill (e.g narcissistic, pathological liar, victim of dementia), not really in control (e.g "President Bannon", Pence running the show behind the scenes) or - worst of all - just deeply misunderstood.
Along the lines of Trump being an imbecile are the charges made against him in a BBC article I cited earlier:
"'Charming that our uneducated President manages to channel the words of Stalin and fails to hear the historical resonance of this phrase” - tweeted by Mitchell Orenstein, a professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The most dangerous 'enemy of the people' is presidential lying - always. Attacks on press by Donald Trump more treacherous than Nixon's” - tweeted by Carl Bernstein, a reporter who wrote about Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal.
I agree with the article’s main point:
“Mr Trump is not the first US president to have an antagonistic relationship with the media - Nixon is known to have privately referred to the press as 'the enemy' - but his latest broadside, with all its attendant historical echoes, is unprecedented."
Trump’s Words Are Dangerous.
He's being ridiculed by comedians, embarrassed by the media, and challenged by Democrats in Congress. As a member of two groups of people he and his inner circle have it out for, Muslims and Mexicans, I'm concerned about what his next move will be. Backed into a corner, is he more likely to violently lash out or forfeit?
A few signs indicate the former is Trump's inclination:
1) The promise to release a new Muslim ban executive order this week, and
2) the draft memo that leaked last week revealing a plan to mobilize 100,000 national guard troops to round up undocumented immigrants
3) his wildly antagonistic performance at the press conference late last week in which he repeated claims about mainstream news organizations being "fake", while demanding that a Jewish reporter asking about allegations of anti-Semitism in the Trump administration was “very insulting” after telling the man to “sit down”
4) the tweet labeling several mainstream news organizations "enemies of the people" for questioning him, and
5) the unprecedented, combative campaign rally in Florida where he made up a Swedish terrorist attack as part of a ranting pseudo-argument about the risks of admitting immigrants into the US, presumably Muslim and Mexican immigrants in particular
It may be time to stop hypothesizing about the potential for Trump's words to be taken as signs of an impending authoritarian turn, and instead start acting like an authoritarian populist has taken office. Trump was an authoritarian-want-to-be and a populist, among other dastardly things, in all measurable forms as a candidate and now, as president, he continues to fulfill one horrifying campaign promise after another. Although with many bumps along the way and only mixed results at best.
Stopping Trump
Impeaching Trump may happen but won't come easily with a Republican dominated Congress. Many GOP leaders may be weary of Trump but see abiding him as a necessary tradeoff for advancing their agenda, which - in their view - was stalled for the last eight years under Obama. While liberals were frustrated at Obama’s thwarted early attempts to work with Congress and the years of stagnation that followed, conservatives felt that their Republican politicians were doing their job by keeping Obama at bay. It’s soul-crushing that this comparison is made, but for many, Obama was their Trump. In other words, an unmitigated disaster of a president hellbent on destroying America and trampling over all of our values and institutions. The merit of that perspective is nonexistent - there was no reason to be suspicious of Obama. Trump, however, had many years of faux pas including misogyny, racism, and sexual assault.
So, Republicans may not feel the pressure from their supporters to impeach Trump as long as they believe that they’re better off with him than without him. However, there is a lot that Democrats are doing to fight Trump legally and, beyond that, a lot more that ordinary people can do to stop Trump. Chief among them is to run for office. Start at the local level and work your way up. There are many other things we can do but it’s not an option to sit this one out.