Hundreds of “No Kings” rallies were held across the United States in October. They could just have easily been called “No Trump” rallies. President Donald Trump wants to be a king, the marchers assure us. But more than that — a despot, a tyrant, an authoritarian.
Progressive accusations about “Trumpist authoritarianism” usually depend upon his use of executive power and his crude political aesthetic. Yet neither points to authoritarianism.
Of course, American politics has long been full of rhetoric like this. Politics ain’t beanbag, after all. And when you’re appealing to an electorate of 150 million people, occasionally one needs to go over the top. The difference today is that Trump’s accusers seem to be taking their accusations much more seriously. It’s not a vaudevillian flourish to call Trump a fascist. They really believe this — so much so that they are also demonizing his supporters for willfully aiding his illicit scheme to destroy our system of government.
There is no doubt that Trump 47 has used executive power aggressively. But that is mostly a story of institutional development, not authoritarian instincts. For the last hundred years, power has been concentrated within the executive branch, so much so that the president can often rewrite public policy with little or no congressional input.
Has Trump wielded power more aggressively than former President Barack Obama? Obama unilaterally deemed the Senate in recess so he could make executive appointments. His Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals rewrote immigration laws by executive decree. He implemented a de facto treaty with Iran without the consent of the Senate.
And no one has yet topped former President Joe Biden for executive hubris. Biden’s liberalization of the asylum laws created an open borders policy that effectively revised the nation’s entire immigration system. And he declared via tweet that the Equal Rights Amendment was the law of the land!
Some of these actions, such as Biden’s absurd claim about the ERA, were unsuccessful. Others, like Obama’s Iran deal and Biden’s opening of the southern border, have wreaked havoc on our politics ever since. None of them prompted a nationwide protest from the people at the “No Kings” rallies. Sensitivity to executive action is usually correlated with disapproval of the action, for Republicans and Democrats alike. Trump’s deployment of the National Guard is the act of a would-be tyrant, not because it has no basis in law — that contestable claim is being litigated in the courts — but because progressive Democrats want to repeal the laws Trump is enforcing.
Trump’s alleged executive overreach is supposed to combine with his vile and offensive rhetoric, the likes of which we have never seen before. Look at Trump’s refusal to swear off a third term (though he has now directly acknowledged the Constitution will not allow him to run again). Look at his mean posts on Truth Social. Look at how he makes political points at nonpolitical events, such as addresses to military officers. Look at how he demeans foreign leaders in the Oval Office. This is how fascists act!
Trump’s public persona is nothing like that of his predecessors in the Oval Office. This is lamentable. The president should act like the head of state, representing the interests of the whole nation. Trump congenitally cannot bring himself to do that. This is beneath the dignity of the office, diminishes his political standing in the moment, and will rightfully reduce his reputation in the eyes of posterity.
Nevertheless, those who see this as evidence of creeping authoritarianism are stubbornly oblivious to the joke. Trump has a “schtick” that he has been doing for more than 40 years. He was an internet troll back when there was no internet, but only the front page of the New York Post. He likes to wind up his political opponents the same way he did Rosie O’Donnell 20 years ago. Placing a “Trump 2028” hat on the Resolute Desk during a meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is not a sign of authoritarianism. It is Trump’s sense of humor, wielded for political advantage. It is not for everybody, and it is not presidential. But to call it authoritarianism requires a willful ignorance of how Trump has publicly conducted himself for nearly half a century.
Hyperbole has been an enduring part of American political discourse, and it is not unhealthy. While campaigning for president in 1948, Democrat Harry Truman accused his mild-mannered Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, of being a fascist. In its 1904 platform, the Democratic Party blasted the administration of Teddy Roosevelt as “spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary. It has made itself a satire upon the Congress, courts, and upon the settled practices and usages of national and international law.” That’s as close to No Kings as one could get 121 years ago. And the sort of accusations hurled during the Thomas Jefferson-John Adams contests of 1796 and 1800 make much of today’s vitriol seem mild in comparison.
One of the best aspects of American politics is that so much of this rhetoric is performatively over the top. It is kind of like vaudeville, a staged and absurd spectacle for the masses. Truman did not actually think Dewey was a fascist. Democrats in 1904 did not actually think Roosevelt was a “satire.” Progressive Democrats generally supported Roosevelt’s legislative agenda. More recently, Democrats adored John McCain for breaking with the Bush administration, but that didn’t stop them from castigating him as a Bush toady in 2008. Hillary Clinton still delivered the line, “No way, no how, no McCain,” with special relish.
Many politicos realize this, at least after the fact. George W. Bush accused Bill Clinton of all manner of failures when he ran in 2000. Now the two are friends. So are Bush and Obama, who likewise hurled charge after charge against his predecessor in 2008. Jefferson and Adams believed the other had insulted their sacred honor but in retirement again became good friends. It is the political equivalent of breaking the fourth wall, signaling to the public that while there are substantive disagreements, much of politics is just for show.
In other words, politics has always been a bit of a spectacle. Trump himself seems to appreciate this. He will insult Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in one instant and then thank him in the next for helping get a deal done. Trump’s opponents, on the other hand, take their rhetoric much more seriously.
It is not in how they attack Trump, but how quickly and eagerly so many will go after his supporters. If calling Trump an authoritarian were nothing more than a vaudevillian critique of his personal hubris, Trump’s allies and advocates would not be fair game. But that’s not what is happening. Trump’s opponents take their rhetoric so seriously that they see the Republican Party as a collaborationist faction, like Marshal Petain in Vichy France. Trump voters are fascist sympathizers. They are eager participants in Trump’s plot to destroy American democracy. Trump skeptics who reject the most extreme rhetoric are mealy-mouthed “Anti-Anti-Trumpers,” who lack the courage to stand up to an authoritarian assault on our institutions.
TRUMP’S GOVERNANCE BY EXECUTIVE ORDER WILL BE CONTINUED BY FUTURE PRESIDENTS
There was long a kind of gentleman’s agreement in politics that those who step into the arena should expect attack, but not their supporters in the audience. Truman could thus accuse Dewey of being a fascist without suggesting his supporters were also Nazis — because that was the implied limit of political rhetoric. But that seems to be gone. The rhetoric is no longer for show but for reality.
It is often said that we need to lower the temperature of our political rhetoric. Maybe so. But people need to stop taking it all so damned seriously. A New York Giants fan who hates the Philadelphia Eagles so intensely that he or she insults the Eagles fans at a game has fundamentally misunderstood what is going on. So too those implicating ordinary voters in their overheated Trump-as-authoritarian spiel. It might be time for them to take a break from politics.
Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford senior nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
