https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-17-2023
"A story in the
New York Times today by Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage, and
Maggie Haberman outlined how former president Donald Trump and his allies are
planning to create a dictatorship if voters return him to power in 2024. The
article talks about how Trump and his loyalists plan to “centralize more power
in the Oval Office” by “increasing the president’s authority over every part of
the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any
measure of independence from political interference by the White House.”
They plan to take control over independent government agencies and get rid of
the nonpartisan civil service, purging all but Trump loyalists from the U.S.
intelligence agencies, the State Department, and the Defense Department. They
plan to start “impounding funds,” that is, ignoring programs Congress has
funded if those programs aren’t in line with Trump’s policies.
“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize
them,” said Russell T. Vought, who ran Trump’s Office of Management and Budget
and who now advises the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. They envision a
“president” who cannot be checked by the Congress or the courts.
Trump’s desire to grab the mechanics of our government and become a dictator is
not new; both scholars and journalists have called it out since the early years
of his administration. What is new here is the willingness of so-called
establishment Republicans to support this authoritarian power grab.
Behind this initiative is “Project 2025,” a coalition of more than 65
right-wing organizations putting in place personnel and policies to recommend
not just to Trump, but to any Republican who may win in 2024. Project 2025 is
led by the Heritage Foundation, once considered a conservative think tank, that
helped to lead the Reagan revolution.
A piece by Alexander Bolton in
The Hill today said that Republican senators
are “worried” by the MAGAs, but they have been notably silent in public at a
time when every elected leader should be speaking out against this plot. Their
silence suggests they are on board with it, as Trump apparently hoped to
establish.
The party appears to have fully embraced the antidemocratic ideology advanced
by authoritarian leaders like Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s
prime minister Viktor Orbán, who argue that the post–World War II era, in which
democracy seemed to triumph, is over. They claim that the tenets of
democracy—equality before the law, free speech, academic freedom, a
market-based economy, immigration, and so on—weaken a nation by destroying a
“traditional” society based in patriarchy and Christianity.
Instead of democracy, they have called for “illiberal” or “Christian”
democracy, which uses the government to enforce their beliefs in a Christian,
patriarchal order. What that looks like has a clear blueprint in the actions of
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has gathered extraordinary power into his
own hands in the state and used that power to mirror Orbán’s destruction of
democracy."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
