William Kristol writes:

In only seven months, we’ve seen a remarkably sustained if somewhat chaotic series of abuses and usurpations in pursuit of the object of despotism.

It’s a purposeful project, not an inadvertent one. All societies obviously have authoritarian elements. Every democracy is susceptible to the claim of a demagogue who insists, “I alone can fix it.” Every polity is susceptible to bigotry. Every public is susceptible to the lure of false promises and the fear of invented threats. It may even be that the arc of political life naturally bends towards authoritarianism.

Dealing with endemic authoritarian tendencies has always been part of the work of preserving democracy. Our failure in curbing and managing such tendencies has certainly made our society more vulnerable to despotism.

But whatever our past failures, however many authoritarian elements embedded themselves over time in our liberal democracy, the challenge we face today is closer to straight-up despotism. And the project of imposing that dictatorship is no longer much disguised, if at all. The enemies of a free society—the enemies of limited government and the rule of law, the opponents of political liberty and human equality—don’t sugarcoat what they’re doing. There’s surely no reason we should sugarcoat what we’re seeing.

And as we see the actions of Trump and his apparatchiks, does anyone think they’re going to all this trouble to accumulate power so they can willingly hand it over in 2028? Does anyone think that if the public tries to vote against them, that they will go gently into the political night? Does anyone think that, should Trump try to undermine the choice of the people in 2028, he would meet the same resistance from within the government that he met in 2020? Would Attorney General Bondi or Secretary of Defense Hegseth or Secretary of Homeland Security Noem or FBI Director Patel rebuff presidential directives and act to ensure the peaceful transfer of power?

No. They would be eager lieutenants in the subversion of our free government.

There would be resistance in the ranks. But the ranks won’t be populated with the kinds of people who were there in 2020. And there would be resistance from some states and regions. But a kind of low-grade civil war is hardly a desirable outcome. Nor is it one that will necessarily result in victory for freedom. [Continue reading…]