Frum points out in How to Build an Autocracy in The Atlantic how we could get a new form of autocracy:
Trump and his team count on one thing above all others: public indifference. “I think people don’t care,” he said in September when asked whether voters wanted him to release his tax returns. “Nobody cares,” he reiterated to 60 Minutes in November. Conflicts of interest with foreign investments? Trump tweeted on November 21 that he didn’t believe voters cared about that either: “Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!”
The article is enormous, and is practically the definition of “tl;dr” for many people under normal circumstances. The point he eventually gets to: 20th century fascism is like “cranking a gramophone, or dancing the turkey trot”, and that many countries throughout people are losing their taste for democracy.
Frum cites “How Democracies Fall Apart; Why Populism Is a Pathway to Autocracy”, written by Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz for Foreign Affairs magazine in December 2016.
“Populist-fueled democratic backsliding is difficult to counter,” wrote [the authors]. “Because it is subtle and incremental, there is no single moment that triggers widespread resistance or creates a focal point around which an opposition can coalesce … Piecemeal democratic erosion, therefore, typically provokes only fragmented resistance.” Their observation was rooted in the experiences of countries ranging from the Philippines to Hungary. It could apply here too.
In the dystopian vision, Trump will lead by example. People will witness Trump taking billions, and skim millions for themselves. The danger we face is Trump establishing graft as the new norm.
Is Donald Trump a fascist? Frum says it’s complicated. The strongarming and corruption at this scale is deeply troubling and shares elements with old-fashioned fascism as we fear it. However, fascism glorifies toughness and self-reliance, whereas Donald is a needy, whiny person, so there’s something “incongruous and even absurd about applying the sinister label of fascist to Donald Trump”.
Trump could inflict permanent damage to the United States as a world leader. Frum points out that optimism and opportunism may breed complacency. We’ve long had the ethos of a country that celebrates the rule of law, and that the rules matter more than the outcomes.
We hope that conservatives don’t want to be complicit in the destruction of our values. The right framing will be important to convincing them to intervene. Frum provides an answer for that:
Perhaps the words of a founding father of modern conservatism, Barry Goldwater, offer guidance. “If I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ ” Goldwater wrote in The Conscience of a Conservative, “I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.” These words should be kept in mind by those conservatives who think a tax cut or health-care reform a sufficient reward for enabling the slow rot of constitutional government.
Frum’s article is really important. I’ve been obsessing over it for the past couple of days, and put together a shorter version of it: "David Frum buries the tweet". I appreciate the irony of linking y’all from a summary to a longer summary in the name of “simplification”, but I think once you read Frum’s article, I hope you’ll understand. Please do.