Science Tells Us the U.S. Is Heading toward a Dictatorship
The red flags abound—political research tells us the U.S. is becoming an autocracyAs president, Donald Trump pretty much checks all the warning boxes for an autocrat. Last September Scientific American warned of Trump’s “nonsensical conspiracy fantasies,” that he “ignores the climate crisis” and has fondness for “unqualified ideologues,” whom he would appoint should he become president again. It’s now May and sadly, that all checks out.
The U.S. is in a bad place and, scholars warn, looks to be headed for worse.
Worse even than Trump’s relentless attacks on science have been his administration’s assaults on the law. His officials have illegally fired federal workers, impounded congressional appropriations and seized people off the street for deportations to foreign prisons, threatening the same for all U.S. citizens. “The depth and breadth of this administration’s disregard for civil liberties, political pluralism, the separation of powers and legal constraints of all kinds mark it as an authoritarian regime,” law professor David Pozen of the Columbia University School of Law told the New York Times in April.“Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, the country has embarked on the slippery slope toward autocracy,” concludes political scientist Daniel Stockemer of the University of Ottawa, in a May report in Politics & Policy. Rather than a coup, Trump’s attacks on law firms, universities, immigrants and others constitute “a more incremental form of democratic erosion,” he writes, one that follows a six-step theory of incremental autocratization based on research on the democratic backsliding seen worldwide in recent decades.
“If my theory is correct, the U.S. is still in this transition phase between democracy and autocracy,” says Stockemer, by e-mail. “If they move more in the direction of autocracy, we would see that the administration tries to defy more court orders.” One key part of the fourth step is the declaration of fabricated emergencies, such as the “red scare” of the McCarthy era, to trample checks and balances, such as the judiciary’s control of the legal system.
Even so, the damage already done is real: “It is very easy to destroy something such as USAID, but it takes a long time to rebuild it both physically and also in a trust sense, both in America and abroad,” says Stockemer, noting the rapid plummet of Canadian attitudes toward the U.S., from positive to sharply negative. “I can tear down a house in a day, but it will take a year or longer to rebuild it.” (emphasis added)
The threat of a kleptocratic djt dictatorship cannot be much clearer . . . . to some people. PRRI comments on one of its polls about who sees what:
WASHINGTON (April 29, 2025)— A new PRRI survey of more than 5,000 adults finds that while only 16% of Americans openly express regret about their 2024 presidential voting decision, Americans largely oppose President Donald Trump’s actions during his first 100 days in office. Most notably, a majority (52%) of Americans agree that “President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy,” compared with 44% who agree that “President Trump is a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.” Among Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 and regret their decision, 55% agree that Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited.
2024 election national exit poll data indicated that 73% of voters believed American democracy was under threat, while 25% considered it to be secure. Fact-checked Pxy comments on expert opinion:
High Confidence Claims: Overwhelming expert consensus (~90%) identifies specific Trump administration actions as threats to democracy. Broad expert agreement on declining democratic performance during Trump’s second term.
Based on available expert survey data, approximately 85-90% of democracy experts and political scientists identify Trump and MAGA as the primary authoritarian threat to American democracy, while fewer than 15% identify Democrats or socialism as comparable institutional threats.
The most robust finding is that expert consensus overwhelmingly identifies specific Trump administration actions as threatening democratic norms and institutions, with measurable declines in expert assessments of American democratic performance since Trump’s return to office in 2025. Expert identification of left-wing authoritarianism exists primarily at the individual psychological level rather than as systematic institutional threats to democratic governance.
Some see djt and MAGA as the threat. Others see Democrats and their socialist tyranny as the threat. Some or most of the rank and file MAGA appear to be having a very hard time seeing djt and MAGA elites as a threat. The MAGA rank and file see their leaders as saviors of democracy and freedom.
There we have it. This is how the American experiment in self-governance, democracy and the rule of law and our precious civil liberties is coming to a sleazy end. Maybe voters in the 2026 mid-terms will stop it, but maybe they won’t.
Q: Why do you think that for many years, authoritarian radical right propaganda and demagoguery attacked (1) experts and their credibility, and (2) an alleged but mostly (~95% ?) false threat of socialist tyranny?