Simmering dictatorship concerns

NPR reports about concern about the threat of a Trump dictatorship. The issue is still just simmering quietly. We have not yet reached a point of boiling over and erupting public sentiment. Arguably, too many Americans remain insufficiently concerned to lurch into hair-on-fire mode or something vigorous like that. Of course, we won't know what the level of activity in the soup pot full of frogs amounts to until the 2026 mid-terms. That assumes Trump won't cancel them, or much more likely, subvert them and declare MAGA politicians the winners and Dems the losers.

The NPR article says that Sweden's V-Dem Institute, which monitors global democracy, says the US now is an "electoral autocracy." According to V-Dem, 45 countries are in the process of “autocratizing.” The number of autocracies exceeds democracies. 

Electoral autocracy is a hybrid political system where multiparty elections exist and formally determine who governs, but the playing field is so heavily tilted, and liberal‑democratic safeguards so weakened, that the system is effectively authoritarian. India is an example.

Arguably, the NPR article and the experts it quotes continue to understate the gravity and urgency of the threat. A Trump and MAGA elite-driven authoritarian state arising in the US is the undeniable goal of kleptocratic, bigoted MAGA wealth and power politics. Because of that, Dissident Politics gives this NPR reporting a grade of F.