Campaign 2016 Trump. Paul Sancya AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved. The actions of civil society organizations that oppose Trump are the real key to preventing autocracy in America. Trump single-handedly moved American electoral politics into troubling territory for the first time in living memory by using many tactics beloved by autocrats. He claimed that the elections would be rigged without producing any evidence. He indicated he would not support the election results if he lost. He threatened to imprison his rival Hillary Clinton. He questioned the impartiality of judges and citizens in general based on their ethnic and religious backgrounds. He also threatened media outlets and journalists with civil suits and sought to discredit every source of information and fact checking that criticised him.
Coupled with a penchant for praising foreign autocrats such as Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Saddam Hussein, Trump exhibited a disdain for democracy that has caused prominent intellectuals and academics to already declare that his presidency heralds ‘the end of the American republic’. Systematic study of Latin America reveals that weak normative commitment to democracy on behalf of political leaders and their ruling clique predicts democratic breakdown.
Trump’s rise, however, must be placed in the context of legitimate grievances that many Americans have with regard to economic inequality which has been on the rise in the United States for over three decades. Today, America’s rich have gotten richer, its poor poorer and its middle class hollowed out. Political thinkers as far back as Aristotle claim that economic inequality makes democracy impossible as it bifurcates societal relations between a fearful elite and jealous citizenry. Modern econometric analysis lends credence to this ancient prediction: economic inequality is a strong predictor of democratic breakdown. The United States is the most unequal country in the west, which puts it highly at risk of democratic breakdown.
