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For the second day in a row, President Donald Trump has felt the need to assure Americans that, no, he is not a dictator.
“I’m not a dictator. I just know how to stop crime,” he said at an hourslong Cabinet meeting at the White House, where he held forth at great length and many of his Cabinet secretaries celebrated him with over-the-top paeans.
The question of whether Trump is trying to be a dictator has come up this week as he appears to be looking for new cities where he can dispatch the National Guard. These are places such as Chicago, where democratically elected local officials don’t want federal troops on patrol and don’t feel that their crime rates justify such an emergency action.
“If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is: a dangerous power grab,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday. He called Trump a “wannabe dictator.”
Trump on Monday clarified that he thinks a lot of people might actually like to have a dictator in the US, as long as streets were safe. But he does not seem to want to deploy the National Guard to cities in red states, which suggests his current military moves have at least something to do with politics and imposing his power over people in states that have voted against him.
Much of his second presidency so far has been about consolidating power.
Just this week he has announced the government is taking a stake in Intel, the foundering tech company, which is more in line with Trump’s nationalism than it is with American capitalism.
He is trying to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over issues with her mortgages — even though she has not been officially accused of any wrongdoing — in an apparent effort to exert more control over the Federal Reserve.
But the consolidation of Trump’s power extends to most of his presidency.
Taking power from Congress. Lawmakers are supposed to have the power to regulate international trade, but Trump wields tariffs as a weapon and sets the rates himself.
Expecting help from the courts. He has made clear that he expects the Supreme Court justices he appointed to fall in line with his challenges to the separation of powers, and they have frequently complied.
Installing loyalists. He is actively trying to deconstruct the federal bureaucracy and insisting that new bureaucrats express support specifically for his policy positions.
Controlling information. He fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics when he disapproved of a less-than-stellar jobs report. His administration has also tried to delete the very idea of climate change from the federal government.
Imposing his will over the arts. He has essentially taken over the Kennedy Center.
Rewriting history. See efforts to change exhibits at the Smithsonian.
Purging top general officers from the military. Retired Gen. David Petraeus said the number of fired general offers is concerning and “unprecedented.”
Targeting political enemies. Trump has frequently called for investigations into his political opponents. The Department of Justice appears to be answering some of those calls.
Seeking advantage in the coming elections. Trump has pushed for red states to create more Republican seats in Congress and threatened to sue when blue states try to do the same. The list goes on.
All of these moves relate to control and power. But Trump is not a dictator, according to Daniel Treisman, a professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles and co-author of the book “Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st century.”
I put some questions about dictatorship to Treisman by email. His answers are below.
Trump says he’s not a dictator. Is he right?
TREISMAN: Yes, he is a president who was elected in a mostly free and fair election. And he is still subject to numerous checks and balances from other institutions and constitutional actors. Whether he would like to become a dictator is another question — the answer to which only he knows for sure.
Democrats such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker say Trump is a “wannabe dictator.” Are they right?
TREISMAN: Only Trump knows his true aim, but he is certainly challenging or ignoring constitutional restrictions that previous presidents took for granted.
How has the definition of dictator evolved over time?
TREISMAN: In ancient Rome, a dictator was a leader who was temporarily given supreme power at a time of emergency to resolve a specific crisis. These days, “dictator” is used to refer to leaders in non-democracies. The term is treated as synonymous with “autocrat” or “authoritarian.” Modern dictators are leaders who have seized power unconstitutionally rather than being elected, or else who have eroded institutional constraints and consolidated power to the point that they cannot be removed through peaceful political processes.
Are there specific, defining characteristics of a modern dictator?
TREISMAN: Modern dictators either seize power without election or, having come to power democratically, undermine electoral institutions so that they are almost guaranteed to win. They generally consolidate control, intimidating or coopting the legislature, courts, media and other power centers, so that they are not constrained by other actors.
When most people think of dictators, they think of Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini. You’ve argued that today’s dictators wear suits and control information rather than wear military uniforms and control everyday life. Does that weaken the idea of dictatorship?
TREISMAN: There is a new, increasingly prevalent model of democracy that competes with the old, more openly brutal approach. This model, which my co-author Sergei Guriev and I call “spin dictatorship,” is based more on manipulating media, emphasizing external threats, and pretending to be democratic. The old-type “fear dictators” used more overt repression and violence to intimidate the public — very large numbers of political prisoners and state killings. Although they use different techniques, both types are dictators in the sense that they seek to monopolize political power and hold office indefinitely, without checks and balances or fair elections.
If people are generally free in their daily lives, why is it fair to label autocratic leaders today as dictators?
TREISMAN: Dictatorship is a kind of political rule — rule by a self-appointed or irremovable leader who is not subject to voters or constitutional restraints (although some might pretend to be). Some dictators allow a certain sphere of freedom in daily life. They are authoritarian but not totalitarian. Still, even under a generally benevolent dictator (and there aren’t many of these), citizens do not have the security that comes from living in a state with reliable rule of law. They are vulnerable to the whims of those in power. And they do not have the freedom to collectively reject their ruler.
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