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Fascism, and a Small Thing You Can Do Right Now
Part #7 of a series on the 2020 U.S. election crisis
In the previous articles, I discussed Trump’s financial interests in maintaining the presidency, the foreign help he’s getting in the election, his attempt to delay or suppress the Biden vote while encouraging his supporters to vote early and often, how a victor might be declared, and what might happen — procedurally or violently — during the transition period. In this article, the final one in this series, I’ll look at the risk that U.S. democracy may soon disappear altogether.
This series of articles was first published on October 2 and was updated on October 17.
The United States may rapidly slide into autocracy
A quantitative project called Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) finds that the United States is experiencing “substantial autocratization” especially during the Trump administration. Historically, this process leads to autocracy for 4 of 5 democracies. The project’s director, Staffan I. Lindberg, says that, if Trump wins reelection, U.S. democracy will be gone within two years. If Biden wins reelection, there is at least a chance, however small, that the process can be reversed.
This is not just a matter of the United States becoming “less democratic.” The United States is on the precipice of losing all semblance of democracy.
