Trump's authoritarian promises

Promising to go harder than ever, if he's given power again:

"Trump plans to root out disloyal bureaucrats and install ideologically sympathetic ones. He’s speaking openly of using the Justice Department to target his opponents, including to hobble possible political opponents. And that’s just to name two recent examples [of authoritarian behavior].

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Back in early 2016, political scientist and consultant Matthew MacWilliams identified support for authoritarian tendencies as a key indicator of support for Trump among Republican primary voters. Before the 2020 election, he revisited the idea, noting that 'approximately 18 percent of Americans are highly disposed to authoritarianism, according to their answers to four simple survey questions used by social scientists to estimate this disposition.'"

— "A lot of Americans embrace Trump’s authoritarianism," Analysis by Philip Bump, Washington Post, November 10, 2023

Here's what Trump said on an interview that Univision aired a couple days ago:

"During the interview on the Spanish-language TV network, journalist Enrique Acevedo asked Trump if he would weaponize the FBI and Justice Department on his opponents in the same way he claims federal law enforcement agencies have been weaponized against him.

“Yeah. If they do this, and they’ve already done it, but if they follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump told Acevedo, according to excerpts of the interview."

— "Trump says on Univision he could weaponize FBI, DOJ against his enemies" (unpaywalled subscriber gift link). During a sit-down interview with the Spanish television giant, the former president also defended migrant family separations at the border, Maegan Vazquez, Washington Post, November 9, 2023

“What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box,” Trump told Univision, falsely blaming the Democrats for creating the precedent. (HuffPost) (The Democrats did not indict Trump. Law enforcement authorities did.)

"'That's insane': CNN panel on what Trump said he would do if re-elected" (2:04 video)
"CNN This Morning" panel discusses Donald Trump's interview with Univision, in which the former president hinted he would weaponize the Department of Justice against political enemies if re-elected."

I've written about The Narrative of the January 6th Committee (unpaywalled friend link on Medium).

"MAGA isn’t interested in winning elections or connecting with Americans outside of their base. Trump and the coalition that supports him are anti-democratic. As I’ve written previously, they’ve essentially given up on winning free and fair elections. Trump’s rhetoric is particularly explicit, telling his followers in speeches that they don’t have to worry about voting and should focus on watching Biden voters and sharing memes that call for the arrest of poll workers. Trump and the GOP have also stopped talking to voters outside of the MAGA Cinematic Universe, and that conversation has become so extreme and so insular it’s difficult for anyone else to follow, even if they’re interested in what MAGA has to say."
— "Opportunity knocks once in a lifetime: Election Day is one year out. Here are five opportunities we can take advantage of." Melissa Ryan. Ctrl Alt Right Delete. November 5, 2023.

And on November 11 at a speech in New Hampshire, "Trump said if he wins back the White House in 2024, he would 'root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream.'" Fascism expert Jason Stanley said: "It doesn’t echo ‘Mein Kampf’ ― this is textbook ‘Mein Kampf.’" Stanley said: "Any antisemite will hear this vocabulary as directed against Jews." — HuffPost

He's waiting to see if the party insiders have a limit:

"Rachel Maddow said Donald Trump is testing the GOP with his use of Nazi-esque rhetoric because it’s the only institution that can now hold him to account.

'That is him testing the political party that he says he’s going to lead' just 'one year out from the election, to see what they will tolerate as an institution,' the MSNBC anchor explained Monday [November 13, 2023]."

— Rachel Maddow Says 'Every Single' Republican Must Answer This, HuffPost

He's waiting to see if the public has a limit:

"...the politics of immigration can be peculiar. The public tends to turn on the president in power when the situation on the border goes wrong, leading voters to seek a diametrically different approach — no matter what policies the incumbent has adopted or what their opponent proposes.

In political science jargon, these wild swings against prevailing policy are known as 'thermostatic' public opinion. This is particularly pronounced on immigration given its fiendish complexities, meaning disapproval of the incumbent could allow Trump to win even though he is campaigning on an extreme alternative.

That second-term agenda would revolve around what the New York Times calls 'giant camps.' While detention centers already exist, the Times reports that Trump and adviser Stephen Miller envision a vastly expanded network that would facilitate the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, including longtime residents with deep ties to communities."

"Trump’s plan for giant detention camps points to a brutal 2024 reality" (subscriber gift link), opinion by Greg Sargent, Washington Post, November 14, 2023