Why another Trump term will be worse than the first | Electronic sponsor

CHICAGO: Will a second Donald Trump presidency really threaten American democracy? Influential commentators have suggested that the former president is too “weak”, too desperate for popularity, or simply not “smart” enough to be a dictator. But there is no real precedent in American history, and recent experience in other countries suggests that a political movement with authoritarian tendencies will become more ruthless and effective the second time around—especially after losing an election.

Here’s how it usually happens: a new leader or a new party gains power in a country only to suffer a bitter election defeat after one term. This experience has a radicalizing effect, and the party or leader is determined never to lose again. When a party wins a second time, it quickly begins to destroy institutions and rules that could threaten its power.

Exhibit A is Viktor Orban, whose Fidesz party governed Hungary twice. For the first time, between 1998 and 2002, Orbán generally acted as a conventional economic conservative. Although he somewhat restrained democratic norms, he never went beyond the European mainstream. But after defeat in 2002, Fidesz spent eight years in opposition. When Orbán returned to power in 2010, he was determined never to be defeated again. By manipulating the legislature, changing voter selection rules, and hijacking the election commission, courts, and state media, he made it virtually impossible for the opposition to win.

A similar story played out in Poland under the Law and Justice (PiS) government. Founded by twin brothers Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, the PiS party first came to power between 2005 and 2007, when it was part of a coalition that focused on economic inequality and traditional Catholic values. But after the party was removed from power in 2007 and Lech died in a plane crash in Russia in 2010, Yaroslav began to speak out against real and imagined enemies. When PiS won an absolute parliamentary majority in 2015, it turned its attention to dismantling Poland’s democratic institutions.

Among other things, the PiS government convened a Constitutional Tribunal, redrawn the electoral map and took control of the media commission and judicial appointments. State media became a tool of PiS, and opposition parties lost their traditional roles in parliamentary committees, depriving them of a platform to criticize the government. But unlike Fidesz, PiS’s efforts to change the electoral playing field were not enough. In October 2023, she lost power to a coalition of pro-European and democratic parties.

Finally, consider the Indian Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although it briefly tasted power as a small part of a wider coalition government in 1989, its first solo spell in power was between 1999 and 2004. Its then leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee focused on economic liberalization and improving relations with Pakistan and China. , and any efforts to “saffronize” the country remained limited.

Like Fidesz and PiS, the BDP ultimately lost power in fair elections. But in 2014, Narendra Modi led the party to a landslide victory. As chief minister of Gujarat, he previously presided over rapid economic growth and anti-Muslim riots that left up to 2,000 people dead. Since becoming prime minister, he redoubled efforts at economic liberalization, but also undermined the independence of the press, attacked critics of the BJP and turned a blind eye to violence by Hindu social movements against Muslims and other perceived enemies.

Then, in 2019, Modi revoked the special constitutional status of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir and imposed direct military rule, while also pushing through a new citizenship law that disenfranchised some Muslims, making it harder to defeat the BJP. Even though the BJP fell short of its ambitions in the general elections earlier this year, international observers now classify Modi’s India as an electoral autocracy rather than a full democracy.

The common element in these three cases is a charismatic leader who rejects the idea that his opponents can ever be trusted with power. Defeat is the midwife of anti-democratic rage. When an authoritarian movement gains control of the state machinery for the second time, inexperience no longer prevents it from attacking institutions directly.

The parallels between these cases and Trump’s MAGA movement should be obvious. Like the reformed BDP, PiS and Fidesz, today’s Republican Party represents a sharp departure from its recent past. As American parties have often done, it has undergone a profound metamorphosis. He is now different from his Reagan-era incarnation.

Of course, there are continuities between Trump’s racial rhetoric and the Republican Southern strategy of the 1970s and 1980s, but in 2016, Trump was a political outsider who broke—and then simply broke—the party establishment. The 2024 Republican National Convention showcased a personalist party fundamentally different from the Republican Party of 2008 or 2012.

As with Fidesz, PiS and the BDP, MAGA was a new movement in 2016. It clearly did not know how to effectively operate the levers of government and, as a result, faced resistance on all fronts. However, if given another chance, he would benefit from the experience. Beyond Trump, related institutions such as the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025 plan are much more prepared than they were in January 2017.

Moreover, as in the case of Fidesz, PiS and the BDP, defeat in the elections did not soften the temperament of the Republicans. Rank-and-file Republicans continue to reward failed candidates who share Trump’s anti-democratic beliefs and will join him in refusing to concede defeat in a fair election. The movement’s admiration for Orbán is emblematic of this trend. Trump’s nominee J.D. Vance, right-wing luminaries such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, and the Conservative Political Action Conference (which meets in Budapest in 2022) all hail Orbán as the vanguard of an insurgent global illiberalism.

The Republican Party has already advanced far along the path taken in Hungary, Poland and India. Whatever Trump’s personal limitations, he now leads a movement with enormous talent and experience. By learning from this experience, as well as from similar movements elsewhere, another Trump administration will be much more effective in wielding and maintaining power.

Tom Ginsburg, professor of international law and professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is a research professor at the American Bar Foundation. Aziz Huq is a law professor at the University of Chicago and author of The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Copyright Project Syndicate 2024.

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