“Disgustingly Authoritarian”: Donald Trump’s Dictatorial Conduct Threatens American Democracy

By Alana Pockros\The Nation As of late, the cable news channels have stopped irresponsibly airing Donald Trump’s rallies in full. The result is that we have heard a lot about Trump but not as much from him. While this avoids giving the former president billions of dollars’ worth of advertising, this deplatforming strategy has still failed to blunt his rise. Last week, during a speech in Dayton, Ohio, he announced to a crowd of fans, “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be…a bloodbath for the country,” just before praising the MAGA “martyrs” who stormed the Capitol on January 6. Many Trump defenders were quick to say that he was not calling for another insurrection. It’s almost funny, Jeet Heer writes, as “there is something a little bit ridiculous in saying that a crude, scattershot, and digressive speaker like Donald Trump has to be treated with exegetical care, with particular attention to nuance and context.” Regardless of the connotations, Heer explains, the point here is less about quibbling with Trump’s intent and more about emphasizing the real threat of his campaign: that he’s “disgustingly authoritarian.” Trump is not hiding his desire to become a dictator. Before the Dayton...