What Are the Symptoms of a Dictatorship?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "What Are the Symptoms of a Dictatorship?"

Podcast: What A Day
Host: Jane Coaston
Produced by: Crooked Media
Release Date: November 16, 2024

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Introduction

In the episode titled "What Are the Symptoms of a Dictatorship?", hosts Max Fisher and Erin Ryan delve into the pressing question: How will we know if Trump is actually endangering our democracy? Through a comprehensive discussion, they explore the subtle and overt actions that could signal a shift towards authoritarianism, drawing parallels with global examples and providing expert insights to help listeners remain vigilant.

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Defining the Threat: Trump and Democratic Erosion

The conversation opens with Max Fisher referencing a [00:17] clip of Sean Hannity attempting to reassure listeners that Donald Trump does not intend to become a dictator. However, the hosts express skepticism, pointing out the inconsistencies and concerning policies Trump has advocated.

Erin Ryan highlights, "Trump mostly promised a more extreme version of his first term, which was very bad, but didn't end democracy as we know it." Max Fisher concurs, noting that even Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election failed to dismantle democratic processes entirely, though concerns remain.

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Identifying Authoritarian Indicators

Fisher and Ryan introduce the concept that authoritarianism doesn't always manifest through overt actions like military coups but can instead emerge gradually through systemic changes. They discuss the importance of recognizing [02:00] subtle shifts that might erode democratic foundations without immediate drastic alterations.

Tom Papinski, a political scientist at Cornell, is brought into the conversation to shed light on these nuanced changes. He emphasizes that "ordinary citizens are going to have to become very savvy at identifying when the barest foundations of democracy have been affected" [07:21].

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Strategies for Undermining Democracy

The hosts outline several alarming strategies Trump has proposed, which could pave the way for authoritarian rule:

• Control Over the Justice Department: Trump has promised to take personal control, potentially directing it to prosecute political rivals [03:22].

• Media Regulation: Threatening punitive regulations on media companies that report unfavorably on him [03:22].

• Use of Military Against Domestic Opponents: Pledging to deploy the military against perceived threats within the country [03:22].

• Civil Servant Purges: Plans to remove tens of thousands of civil servants from independent agencies and replace them with loyalists [03:22].

Sean Hannity's clips reinforce these points, demonstrating the rhetoric aimed at justifying such measures [00:17], [05:42], [11:31].

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Comparative Analysis: Global Authoritarian Regimes

Drawing parallels with international figures like Viktor Orbán of Hungary and leaders in Turkey and Russia, the hosts illustrate how gradual and legally veiled methods can dismantle democratic institutions without overt displays of force.

Sean Hannity’s endorsement of Orbán underscores the admiration some American conservatives may have for established authoritarian leaders [05:42].

Tom Papinski explains that in these countries, authoritarianism often starts with "national conservatism," where the government uses its power to reshape culture and society [19:28]. This involves enforcing an official ideology and using legal and financial tools to manipulate institutions subtly [09:53], [10:40].

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Mechanisms of Institutional Compliance

A critical concept discussed is "institutional compliance," where leaders like Trump exert pressure through vague threats rather than direct orders, leading institutions to self-regulate in ways that favor authoritarian agendas.

Tom Papinski elaborates, "they are using the tools of the legal system and the mechanisms of finance and taxation to encourage institutions to behave in certain ways" [09:53].

Examples include:

• Regulating Social Media: Trump’s administration pressured platforms like Facebook to alter their algorithms to favor pro-Trump content [08:10].

• Educational Policies: Laws such as Florida's ban on promoting social activism in colleges, echoing Hungary's actions against universities [10:56], [11:10].

Max Fisher highlights Trump's threats to institutions like the Department of Education as part of a broader agenda to consolidate power [19:02].

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Potential Pathways to Authoritarianism

The conversation outlines various pathways through which Trump could further undermine democratic institutions:

• Mass Deportations: Utilizing immigration policies as a tool to exert control and justify increased governmental power [13:27].

• Election Manipulation: Installing election denialists in key positions to undermine electoral integrity [21:07].

• Federal Control Over Independent Bodies: Attempts to influence or control organizations like the Federal Reserve and the Department of Education [21:40], [20:24].

Project 2025 is mentioned as a plan to label left-wing groups as terrorist organizations, further criminalizing dissent [22:32].

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Expert Insights: Recognizing and Resisting Authoritarianism

Tom Papinski offers valuable advice on identifying early signs of authoritarianism, emphasizing the importance of staying informed and vigilant. He notes that changes are often "subtle regulatory changes" affecting unions, educational institutions, and the marketplace of ideas [12:55].

The hosts discuss actionable steps individuals and institutions can take to resist these erosive tactics, such as maintaining institutional independence and fostering environments where diverse ideas can thrive without fear of retribution.

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Conclusion: The Importance of Vigilance and Collective Action

Max Fisher and Erin Ryan conclude by reiterating the significance of recognizing gradual shifts towards authoritarianism. They stress that while the transformation may be slow and often imperceptible, collective awareness and resistance can prevent the erosion of democratic values.

Tom Papinski's perspective that authoritarian changes are "mostly boring and tolerable" [24:31] serves as a cautionary reminder that complacency can lead to the unintentional acceptance of diminishing freedoms.

The episode ultimately serves as a call to action for listeners to remain engaged, informed, and proactive in defending democratic institutions against subtle but significant threats.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Sean Hannity: "Under no circumstances you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody." [00:26]

• Max Fisher: "Even when he tried to overturn the 2020 election, democracy kept chugging along." [01:42]

• Tom Papinski: "You might not know. You may not have a single indicator that is able to tell you that we have crossed some line." [07:21]

• Sean Hannity: "I will direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination." [11:44]

• Tom Papinski: "What you see really is nothing for most people's daily lives. The changes are either zero or very minor." [24:04]

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This episode of What A Day provides a thorough exploration of the subtle mechanisms through which democratic institutions can be undermined. By drawing on expert insights and real-world examples, Fisher and Ryan equip listeners with the knowledge to identify and resist potential authoritarian shifts within the United States.

Transcript

[Max Fisher]

So, Erin, there's this clip of Donald Trump from about a year ago that I keep thinking about.

[Erin Ryan]

Max, I think I know where you're going with this. And I'm so glad we're finally going to do an episode investigating why Trump thinks that magnets don't work underwater.

[Max Fisher]

Wait, sorry, magnets?

[Erin Ryan]

You didn't hear this one. He went like on and on about it at a rally.

[Max Fisher]

I. Okay, no, I'm thinking about a different moment. This was Fox News host Sean Hannity trying to handhold Trump into saying that he won't be a dictator. Do you remember this?

[Sean Hannity]

Under no circumstances you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. Except for day one. Except for, look, he's going crazy. Except for day one. Meaning I want to close the border and I want to drill.

[Max Fisher]

That's not retribution.

[Sean Hannity]

I'm going to be, I'm going to be. You know, he keeps, we love this guy. He says, you're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no. Other than day one, we're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling after that. I'm not a dictator.

[Max Fisher]

Ok, that sounds to me like you're.

[Sean Hannity]

Going back to the policies when you were president.

[Tom Papinski]

All right, that's exactly.

[Erin Ryan]

Ok. First of all, drilling, you can't just do it in a day.

[Max Fisher]

I know. That's also not what being a dictator is.

[Erin Ryan]

No, that's a weird definition of being a dictator. Somebody's going to pull him aside and be like, hey, dude, this is why.

[Max Fisher]

I keep thinking about it. I think a lot of us are feeling torn between, on the one hand, everybody from Joe Biden to Trump's own former chief of staff, John Kelly, warning us that Trump is going to be a dictator.

[Erin Ryan]

But on the Trump mostly promised a more extreme version of his first term, which was very bad, but didn't end democracy as we know it. Mostly because he was too inept a boss to build a team cohesive enough to do it right.

[Max Fisher]

Even when he tried to overturn the 2020 election, democracy kept chugging along. Kind of.

[Erin Ryan]

But that's not making me less worried.

[Max Fisher]

This is what I mean. We all get that Trump is a threat to democracy. Even Sean Hannity knows it. But we have this all or nothing way of talking about it that feels like it doesn't quite fit.

[Erin Ryan]

There's probably a third option between Trump becoming a full on dictator or democracy being hunky dory.

[Max Fisher]

There is? Yes. It's a third option that can be hard to recognize if you don't know what to look for, but that Trump has a pretty explicit plan to carry out and would fundamentally change how our country works. And when you know it, it's what our episode is about today.

[Erin Ryan]

Okay. But we're definitely circling back to the magnets thing.

[Max Fisher]

I'm Max Fisher.

[Erin Ryan]

I'm Erin Ryan. And this is how we got here. A series where we explore a big question behind the week's head and tell a story that answers that question.

[Max Fisher]

Our question this week, how will we know if Trump is actually endangering our democracy?

[Erin Ryan]

What to expect when you're expecting fascism?

[Max Fisher]

Well, that's the thing. However bad it does or doesn't get, it probably won't look like what we imagine when we think of words like fascism.

[Erin Ryan]

Well, first of all, they don't have the graphic design.

[Max Fisher]

I know the Italian fascists, they had it.

[Erin Ryan]

Type fast. They had it. They had a real. You gotta hand it to.

[Max Fisher]

They had some style.

[Erin Ryan]

They had some typeface. They had some uniforms. I would say the American right lacks fashion sense and also a sense of design.

[Max Fisher]

They don't have that graphic design, which is crucial.

[Erin Ryan]

No, no, crucial. But when people like John Kelly call Trump a fascist, they're talking about his impulses and values. They're not saying he's gonna put tanks in the street and declare himself dictator.

[Max Fisher]

For life, which is not really how authoritarianism works anymore anyway. It's an outdated image. But to be clear, what Trump is promising to do would be authoritarianism.

[Erin Ryan]

So let's remind our listeners what Trump's promises are.

[Max Fisher]

Sure. He has promised to take personal control of the Justice Department, which would allow him to direct it to prosecute Democrats and political rivals, as he has also promised to do. He's threatened to impose punishing regulations on media companies that report critically on him. He said he would deploy the military against, quote, unquote, the enemy within and the radical left, which he has previously defined as meaning peaceful protesters and Democrats. He's also pledged to use the military to deport millions of people, including legal immigrants. And he's promised to purge tens of thousands of civil servants from independent government agencies, including the top ranks of the military, to be replaced by political loyalists.

[Erin Ryan]

Okay, an appropriate music cue for that paragraph would have been the Star Wars Imperial March, which, by the way, I just listened to it did not have to go that hard. John Williams made it slap. So hard. But we don't have the budget to license John Williams, unfortunately. Unfortunately. Okay. Because that does sound awfully fascist.

[Max Fisher]

Right. Which brings us back to our big question. Is he a dictator or is this just a lot of hot air from someone who doesn't really understand how to work the levers of power?

[Erin Ryan]

I do think there's some danger in focusing so much on the worst case scenarios that we don't notice the smaller ways he could chip away at democracy.

[Max Fisher]

I have spent a lot of time reporting in countries that elected people like Trump, and that gradual chipping away is how they all got turned slowly but steadily from genuine democracies to places we now consider to be authoritarian, or at least no longer fully democratic.

[Erin Ryan]

You're thinking of places like Turkey or Hungary, right?

[Max Fisher]

Venezuela, India, Russia, once upon a time. But because the process was so gradual, and it happened mostly with leaders tinkering around with the mechanics of their country's political systems rather than doing anything as dramatic as a military coup, most people didn't even notice that their democracy was being taken away from them until one day they woke up and realized it was gone.

[Erin Ryan]

Max, do you remember that viral video of the woman doing the workup video in front of the tanks going toward.

[Max Fisher]

The gates in Myanmar? Yes. Incredible. That is not how it is going to play out, but it was an Incredible moment in 21st century, one of.

[Erin Ryan]

The most cinematic moments of a coup ever. And we never get those. We never get them.

[Max Fisher]

But big me vibes for sure, 100%.

[Erin Ryan]

But just so that people don't think we're being hyperbolic about comparing Trump's second term agenda to the soft authoritarian takeovers we're seeing around the world, here's a clip of Trump comparing himself to Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban.

[Sean Hannity]

As president, I was proud to work with Prime Minister Orban, by the way, a great man to advance the values and interests of our two nations. We cracked down on illegal immigration, protected our borders, created jobs and defended our traditions. And Judeo Christian values, that's so important. Judeo Christian values.

[Erin Ryan]

He repeated Judeo Christian values, which is a tell that he just learned that word. That was from Trump's video Love Letter to Orban, aired at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Hungary this spring.

[Max Fisher]

That line about protecting Judeo Christian values is important for understanding how this works. A leader like Orban or Trump will claim to fight for the quote, unquote, real Hungarians or the real Americans against the fifth column enemy within. And it doesn't really matter if those enemies are immigrants or religious minorities of the deep state. The point is creating an excuse to clamp down on dissent and seize control of independent institutions bit by bit.

[Erin Ryan]

So, Max, here's the thing. I believe that Trump would love to be a dictator, and I believe that he admires strong men like Orban and Putin. But that's not the same thing as Trump actually taking America down that same road.

[Max Fisher]

Totally. And I wanted to understand how to identify the early stops on that road and where it leads. So I called up a guy named Tom Papinski. Tom is a political scientist at Cornell who spent time in countries that go down this path. And he's written about how life there doesn't resemble what most Americans think of when we picture autocratic backsliding, which is part of why it's hard for us to spot it.

[Erin Ryan]

Okay, so what should we look for?

[Max Fisher]

I asked Tom that how will we know if this is happening? And here's what he said.

[Tom Papinski]

The answer is that you might not know. You may not have a single indicator that is able to tell you that we have crossed some line. And I think ordinary citizens are going to have to become very savvy at identifying when the barest foundations of democracy have been affected. So, for example, if the government establishes that there is one social media organization which is acknowledged as the official place that public communications happen, that would be a bad piece of information. If there were a law passed, for example, that a newspaper that is incorporated in any state in the United States may not endorse candidates, that is how you would know.

[Erin Ryan]

Okay, just want to jump in here. It doesn't feel very likely that we'll wake up one day next year and learn that Trump has banned every social media platform except Twitter.

[Max Fisher]

It doesn't? No.

[Erin Ryan]

But he did a softer version of this in his first term, threatening social media companies with punitive regulations unless they promised to tilt their platforms in his favor.

[Max Fisher]

He did, and it worked. Meta deliberately engineered its algorithm on Facebook and Instagram to boost Trump and MAGA aligned voices. And that, to be clear, is not just me speculating. We know this from the company's own internal documents and testim from people who were in the room when that happened. Trump also pressured the company into setting special moderation rules that gave pro Trump people special leeway in spreading right wing conspiracies and misinformation, which I think ended up mattering.

[Erin Ryan]

Yeah, it did matter, but it also made Facebook so annoying that nobody knows uses it anymore. Young people fled in droves, and now it is only people that want that sort of content.

[Max Fisher]

It's true. Yeah.

[Erin Ryan]

Max, did you see that? A few months ago, speaking of Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter to a senior House Republican saying that he Regretted removing medical misinformation during the pandemic?

[Max Fisher]

I did, yeah. It read to me like a preemptive surrender to Trump. I promise to cater to your conspiracies and false claims about social media censorship, so please don't regulate me.

[Erin Ryan]

And Jeff Bezos pulling the Washington Post's Harris endorsement felt like him caving to Trump too, right?

[Max Fisher]

Trump has threatened Bezos, who owns the Post, with all sorts of fines and regulations, explicitly as retribution for the paper's reporting.

[Erin Ryan]

Bezos claims he pulled the endorsement for other reasons, but come on, man.

[Max Fisher]

Tom actually has a phrase for this. He calls it institutional compliance. And the idea is that a lot of what effectively amounts to authoritarian pressure plays out through implication. Instead of shutting down newspapers or nationalizing Facebook, Trump makes some vague threats and gets big institutions to bend to him all on their own. Here's Tom again.

[Tom Papinski]

In countries like Hungary and in countries like Turkey and in other countries that have had this sort of authoritarian system in place, the experience is not one of just shuttering institutions or rounding everybody up and throwing them in jail, but it's specifically using the tools of the legal system and the mechanisms of finance and taxation to encourage institutions to behave in certain ways. I work in a university. Our tax exempt status depends on, in the last instance, the government granting us tax exempt status. And our university cannot work the same way without tax exempt status, or, for example, our ability to pay for activities using our endowment. If they decide to tax endowments, we will take a large hit and it will affect our ability to do our business.

[Erin Ryan]

Wait, Max, this isn't some hypothetical. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis did this.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, right. Didn't he call it the war on woke colleges, Something like that?

[Erin Ryan]

I don't know. You toss the word woke into a bunch of other words, and that could be anything.

[Max Fisher]

Expect some soft fascism to follow 100%.

[Erin Ryan]

So DeSantis signed a law banning state colleges from using public money to, quote, promote social activism or, quote, advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, which sure seemed like a threat to revoke funding from schools that taught anything he personally disagreed with.

[Max Fisher]

I mean, talk about the Hungary playbook. Orban did this six years ago to his country's most prominent university, which forced it out of the country entirely.

[Erin Ryan]

You can't ban liberal thinking, but you can make it harder to access.

[Max Fisher]

Exactly.

[Tom Papinski]

Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

DeSantis also signed the quote, unquote, don't say gay laws, threatening to revoke funding for public schools that taught gender identity, whatever that means.

[Erin Ryan]

God, DeSantis is America's worst Disney adult. Trump has already threatened to seize the endowments of schools that teach things he considers ideologically unacceptable. Here's a clip of a video he posted last July.

[Sean Hannity]

I will direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination. And schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their endowments taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.

[Max Fisher]

Something Tom said to me when we started talking was that one of the first things these elected authoritarians tend to do is set an official ideology and use the power of the state to enforce it. And I have to be honest, I thought maybe Tom was being hyperbolic until I dug up that clip.

[Erin Ryan]

Yeah, it sounds like from what Tom is saying, these sorts of steps might start as culture war for the sake of culture war. But each one forces institutions like colleges or high schools to think twice about teaching things that might displease Republicans.

[Max Fisher]

Right. Which is not the same as banning left wing parties, of course. But if it tilts the playing field against left wing politics because teachers are afraid to teach ideas that might get them fired, then the effect isn't all that different. Here's Tom again.

[Tom Papinski]

So it's going to be very subtle regulatory changes to what private enterprise or what individual firms or organizations or unions or movements are allowed to do. That's where you're going to see it. But it won't be something like they announce one day that there's going to be no elections the next day. You'll have to find little subtle indicators of the limits of organization. And the places that I would watch for sure, are going to be unions, they're going to be educational institutions, they're going to be firms, and they're going to be the marketplace for ideas.

[Max Fisher]

Tom brought up another way he thinks we could see a second Trump administration follow in the footsteps of other elected authoritarians, which is in how it could pursue mass deportations, which are obviously horrible in and of themselves, but could also become an excuse for Trump to grab more power. Here's Tom on how that could start.

[Tom Papinski]

It's not a situation where they're going to drag you into some police station and tell you the name of all the immigrants. You know, rather, you're going to be working for a company that has to file tax returns, and they'll want to know a little bit from those tax returns that they don't already know from the tax returns. Those lawful demands are going to put us in impossible situations. And they're going to have legal ways to figure out which students at which universities are legally there and which are not. Either institutions will comply with lawful demands or they won't. If they don't comply with lawful demands, they're taking a very large risk.

[Erin Ryan]

So he's obviously thinking about this from the perspective of a university professor. But some democratic state governments are already thinking through how to slow or resist mass depression, Deportations too.

[Max Fisher]

Well, the Trump team is raring for that fight. Tom Homan, the incoming border czar, is doing wall to wall Fox News hits getting revved up to order workplace raids and trampled through blue states. Here's Homan and Fox and friends a few days ago.

[Gavin Newsom]

I've seen some of these Democratic governors say they're going to stand in the way they're going. They're going to make it hard for us. Well, a suggestion. If you're not going to help us, get the hell out of the way. But we're going to do it. So if we can't get assistance from New York City, and I may have, we may have to double the number of agents we send in New York City because we're going to do the job. We're going to do the job without you or with you.

[Erin Ryan]

Okay, you know what? I used to live in New York City and those people need directions to the 911 memorial. So I'm going to say just nobody give them directions and it'll buy you a few minutes to like absolutely.

[Max Fisher]

Maybe a few years.

[Erin Ryan]

Yeah, exactly. But joking aside, it's a pretty stark message. Democratic cities and states better fall in line or flooding them with armed federal agents who are going to drag families out of their homes and workers out of their workplaces.

[Max Fisher]

Like the threats to schools and universities, it does seem like part of the point here is to threaten city and state governments into preemptive compliance to avoid the worst. And the effect would be to erode those governments autonomy from Trump.

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[Erin Ryan]

Let'S not get too spun up here. Back in Trump's first term, he threatened to do all sorts of terrible things that he never followed through on because of infighting or incompetence. Or let me pose a third option. I think Trump's real lazy.

[Max Fisher]

I agree.

[Erin Ryan]

He's got a lot of things on his authoritarian to do list and I think he's kind of lazy.

[Max Fisher]

I agree. And I think that Trump picking Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard makes me think that incompetence will be a big Factor.

[Erin Ryan]

Again, too, for sure, yeah, he's assembling a real Harvard of chuds and dipshits.

[Max Fisher]

But Tom made a good point about what's different in Trump's agenda, at least this time around. One of his first term slogans was drain the swamp, which he meant, you know, fire all the civil servants, weaken institutions.

[Erin Ryan]

It always makes me think about those reports of entire wings of the State Department sitting in darkness because Trump had emptied out so much of the building.

[Max Fisher]

Right at this time around, their slog is take America back. And you see that reflected in their plan for federal bureaucracy, which isn't just to fire all the civil servants now, but also to replace them with political loyalists who wield all that institutional power, at least in theory, to enforce Trump's will.

[Erin Ryan]

Like seizing the endowments of universities that teach ideas too counter to Trumpism, or threatening to break up tech companies that don't tilt the Internet in favor of his politics.

[Max Fisher]

Tom told me that in countries like Hungary or Turkey or India that have gone down this path, the way it often starts isn't that the right wing leader is like rubbing his or her hands together, plotting to take down democracy. Said it usually starts with a leader taking on this idea of what's called national conservatism, which says that the government should use the state to remake culture and society by promoting certain ideas and social hierarchies.

[Erin Ryan]

Right. That's the whole conceit of Christian nationalism and why we should maybe expect movies and music to get real shitty over the next four years.

[Max Fisher]

Totally. But executing this agenda requires bulldozing over the normal checks and balances, because democracy means putting the rule of law first or giving equal rights to minorities. So if you want to impose your vision of society, you have to start by circumventing or knocking down those normal democratic checks. Here's Tom and how. Trump's plan to close the Department of Education, for example, shows this in action.

[Tom Papinski]

I think that we've seen an expansion of executive authority very clearly, the balance of power shifting in favor of the courts and the executive at the expense of the legislature. And the more that you put policy in the hands of the courts and executive, the more independence you have from those partisan forces that take a big slogan idea like close the Department of Education and subject it to political wrangling. So if this were a decision that were made within Congress, there's no chance that the Department of Education would be closed, it'd be changed, and there'd be some negotiation about it. This way they can just make the.

[Erin Ryan]

Decision woof Once those institutions have been wiped out, it's kind of hard to bring them back. Like, it's a lot easier to burn down a house than it is to build one. Not like I've done either.

[Max Fisher]

That's right. One big concern I have is that Trump could try to do some of this to the country's electoral institutions, too. Trump World has already spent a lot of energy since 2020 getting election denialists installed in county clerk office and the like. Obviously, we continue to have free and fair elections, so that has not been effective. But the impulse is clearly there to forcibly re engineer these institutions to enforce.

[Erin Ryan]

Trumpism, even if it never comes to that. There are plenty of other government functions that Trump is signaling he wants to bring under his personal control.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, sure. Just this week, Trump's transition team reportedly drafted a plan that would allow him to fire top military officials who, quote, lack requisite leadership qualities. And that sure sounds like a way to fire generals who, as happened in his first term, tell Trump he's not allowed to, let's say, deploy the military against protesters or overturn unfavorable election results.

[Erin Ryan]

Well, and to Tom's point about smaller steps, Trump has also implied he wants to be able to dictate to the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be independent, to prevent political meddling in the economy. Trump can't legally fire the Fed chairman, but he can load on public pressure and ridicule to make his life hard for him, which is pretty much like page one of the one page Trump playbook. Be a dick relentlessly until people give you what you want.

[Max Fisher]

Right? Get him to think twice about the personal costs of defying him, AKA institutional compliance.

[Erin Ryan]

And then there's law enforcement. Plans like Project 2025 also call for labeling left wing protest groups like Antifa as legally banned terrorist organizations.

[Max Fisher]

Even if he doesn't do this again, it forces protest groups to think carefully about how much trouble they want to cause Trump if there's even a chance. It could mean getting your assets seized or getting thrown in jail.

[Erin Ryan]

I mean, housing is pretty expensive and jail's a house, so, you know, all while he promises to pardon January 6th.

[Max Fisher]

Rioters, which, if he does, sends a signal to far right loans across the country that certain kinds of political violence are effectively legal. Now, if you do something big enough to get Trump's attention.

[Erin Ryan]

Okay, I'm still skeptical that Trump could really pull all this off again because I think he's inept and kind of lazy.

[Max Fisher]

Totally true.

[Erin Ryan]

Like, how is he gonna fit in a year of golfing if he's doing.

[Max Fisher]

All this stuff, also becoming a dictator.

[Erin Ryan]

Yes, but even if he, that's not the same thing as ending democracy. Right. It's not like you're talking about Trump throwing all the Democrats in jail and imposing martial law.

[Max Fisher]

So Tom wrote this essay a few years ago talking about this, and it had kind of provocative title. Life in Authoritarian States is Mostly Boring and Tolerable. And in it he talked about living in Malaysia, which spent 60 years ruled as an authoritarian party state. But it had elections, it had protests, and it had free ish universities and media. It was just that, like a lot of soft or electric electoral autocracies, the ruling party had curbed opposition just enough to ensure that they never quite lost power. And here's Tom on what that feels like.

[Tom Papinski]

What you see really is nothing for most people's daily lives. And the changes are either zero or very minor. The difference is not in what sort of activities are available to you, but what is the meaning of those activities. So you would experience this as an ordinary citizen, as a very minor change to what you're individually allowed to do, but a fairly substantial change to the societal implications of your individual actions.

[Erin Ryan]

I think it's important to keep in mind that Tom is talking about a gradual transformation that makes it important to stay vigilant and be aware of how Trump could chip away at our system. But it also means that we can resist this as it's happening.

[Max Fisher]

At least some Democratic governors and mayors are girding, or say they are girding to shield their constituents from the worst of Trump's abuses. California. California Governor Gavin Newsom, for example, has said he will work to Trump proof the state. Here he is in Washington a few days ago after a meeting with Biden.

[Erin Ryan]

So just left the White House, met.

[Tom Papinski]

With senior officials, met with the President.

[Erin Ryan]

Himself, talking about everything we need to do to prepare for this transition, to prepare California. Protecting our environmental, leadership in California, issues related to health care, disaster recovery, disaster relief, FEMA funding. It was a great day. Appoint us something that makes me nervous about Newsom's newly national profile. I mean, in California, he's everywhere.

[Gavin Newsom]

But.

[Erin Ryan]

But you know what? People have been daddying him like they did with Governor Cuomo. And I just gotta say, you have to be careful of putting too much stock in. Yeah, lionizing your politicians. I mean, he's promising to do all that he can, but there are limits to all a governor can do.

[Max Fisher]

It's true. And it's a good reminder that we all have to think about what we can do. Individually, within our own institutions, within our workplaces. Right. Like, Tom lives in New York. He lives in a blue state. But he's also thinking about what can he do just around the office to prepare for the possibility of getting orders from the government saying, hey, give us the naturalization status of all your students.

[Erin Ryan]

Yeah. And I mean, I have relatives that. I have one relative who just swore his oath of citizenship. He's.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, wow.

[Erin Ryan]

Yeah. And he's a new citizen and he is bilingual. But after Trump takes office, he's going to be carrying a copy of his passport card with him everywhere.

[Max Fisher]

Because.

[Erin Ryan]

Because you just don't.

[Max Fisher]

Who knows?

[Erin Ryan]

You just don't know. And it's really sad that we're leading in this direction.

[Max Fisher]

Well, I feel like on some level, Trumpism has been moving us in this direction since day one of it. He's always taken the view that there are real Americans, which means white Christian conservatives, who are loyal to him, and that is the group that is rightfully in charge, and that the government exists to represent and serve, and the rest of us are enemies within to be combated and resisted. It seems like what changed between his first and second terms is that now he's positioning to actually remake our system around that idea, which is, after all, what a dozen elected strongmen who talk and think exactly like Trump have done in a dozen other democracies in the last decade.

[Erin Ryan]

Well, at least he's, like, 82 years old.

[Max Fisher]

I honestly. That is the best thing that we have going for us. Yes.

[Erin Ryan]

I mean, that's dark, though. And there's a part of me that I don't like making light of this, but gallows humor is, like, all I have right now. Have you ever read the Testaments by Margaret Atwood?

[Max Fisher]

No.

[Erin Ryan]

It is the sequel to the Handmaid's Tale. So I gave up on watching the TV show because it was just, like, too much, you know, like, message received. I got it. But the Testaments is great. I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but it sort of is about how a major character from the first book has existed within this dictatorship by pretending to go along with the dictatorship. And right now, there's a part of me that's thinking, how many people are going to actually go along with this? And how many people are going to pretend to go along with whatever's about to happen? Is there anybody who is, like, pretending currently who's waiting in the wings to pull some kind of emergency safe cord? And then I'm like, but this isn't a novel. This isn't a movie. When people get close to power, they usually are like, I'm actually kind of into this. I don't know if I want to, like, upend everything that I've worked to get close to in order to liberate other people. And I know that's, like, a dark thought to end on, but that's kind of what I'm thinking about right now. That's where my head is.

[Max Fisher]

I mean, something that Tom talked about is an idea of minimal compliance, of doing the absolute minimum to not get yourself in trouble. Absolutely done. And he said, you know, think about how much fun it is to frustrate your bosses and just think about that as a tactic for getting through the next four years or however many years. And just to kind of continue the contrast with the Handmaid's Tale. The good news is that part of how this works is that, of course, you don't wake up one day and all of a sudden it's in the Handmaid's Tale. Because it is this very. We've seen in every other country, like Hungary, Turkey. It's very, very gradual. And part of that is scary because it's hard to identify that moment when you cross the line. But the good news is that means that there's not a moment where it becomes too late to turn back. And, you know, a lot of these countries have gone down this path and figured out ways to reverse it. So it's definitely not. Even if all the scary stuff starts to happen, it's not too late, and it's not over.

[Erin Ryan]

I love the idea of weaponized incompetence on a mass scale. The government is like, do this. And you're like, I don't know how to do it. Can you tell me where to find the things that I need to find in order to do the thing you're asking me to do? And I think that this episode and everything we've talked about and everything Tom talked about is a really good lesson that I think I've seen a lot of people compare what Trump is planning on doing with things that happened in, like, Nazi Germany, like, shock and awe type dictatorships, where suddenly things were different. Romania, suddenly, like, boom. You wake up one morning and a decree has been issued or a bunch of businesses have been smashed. And the reality is the likelihood of it happening like that is low.

[Max Fisher]

Is very low. Yeah. That's not how it happens anymore.

[Erin Ryan]

Yeah. And we should keep that in mind as we're moving forward, because just because all the windows are intact doesn't mean our democracy is intact.

[Max Fisher]

That's fine. Yeah, totally. Well, Erin, we got through the tough stuff, and now it's time to come back to the issue near and dear to your heart, which is magnets. And how did Donald Trump think that they work?

[Erin Ryan]

Finally, thank God. I sat here this whole time waiting to get to the magnet section. Okay, here's Trump at a rally earlier this year talking about aircraft carriers, which led to him talking about elevators. And then the 1950s TV series victory at Sea, as one does then airplane catapults. Which brings us to the point where we come in on magnets.

[Sean Hannity]

Yes, they had an almost billion dollar cost overrun on the magnetic elevators. Think of it, magnets. Now, all I know about magnets is this. Give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets. That's the end of the magnets. Why didn't they use John Deere? Why didn't they bring in the John Deere people? Do you like John Deere? I like John Deere, but with the hydraulic right. So I said, you're wasting your time. You ought to get rid of it. And then I was angry about it because it cost. This thing cost, I think, $18 billion. Can you believe one ship? There's never been anything like it. What a disaster.

[Erin Ryan]

Wow. That is the point at which I get up and walk 10ft away from the bus stop and wait until the bus arrives and no longer engage with bus.

[Max Fisher]

Well, now it's president bus stop.

[Erin Ryan]

Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

How we Got here is written and hosted by me, Max Fisher and Erin Ryan.

[Erin Ryan]

Our producer is Emma Ilik. Frank.

[Max Fisher]

Evan Sutton mixes and masters the show.

[Erin Ryan]

Jordan Cantor sound engineers the show. Audio support from Kyle Seglin, Charlotte Landis and Vasilis Fotopoulos.

[Max Fisher]

Production support from Leo Duran, Raven Yamamoto and Adrian Hill.

[Jordan Cantor]

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