Reich writes: "Donald Trump isn't really a Republican (he didn't join the GOP until 2012). He's hardly a free-market conservative (he's eager to block trade and immigration). No one would mistake him for a libertarian (he's okay with preventing abortions and gay marriage). So what is he? An authoritarian."

Robert Reich. (photo: unknown)

The Authoritarian President

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Website

01 May 17

fter more than 100 days into his presidency, it seems fair to ask: What is Donald Trump�s governing philosophy?

He isn�t really a Republican (he didn�t join the GOP until 2012). He�s hardly a free-market conservative (he�s eager to block trade and immigration). No one would mistake him for a libertarian (he�s okay with preventing abortions and gay marriage).

So what is he? An authoritarian.

Political scientists use this term to describe a way of governing that values order and control over personal freedom, and seeks to concentrate power in the hands of a single �strongman.�

Viewed through the lens of authoritarianism, Trump�s approach to governing is logical and coherent.

For example, an authoritarian wouldn�t follow the normal process in a constitutional democracy for disputing a judicial decision he dislikes � which is to appeal it to a higher court.

An authoritarian would instead assail judges who rule against him, as Trump has done repeatedly. He�d also threaten to hobble the offending courts, as Trump did last week in urging that the 9th Circuit (where many of these decisions have originated) be broken up.

Likewise, an authoritarian has no patience for normal legislative rules � designed, as they are in a democracy, to create opportunities for deliberation.

Which is why Trump told Mitch McConnell to use the �nuclear option� against the time-honored Senate filibuster, in order to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Last week, Trump called House and Senate rules �archaic,� and urged they be abandoned. �We don�t have a lot of closers in politics, and I understand why: It�s a very rough system. It�s an archaic system,� he said.

Through the eyes of an authoritarian, rules that block what the authoritarian wants to do are always �bad for the country,� as Trump said of them.

Trump would like to get rid of the filibuster altogether. �The filibuster concept is not a good concept to start off with.�

An authoritarian also seeks to intimidate the press, in order to avoid criticism and consolidate his power.

Trump still doesn�t miss an opportunity to assail the media for publishing �fake news.� His chief of staff has revived Trump�s campaign proposal to widen libel laws so that he can sue the press for stories he doesn�t like.

Authoritarians do not tolerate other levels of government with their own powers and responsibilities. Which is why Trump wants to force states and cities to report on unauthorized immigrants, even though this violates the principle of federalism enshrined in the 10th Amendment.

Finally, authoritarians promote other authoritarians, in an effort to normalize authoritarian rule.

Last Saturday, Trump invited President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines to visit the White House.

Duterte, you should know, is an authoritarian leader accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of thousands of people suspected of using or selling narcotics as well as others who may have had no involvement with drugs. He has referred to former President Barack Obama as a �son of a whore.� And he has declared open season on suspected terrorists, saying that if he were presented with a suspected terrorist, �give me salt and vinegar and I�ll eat his liver.�

Two weeks ago, Trump phoned to congratulate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey for his victory in a referendum filled with voting irregularities that expanded Erdogan�s powers and has put Turkey on the road to dictatorship.

Trump also opined that the recent terrorist attack in Paris will help the right-wing extremist Marine Le Pen.

Trump has praised President Xi Jinping of China, the most authoritarian leader China has had since Mao Zedong.

Trump also hosted at the White House Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who had not been granted an invitation to the White House since seizing power in a military coup almost four years ago.

And don�t forget Trump�s vow during the presidential campaign to pursue a warmer relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. (The effort has faltered in light of possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.)

Donald Trump�s authoritarianism is a consistent and coherent philosophy of governing. But it�s not America�s.

In fact, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution created separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism precisely to avoid concentrated power. Their goal was to stop authoritarians like Donald Trump.

Not long ago Trump adviser Stephen Miller declared �the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.� Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton would have been appalled.

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+25 # soupycon 2013-06-22 15:52

Truer words words were never spoken. Here in Indiana, we're still living with Daniels' fiasco in outsourcing (privatizing) Indiana's Family Services to IBM. Apparently, he believed his CEO cronies there were great social workers or something. Our public schools are tremendously threatened because rather than improve them with public funds as should be done, Republicans in Indianapolis continue to help out their fiends who just happen to run "charter" schools, giving public funds to them rather than to improving public schools under the guise that students need choices. What students really need are great public schools. the Indiana Toll Road has been "sold" essentially to a bunch of Australian investors, when the Indiana Department of Transportation was doing a perfectly good job of maintaining and giving a decent return to the public coffers from tolls. Now the public will receive no tolls from our public highway for the next 75 years. Thanks,Mitch. Most recently, the Indiana General Assembly enacted legislation that gave the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (a privately owned corporation) $100,000,000 in taxpayer money for the next 5 years under the pretense that the IMS must be the nation's premier speedway to help increase Indiana's business climate. So the Indiana taxpayers are paying to improve the privately-owned speedway.

+6 # Doll 2013-06-23 05:34

"Republicans... continue to help out their fiends...."

Aha, I knew it.

+12 # slocan 2013-06-22 19:36

I grew up in the 50's and 60's in Canada where there more services provided by government agencies and crown corporations. I have watched these services eroded slowly but surely away especially in the last 10 years. The curious paradox of the general population wanting all their accustomed services with no tax increases despite cost inflation from a variety of sources was quite evident. So the solution promoted by the private sector and the from the managers and ministers who rotated between government and corporations was obvious, privatize because the market creates efficiency maximizing profits. This was promoted continuously from many sources until some significant portion of the public believed it. Many studies and the mess coming out of the 2008 crash where corporations became to big to fail and were bailed out with public money showed us that the market, the profit motive and privatization were often not more efficient and in fact led to more inefficiency and often varying degrees of corruption all because of greed. A greed that was considered normal another example of the growth of unconscious behaviour in groups. The leadership of some unions could be included in this description. Power corrupts many people. They want to control those that might challenge this power because beyond the wealth its really about power in this world. As far as I am concerned it won't be until we are willing to come into our own power as individuals that we will build the society we can.

+17 # jwb110 2013-06-22 22:03

I wondered how long it would take to put the information together. Outsourcing and privatization of gov't agencies is not a good thing. Not all companies would feel any compunction at slipping some info to other companies for a few extra $$$. Sure they are taking a risk but Washington doesn't seem to be minding the store and they could claim they are too big to fail as a defense.
And if you think about the ramifications of a privatized Postal System your hair should be standing on end right now.

-5 # squinty 2013-06-23 01:37

I trust FedEx and UPS more than I do the postal system right now, and I get better - albeit less affordable - service. Private companies misuse your personal data for nefarious purposes, sure, - like spamming you or sending you annoying targeted ads - but they DON'T assert the right to have you arrested, charged with a crime, indefinitely detained or killed via drone strike based on that information. The government does. Cointelpro wasn't the policy of a corporation, it was an FBI - a government - policy. Watergate wasn't propagated by an unscrupulous corporation - it was propagated by an unscrupulous executive branch of the government. No corporation went after Daniel Ellsberg for releasing the Pentagon Papers, the US government did. Corporations cannot criminalize dissent or unpopular political opinions, governments can. The worst corporate crimes of the recent financial crisis weren't committed by corporations alone, they were enabled by a corrupt and over powerful government that chose to exercise it's regulatory authority to act in Wall Street's interest. Corporate thugs didn't pepper spray occupy wall street activists, government agents did.

The worst abuse of your personal information by private companies occurs when private companies turn that information over to government agencies. Privacy from other citizens is important, but privacy from government is more important, because the government can, has, and will continue to do worse things with your information.

+1 # lyman 2013-06-23 16:05

If I'm not mistaken, we're talking here of the government's turning to private corporations to do its data-collecting (spying) for it -- so that it can "have you arrested," etc.
Similarly, I wonder why we should be happier to find out that Jeb Bush turned over the purging of Florida voting rolls to a Texas corporation in order to insure brother Geo.that 250 or so hanging chads would turn out to be spit in the ocean -- instead of putting the government of Florida to work fumbling at the job, and leaving better fingerprints behind.
So it's not clear to me how it counts as consoling that FedEx or UPS gets mail delivered faster than the USPS (if indeed they do).

0 # squinty 2013-06-25 16:53

But whether the government uses it's own employees to spy on you, or uses contractors to spy on you, it's still the government spying on you. The issue is the spying itself, not the employment status of the stooges paid to do the spying. I don't understand all the caterwauling in this case about "entrusting secrets to poorly vetted contractors." It was a godsend, in this case, that a poorly vetted contractor was entrusted with information that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. Sure, the government's secrets might have been safer if they hadn't outsourced intelligence gathering. But those secrets would have been safer FROM US, which is a bad thing.
FedEx and UPS have a track record of greater integrity wrt actually getting packages delivered, vs. the postal service - see the scandals from a few years back, where overworked Chicago area postmen were simply dumping large quantities of mail, rather than delivering it. An example of a private entity performing it's service with better integrity and efficiency than a public entity - there are plaenty of anecdotes to support either side of the public/private argument (glad my electric utility stayed public back in the 90s, for instance) I just mentioned the postal service vs. UPS/FedEx because the person I replied to mentioned "the ramifications of a privatized postal service" as terrifying. Just felt like pointing out that we have multiple private "postal services" that do a good job, and the world hasn't imploded.

0 # squinty 2013-06-23 01:41

"In addition to potentially having access to the private electronic correspondence of American citizens, what does it mean that Mr. Snowden - a low-level contractor - had access to critical national security information not available to the general public?"

It means that he had an opportunity to reveal that information to the general public, that he would not otherwise have had.

0 # squinty 2013-07-03 20:23

Quoting jwb110:

Not all companies would feel any compunction at slipping some info to other companies for a few extra $$$.
And if you think about the ramifications of a privatized Postal System your hair should be standing on end right now.

Here's how the non-privatized postal service respects your privacy:

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/us-postal-service-spying-you?akid=10652.19365.U1fi3T&rd=1&src=newsletter864220&t=4

Not sure why you think a government paid bureaucrat would have any less compunction about sharing information. Or why you think one company sharing with another - even unethically - is somehow worse than the government itself unconstitutiona lly obtaining such information. The government is able to do far more sinister things to you based on such info.

Laws requiring a warrant to access third part info WOULD be beneficial. E-mail left on a server is not abandoned, and providers should be able to refuse to give up users information if they so choose. As it stands, a private communications company that doesn't want to release information about it's customers can be easily compelled to give that information up in response to a simple demand or subpoena.

0 # squinty 2013-06-23 01:20

+1 # squinty 2013-06-23 01:49

Article states: James Bamford, an expert on intelligence agencies, recently wrote: "The Snowden case demonstrates the potential risks involved when the nation turns its spying and eavesdropping over to companies with lax security and inadequate personnel policies..."

What happens is, with their inadequate personnel policies, they fail to weed out leakers. GOOD!

Corporatism is not good policy, I agree, but it seems like a distraction and muddying of the waters to argue about whether the NSA surveillance program could have been better administered by government vs. corporate agents. The fact is, it was created at the behest of government and should not have been. If Snowden had been a federal employee instead of a contractor, that would not have made the program one bit more constitutional. It might have helped keep it more secret, but that's a bad thing.

+8 # m... 2013-06-23 08:24

I will bet you that America could have the same size and scope of Military and the National Security Apparatus we have now, and even have it structured to make far more sense for half the money it is presently costing us if we ended the 30 year long SCAM otherwise know as Privatization of Government.
Privatization of Government is a very very costly SCAM.., and a great big, For-Profit Scheme to transfer the Nation's Tax Revenue into the hands of highly lucrative, OVERLY Expensive For-Profit Corporate Contracts. Who knows how many of which are just made up bullshit.
We should end these contracts and immediately hire and PAY WELL, legions of Civil Servants and Military Personnel who will work directly for the WE the People WITHOUT any CORPORATE-INTER EST Middle Men in between.
The Military should run the entire Military--- KP Duty and all..!
I think Americans should demand an AUDIT of ALL Government Privatization SCHEMES (contracts)... And also demand a Forensic Financial/Econo mic/Contract-Cu lture investigation into all of it, which I am sure would at least show that Contracting begets more Contracting and spirals the cost of Government out of control more than anything else...!!
Government-- OUR GOVERNMENT -- IS NOT a Business..!!
And American Tax Payers are NOT Corporate Cash Cows..!

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