,
26 tweets,
9 min read
Read on Twitter
1) Donald Trump’s authoritarianism has metastacized in the past month to reach genuinely dangerous levels. Let’s review. (longish thread follows) 
2) The current surge in authoritarian behavior from the occupant of the Oval Office seems to have started with the rush of eliminationist rhetoric aimed particularly at “The Squad” last month.
dailykos.com/stories/2019/7…
dailykos.com/stories/2019/7…
3) As Frida Ghitis pointed out at the time, this is classic authoritarian rhetoric: “conjuring monsters, inventing enemies and keeping the base fired up, aroused and excited to have such a forceful leader.”
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
4) Let’s be clear: When discussing Trump, we’re not looking at an authoritarian personality per se; rather, one with Social Dominance Orientation. They share the same desired outcome, but from a different place: SDOs are all about superiority and power.
web.archive.org/web/2015020301…
web.archive.org/web/2015020301…
5) SDO authoritarian leaders have a powerful symbiotic relationship with their right-wing authoritarian followers: They cultivate them by encouraging a cult of personality around themselves as the kinds of hierarchical leaders the latter crave.
researchgate.net/publication/32…
researchgate.net/publication/32…
6) So shortly on the heels of his attacks on “The Squad,” Trump urged Israel to deny a visa to Rep. Rita Tlaib, one of his harshest critics (which it then did)—and justified it by claiming “they hate Israel and all Jewish people.”
7) This eventually led to this week’s proclamation by Trump that all Jews who voted for Democrats were guilty of either ignorance or “great disloyalty”—apparently to both Israel and the United States.
nytimes.com/2019/08/20/us/…
nytimes.com/2019/08/20/us/…
8) Of course, this is also a classic anti-Semitic trope, accusing U.S. Jews of “dual loyalties” to both Israel and America. It’s been used by fascist demagogues since the 1920s.
nytimes.com/2019/08/21/opi…
nytimes.com/2019/08/21/opi…
9) We really saw Trump cultivating the authoritarian cult around him, however, in his response to the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. First, he angrily brushed off any suggestion his rhetoric had anything to do with the violence.
pbs.org/newshour/polit…
pbs.org/newshour/polit…
11) A defining trait of SDOs, as it happens, is a complete and utter lack of empathy. So when he went up to visit the survivors in their hospital beds, we didn’t see a solemn figure consoling people. We saw a celebrity doing selfies.
12) In Trump’s mind, he was helping these people by gifting them with his presence so they could share the selfies with their friends later. Or something like that.
13) The authoritarianism hit batshit-crazy levels when Trump tweeted out last week his grand scheme to buy Greenland from Denmark, which he seemed to think he could pull off by sheer dint of his superior bargaining genes.
nytimes.com/2019/08/15/us/…
nytimes.com/2019/08/15/us/…
14) And then, when the Danish prime minister abruptly rebuffed him, he canceled a state visit to the European nation in a huff, clearly offended by the insult to his august self.
15) It created a completely unnecessary and humiliating international embarrassment with one of our oldest and most loyal allies.
nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/…
nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/…
16) Then he retweeted noted conspiracy theorist (and rabid Trump fan) Wayne Allyn Root, waxing hardcore authoritarian:
17) He actually followed this with a press conference doubling down on Root’s sentiments, telling reporters: “I am the chosen one.”
18) He capped it all off this week with his tweets in which he “hereby ordered” all American businesses to reel back their dealings with China.
19) No American president has ever claimed such wide-ranging powers. And yet Trump is claiming them by virtue of an obscure 1977 law.
nytimes.com/2019/08/24/wor…
nytimes.com/2019/08/24/wor…
20) It’s an utterly bogus assertion of power. And it would certainly have a catastrophic effect on the global economy.
21) I’ve been writing about Trump’s authoritarianism for awhile now. This thread is a much longer and deeper dive into how this all works.
22) However, there’s no question that it is intensifying now, particularly as it looks like the economy may be about to spin out of control.
washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…
washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…
23) This will not end well, as we have known for some time. It never ends well.
firstpersonpolitics.com/this-could-get…
firstpersonpolitics.com/this-could-get…
25) The next step in the authoritarian script is for Trump to declare his opponents and critics “enemies of the state.” Given his recent remarks about Jews, I’m afraid we are not far removed from that terrifying juncture.
@threadreaderapp unroll please
