The Coronavirus Has Not Halted Trump's Power Grab

[FM123]

* Long article, contains paywall so I only posted snips...

(Atlantic Monthly) An hour or so into Monday’s daily presidential briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, Trump declared that his political opponents should “not be allowed” to win the 2020 presidential election.

snip

Although the pestilence that has killed more than 10,000 Americans and shut down the U.S. economy is understandably dominating the headlines, the Trump administration’s efforts to erode democracy and the rule of law have not subsided. The authoritarianization of the federal government has hampered its response to the pandemic, squandering scarce resources on shoring up the president’s lies and pursuing his political interests at the public’s expense. This is the predictable result of an authoritarian logic in which the preservation of the regime takes precedence over the safety of its own citizens, because the leader is the incontestable expression of popular will.

snip

The president and the institutional GOP are executing parallel, complementary campaigns: Trump is attempting to undermine the rule of law for personal and political gain; keeping him in office is crucial to the Republican Party’s larger goal of locking its opponents out of power by narrowing, restricting, or altering the franchise to insulate the party from a changing electorate.

The president’s goals are venal and petty; the GOP’s long-term objectives are far more ambitious. Trump is simply a convenient vehicle for the latter, a figure whose prejudice channels the Republican base’s moral instinct that those unlike them have a lesser claim on American citizenship, and that democracy would be more genuine without their influence. Americans hoping to change the direction of the country will have to battle a plague and fight for the freedom to choose their own leaders at the same time.

Senate Republicans, who might conceivably restrain Trump’s undemocratic impulses, have been muted. As long as Trump maintains his support among the GOP rank and file, the president may defy the rule of law as he likes, without meaningful protest. Checking Trump could interfere with the conservative capture of the federal judiciary, which is vitally important to the Republican Party’s plans for long-term domination.

snip

Trump’s declaration from the podium, that his opponents “should not be allowed to win” is not just the crude bluster of a showman. Rather, it is a statement of ideological conviction shared throughout the party, from the halls of Congress to the Supreme Court, from Washington, D.C., to Madison, Wisconsin. This will not be the last time we hear it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/the-plague-has-not-halted-trumps-power-grab/609643/

[Wounded Bear]

1. Times of crisis are when all the great dictators seized power...

Even Hitler couldn't prosper in the boom times of the late 20's. He had to wait for the crash of '29-30 to take power.