The Normalization of Autocratic Rule: Trump as a Symptom of Neoliberal Failure

• In Event: Crime, Law, Justice and the Trump Administration 2: American Autocracy in the Making?

Abstract

Donald Trump’s second administration has used executive orders the way authoritarian leaders rule by decree in totalitarian countries. Many of Trump’s orders arguably violate the Constitution, threaten the rule of law, strip power from Congress, and upend two-hundred fifty years of democratic traditions. Liberal criticism of Donald Trump often begins with the assumption that he is the cause of the rightward shift in U.S. politics. This misses an important point. Trump and his MAGA movement, while important agents, are symptoms of tectonic shifts in the global political economy. This paper examines how neoliberalism’s failure to deliver growing profits under 21st century regulated capitalism, rising inequality, and increased public distrust of the dominant order has created a legitimacy crisis for the political state and for capitalism. The support among a portion of the U.S. electorate for Trump’s illegal actions is the fruit of efforts by key actors in the investor class to refocus popular anger on racial, social, and sexual “others.” This creates political cover for dismantling regulatory protections, social safety nets, and ending democratic “interference” with private accumulation of capital. In the absence of a powerful, progressive social movement, the United States will continue sliding toward authoritarianism.

Authors

• Raymond Joseph Michalowski, Northern Arizona University

• Susan Carlson, Western Michigan University