In the 2024 election, the American people, by a small margin, chose to put Donald Trump back in the White House. He will be the country’s first elected authoritarian and will rule as a “dictator” on “day one.” Although Trump’s rule will take lessons from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, it will adapt and fundamentally be American fascism and autocracy.
Public opinion polls and other research show that the American people are tired, exhausted, disconnected, full of malaise and generally feel like the country is heading in the wrong direction. These collective feelings are the fuel for authoritarianism populism both here in the form of Trumpism and MAGA and around the world. We are in a moment where rage at the elites and the system is a defining feature of the era.
