Donald Trump has won America's presidential election. Many have long worried that a Trump victory would place American democracy in jeopardy.
Washington Post Columnist Ishaan Tharoor, for example, detailed myriad ways he thinks a victorious Trump would subvert American democracy: “As my colleagues have reported over the past year, Trump has made clear his stark, authoritarian vision for a potential second term. He would embark on a wholesale purge of the federal bureaucracy, weaponize the Justice Department to explicitly go after his political opponents (something he claims is being done to him), stack government agencies across the board with political appointees prescreened as ideological Trump loyalists, and dole out pardons to myriad officials and apparatchiks as incentives to do his bidding or stay loyal.”
Concerns that American democracy will plunge into dictatorship, authoritarianism, or fascism don’t withstand scrutiny
These concerns don’t withstand scrutiny. Trump's second presidential victory means that American democracy will undergo a severe stress test. Yet again. But it won’t plunge into dictatorship, authoritarianism, or fascism. These are coherent governmental structures. Instead, with Trump again at the helm, America will have an incoherent and volatile mix of some government institutions that function democratically and some that don’t.
The fundamental problem with predictions like Thahoor’s is that Trump can’t actually accomplish these things. The federal bureaucracy can’t be “purged” by the sitting president. Valid federal legislation authorizes and funds government agencies — so the courts won’t allow them to be gutted by executive order. Republican presidents have long tried to shrink the administrative state. They’ve failed every time. Even if the federal bureaucracy were halved it would still be huge.
The DOJ, moreover, didn’t go after Trump’s enemies while he was president. To the contrary, DOJ lawyers rejected Trump’s demands to prosecute Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others. The DOJ did, however, prosecute many of Trump's friends, like Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, and Tom Barrack. And of course the DOJ brought two major cases against Trump himself. To imprison his enemies, as Tharoor warns about, Trump would need grand juries to indict on his command, courts to illicitly rule in his favor, and juries to render his chosen verdicts. These things didn't happen during Trump's first presidency. And there’s no reason to think any of them could happen this time around.
The Senate, furthermore, still has to confirm all executive-level presidential appointments. And pardons only apply to specific acts and offer no protection under state law or for future activity. Just look at Bannon, who was first pardoned by Trump for one thing and then later convicted of something else.
Moreover, Trump as president won't control most government activity — at the federal, state, or local level. The Democrats will oppose Trump at every turn. So will Democrat-run state and local governments. If the Democrats take the House in 2026, for example, we should expect Trump’s third impeachment — for something or other — to commence promptly.
Military leaders won’t just obey Trump’s illegal initiatives
The most serious domestic risk America faces after Trump's win is that the military starts doing his bidding. But there’s no reason to expect this. He has long had strained relations with military leaders (including his Secretaries of Defense John Mattis and Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley) who have steadfastly refused to obey Trump’s improper orders. As we saw with Milley — who actively opposed Trump’s attempt to reverse the 2020 presidential election results — military leaders won’t just obey Trump’s illegal initiatives. The military doesn’t “take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said in his departing speech last year. “We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America — and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
This isn’t to say Trump's second presidency won't be dangerous. It likely will be. But the biggest concerns reside where the American electorate all too often doesn't bother to focus: international affairs. This is where US presidents have few checks on their power, and the greatest ability to cause trouble. The international community is desperate for sober and rational American leadership — the opposite of Trump-style diplomacy.
Donald Trump won. Again. And there's plenty to worry about, indeed. But many doomful predictions about his presidency simply won't come true.
William Cooper is the author of How America Works … And Why It Doesn’t
