There is nothing more dangerous than an autocrat who has managed to dupe the public into thinking that they are good at managing the economy, or are the key to maintaining security. That the Trump years saw reasonable levels of economic and job growth while inflation stayed under control, helped the public look the other way from the constant stream of warnings that Trump was the biggest threat to democracy since the civil war.
But will the US actually fall to autocracy? Full blown authoritarianism is unlikely, but the signs are clear that the US will at the very least become a hybrid regime under Trump, or a semi-autocratic regime, similar to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
It’s not just that the country will be led by Trump and his allies, who want to personalise power into his own hands and exercise unlimited power. It’s that he is the perfect vessel for even more nefarious actors to implement an extreme agenda, such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and the American First Policy Institute (AFPI).
