The Fix: Push It to the Limit
Trump is proving a master at building coalitions—against himself.
Notwithstanding our current authoritarian dystopia, I am growing more optimistic by the week, albeit cautiously so.
My reaction might seem odd—you know, what with the shocking assault on American democracy unfolding before our eyes. It is true; while plenty of democracies have given way to authoritarianism in recent decades, Trump’s power-grab is unprecedented in its speed and breadth.
Still, a course this brazen cannot proceed without consequences, one of which is that Trump is alienating everybody under the sun. “At nearly every turn,” writes Zack Beauchamp of Vox, “key alternative power centers are standing up and fighting.”
Though not widely reported, American civil society has been mobilizing in a big way. According to data from Harvard’s Crowd Counting Consortium, the number of protest events since the start of Trump’s second term is more than two-and-a-half times the corresponding figure from his first administration. As he continues to ramp up his abuses, civil society resistance will only grow.
This would be a problem for any aspiring autocrat. For Trump, it is especially serious. That is because America’s civil society is stronger, more diffuse, and better-resourced than that of any other country which has ever transitioned to authoritarianism.
Below is a chart comparing the U.S. to other cases of autocratization. It is based on V-Dem’s Civil Society Participation Index. The index measures civil society’s strength in every country of the world on a scale from zero to one, with higher scores indicating a more vigorous civil society. Each country’s rating below is taken from the year before their respective autocrats came to power.
If America reaches the point where millions of people are protesting while also organizing strikes, boycotts, and other forms of nonviolent civil resistance on a national scale, Trump will be finished. It might take a stolen election or the shooting of protesters to trigger it. But mobilization on that scale would be nearly impossible to suppress. It would likely mean the end of his regime.
Welcome to the Resistance, Jeff Bezos?
Thus far, most of the resistance from civil society has come from the grassroots. Civil society’s elites—universities, religious leaders, and private sector firms—were until recently missing in action. Many had opted to try and appease Trump instead of pushing back.
A number of experts are skeptical about the wherewithal of civic leaders to resist. Last week, in The New York Times, Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt, all of whom are prominent scholars of authoritarianism, expressed dismay at the underwhelming response of civic elites to the new regime. “Strategies of self-preservation have led too many civil society leaders to retreat into silence or acquiesce to authoritarian bullying,” they wrote.
That is not what I am seeing. From what I can tell, the elites are beginning to fight back. Following Columbia University’s shameful capitulation, hundreds of universities signed a statement vowing to preserve their independence from presidential encroachment. Prominent religious leaders (outside of the Republicans’ white protestant base) have issued similar proclamations. Even more surprisingly, major law firms have forcefully rejected the way of their spineless peers and refused to sign instruments of surrender with a tinpot dictator. The firms that did cave are witnessing an exodus of talent.
America’s leading companies and the oligarchs1 who run them remain the missing piece. This matters, since the business elite as a whole is by far the most well-endowed segment of civil society. A nationwide campaign of civil resistance could probably sustain itself without their support but would obviously be more effective with it.
If he were trying to unite the oligarchs against him, he would be doing nothing differently than he is.
This reluctance to get involved is predictable. Corporate elites might be civil society’s most powerful element. But they are also its most cowardly. While one would think that having a ton of money makes one less fearful, it evidently has the opposite effect. When it comes time to choose between resisting authoritarianism or capitulating to it, the rich would much prefer to capitulate.
America’s oligarchs are not unique in this regard. Autocrats who play their cards right and employ the right mix of coercion and rewards can usually tame the major holders of wealth. Leaders who pulled this off include Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan, among many others.
The preeminent example, of course, is Vladimir Putin. When Putin first came to power, Russia’s economy and state were dominated by the country’s oligarchs. Upon his inauguration as president in May of 2000, bringing them to heel was his first order of business.
The following month, Russian authorities arrested Vladimir Gusinsky, a media magnate who had opposed Putin’s election. In exchange for his freedom, he would sell his empire and leave the country. Weeks later, Putin summoned the remaining oligarchs to Stalin’s old dacha outside of Moscow. The choice of venue was intended to reinforce the message that Putin delivered: If they wished to keep their ill-gotten wealth, their freedom, and their very lives, they had better kiss the ring.
The strategy worked. But the reason why it worked was that Russia’s oligarchs were few enough in number that they could actually be assembled in a single room. This phenomenon is typical of most authoritarian regimes, being that they tend to arise in low- and middle-income countries with relatively little economic diversification and low levels of wealth. If only a few individuals reside at the summit of business, they are easier to control.
But the Fortune 500? Forget about it. For now, America’s oligarchs are staying silent. But if the dam breaks and enough of them start pushing back, Trump will not be able to intimidate them all.
His unchallenged power cannot last. One day, it may well be him who is besieged.
If he were smart, he would take the cautious and incremental approach of his peers, singling out a select few victims so as to signal to the remainder that they should avoid rocking the boat.
But Trump is not smart. He is also a megalomaniac who is congenitally incapable of understanding the consequences of his actions. Many of those he has surrounded himself with are similarly predisposed.
Masterful Gambit, Sir
The oligarchs would like nothing more than to keep their heads down and muddle through. Only Trump is seemingly hellbent on alienating them. Let us count the ways:
Tariffs: By far the most idiotic of his economic policies, it is difficult to identify a business sector that would not be harmed either directly or indirectly. Recent reporting suggests that America’s executives are mightily pissed. They are staying quiet for now. Expect that to change once the cargo ships stop coming in.
Attacking the Federal Reserve. Trump has repeatedly vowed to shitcan Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell if he refuses to tailor monetary policy to the president’s liking. Threatening the independence of the one central bank responsible for overseeing the world’s reserve currency requires a level of undeserved arrogance and oblivious stupidity that I cannot possibly comprehend. The potential ramifications of such a move—a flight from U.S. assets followed by a ghastly recession—would not endear Trump to the corporate elite.
Politicized investigations: The day after taking office, Trump ordered federal agencies to investigate America’s biggest companies for their Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (D.E.I.) practices. Soon afterward, Attorney General Pam Bondi instructed the Justice Department to sue and even criminally prosecute firms on these grounds. If this nonsense starts having tangible effects, the oligarchs are going to lose their patience.
Deportations: While most coverage of Trump’s lawless deportations has rightly focused on the human toll, one should not underestimate the potential economic fallout. To be sure, the administration’s goal to deport all eleven million undocumented immigrants is a pipe dream that would be impossible to implement. But if deportations really begin to pick up speed, entire economic sectors are going to revolt. Of the three states where the backlash would be fiercest, two of them—Texas and Florida—are GOP strongholds.
General economic uncertainty: If there is one thing that business owners detest, it is uncertainty. But this is exactly what Trump’s batshit policies are unleashing. Privately, many oligarchs are fuming. As things get worse, their discontent might well begin to manifest more overtly.
Trump cannot continue on this course without provoking a major backlash among the business establishment. If he were trying to unite the oligarchs against him, he would be doing nothing differently than he is.
It might take a stolen election or the shooting of protesters to trigger it. But mobilization on that scale would be nearly impossible to suppress. It would likely mean the end of his regime.
Most corporate elites probably voted for Trump. So excited were they at the prospect of saying “pussy” out loud in business meetings that they blinded themselves to the economic policies he was explicitly promising to carry out. Now that he is delivering on those promises, they are shocked. The fascism, it turns out, was the only part of his message that registered with them. The repeated vows to tariff the known universe into oblivion apparently flew over their heads.
The oligarchs are not going to take this lying down; they literally cannot afford to. Soon enough, they will be itching to see him gone, and we can reasonably expect a substantial number to act on it. If and when they start lending support to the grassroots movement, the conditions will be present for a nationwide civil resistance campaign, one which could conceivably end Trump’s regime.
“So Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy!”
At the moment, Trump is living large. He has ushered in authoritarianism with stunning speed and has done so in the United States of America, of all places. I do not want to overdo the Scarface references, and I promise this will be the last one for at least another week. But if we were to map the film’s storyline onto Trump’s political career, we would currently be in the “Push It to the Limit” montage.
Remember “Push It to the Limit?” Al Pacino as an ebullient Tony Montana, making money hand over fist? The duffle bags full of cash moving through the bank’s front entrance? The chained tiger pacing back and forth on his luxury estate? That montage is where Trump is right now. He is large and in charge, and everyone is afraid of him.
But recall what happens next: Tony rushes headlong to his demise as a federal probe and an aggrieved supplier descend on him. By the film’s end, we see him hunkered down before a mountain of cocaine machine-gunning his enemies as they approach the door. Only the attackers are too strong and too many, and he is doomed.
Unfortunately for Tony, the “Push It to the Limit” sequence is not where his story ends. Nor is it likely to be the end of Trump’s own story. His unchallenged power cannot last. One day, it may well be him who is besieged. Only when the time comes, he won’t have the balls to fight off his assailants at the door.
By adopting the term “oligarchs,” I am following political scientist Jeffrey Winters. According to his definition, oligarchs refer to individuals who enjoy disproportionate wealth and act to defend their wealth politically. In this regard, America’s oligarchy is nothing new and has existed since the inception of the income tax.
I needed this. Thank you.