Back in December, Donald Trump made a comment about being a dictator for one day. Needless to say, this led to a fairly predictable reaction, with his friends saying it was a joke and his enemies seeing it as a revelation of what he really wanted.
But that’s not what this column is about.
Instead, it’s about this question; COULD the United States become a dictatorship? Note that I’m not writing about the country becoming more authoritarian; there’s a big difference between a country with less freedom, and a country run by a single individual. Whether freedom can or will survive is a for whole separate column.
So: dictatorship. There’s no sense in saying, “It couldn’t happen here.” I call that TITANIC thinking after all those souls who, even after the great ship hit an iceberg, didn’t believe it could sink. And hence declined to get on the lifeboats. (They were almost right; the vessel had some of the most advanced safety engineering of its day. Only a freak accident could cause it to founder. But it happened, and they drowned.) Instead, let’s take a look at what did cause a country to move from democracy to dictatorship.
While democracy is practiced around the globe, it took root most firmly in Europe, and it is to Europe that we shall turn to look at cases where democracy gave way to dictatorship. Of course, a whole series of countries went that way before World War II, but we are going to start a bit earlier than that, in 1848. In February of that year, the French monarchy was overthrown – again, and this time for the last time. King Louis Philippe, who had reigned for 18 years, was overthrown, and a democratic republic was established. It did not last the year. While the overwhelming majority of the French supported the coup, there were huge differences of opinion about what the new government should do, the economy went south, and a left-wing uprising occurred in Paris. This was quickly and bloodily suppressed by the army, but now many Frenchmen craved order; in the ensuing presidential election, almost three quarters voted for Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew of the great conqueror. Within a matter of months ,he made himself sole ruler of France, and within a few years, was crowned emperor. He was not altogether a bad ruler, and he actually governed France longer than his favorite uncle, but his reign coming to a decisive end when he was defeated by the Germans.
The next major case was that of Italy. This country had become unified as a monarchy with democratic elements in 1866, although it was a unification that was in many ways incomplete. North and South, rich and poor – this was a deeply divided country. World War I left Italy on the winning side, but it did not receive the gains it had expected, leaving it mainly with huge debts and massive casualties. The immediate postwar era was chaotic. Into this atmosphere stepped Benito Mussolini, head of the Fascist movement. In 1922, he sent his party on a march toward Rome; the King refused to declare a state of siege and instead appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, where he quickly consolidated his dictatorship. Italy’s disastrous performance in World War II led to Mussolini being deposed in 1943, although he briefly governed a part of Italy as a figurehead of the Nazis.
Everybody knows about the third major case, that being of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Germany had lost World War I, which had led to the collapse of its monarchies. The republic organized amidst the wreckage in 1919 was not especially popular, partly because its founders were (falsely) blamed for having caused the surrender. It might have survived, had it not been for the Great Depression, which led half of the German electorate to vote Nazi or Communist – in other words, for the parties sworn to destroy the established order. Hitler became head of the German government in 1933 and by 1935 he had completed the establishment of his dictatorship, which ended only with his defeat and suicide at the end of World War II.
Then there was Spain. Long plagued by instability and radicalization on both sides, Spain actually had two periods of dictatorship in the 20th century. From 1923 to 30, the country had been ruled by General Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was deposed and replaced by a democratic republic. This lasted until 1936, when a military coup was launched; it was only partly successful, leading to the Spanish Civil War in which the republic was supported by the Soviet Union and the Spanish military and fascist party were supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In 1939 the latter alliance won the war, and its head, General Francisco Franco, would rule until his death in 1975; he died from natural causes, a feat achieved by neither Mussolini nor Hitler.
A final case of a country becoming a dictatorship would be the Soviet Union, although defining Russia before that time as a democracy, is a stretch. The country had not even had an elected legislature until 1906, and then its powers and its electorate were constantly being restricted by the monarchy – a fatal error, in hindsight. The collapse of the monarchy in February 1917 was followed by democratic rule, but only for eight months, until the Bolshevik or October Revolution. The Bolsheviks ran Russia – but not truly as a dictatorship, as their leader, V. I. Lenin, permitted considerable debate and argument within the party. That would change with the accession of Josef Stalin, who ruled the country with the proverbial iron hand from 1928 until his death in 1953, more or less from natural causes. Overlapping as he did with the right-wing dictatorships, there was a joke in Europe that under Fascism, man oppresses man; under Communism, it’s the other way around. But again, Stalin did not inherit a truly democratic system.
Which brings us the question of what leads democracies to accept dictatorship, and why those particular dictatorships tend to come from the political Right. The latter is not too difficult to understand; in periods of chaos and uncertainty, people desire order, and the Right-wing parties promise order, while the Left-wing parties promote revolution. No mystery there. But do these events have anything in common? Most obviously, they all happen in places where the established order, or constitution, is unpopular and not universally accepted. A brand new constitution is particularly vulnerable to this. It was true in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, and certainly in the unique case of Russia.
So … could it happen in the United States? OK, I won’t say, “It can’t happen here,” but on the whole, I doubt it. While the commitment to our Constitution is not what it was a century ago, it is still there, and moves that undermine the document would find strong opposition. But there are other reasons that would make it extremely difficult to establish a dictatorship here. The size and complexity of this country is matchless. There are a couple of bigger countries, but not with the diversity of peoples and ideas. Linked to that is the fact that this country has multiple existing power centers, most importantly, the 50 state governments. An attempt to establish a dictatorship might get us what we have never really had: a true states rights movement! (Another separate column). Then there is religious diversity. This played a huge role in this becoming a free country; at our founding, we basically had three huge religious movements (Congregational, Presbyterian and Anglican), none of which would have tolerated being ruled by another. Italy, Spain, and Russia were (and are) single church countries, and in Germany the dominant Lutheran Landeskirchen were closely tied to the provincial governments. Also, attempts to expand Presidential powers too far have generated vigorous opposition. Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to expand the size of the Supreme Court so that he “pack” it with his appointees; even in the throes of Depression, the country refused to let him do it.
Then, of course, there would have to be a dictator on the horizon. There isn’t one. All the successful dictators seized the reins of power in the prime of their life, and needed to do that, because it takes time and energy to consolidate power. Donald Trump is simply too old; he will be 78 this June, almost as old as Joe Biden! Of course, another potential dictator could show up at any time.
But I don’t see one yet. Do you?
