The defining style of the second Trump administration is an incompetent form of authoritarianism that can best be described as “haphazardism.”
Haphazardism is authoritarianism without vision, a governing style defined by a series of individual attacks on democracy without any kind of overarching logic, strategic structure, or clear end state in mind. These attacks can do (and indeed have done) real damage to the American political system, but they are often poorly executed and even self-undermining — preventing Trump from ruling in the truly unconstrained manner he seems to desire.
“Is he succeeding at breaking democracy? Yes,” said Steve Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and author of How Democracies Die. “Is he succeeding at consolidating autocratic power? No.”
Vox
The defining style of the second Trump administration is an incompetent form of authoritarianism that can best be described as “haphazardism.”
Haphazardism is authoritarianism without vision, a governing style defined by a series of individual attacks on democracy without any kind of overarching logic, strategic structure, or clear end state in mind. These attacks can do (and indeed have done) real damage to the American political system, but they are often poorly executed and even self-undermining — preventing Trump from ruling in the truly unconstrained manner he seems to desire.
“Is he succeeding at breaking democracy? Yes,” said Steve Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and author of How Democracies Die. “Is he succeeding at consolidating autocratic power? No.”
📸: Tom Brenner/Getty Images
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