A thoughtful column in the Nov. 28 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek asks these questions: Could Donald Trump, after he is sworn into office, behave like an autocrat? (That’s a polite word for “dictator.”) And if so, how would he compare with other elected autocrats around the world?
Trump’s history certainly lends itself to this speculation. The billionaire developer is renowned for controlling even the minor details of his building projects. He has a vengeful mind-set, such as when he blocked views of two homeowners who refused to sell him land for a Scottish golf course.
He made most of the decisions during his upstart presidential campaign.
The Bloomberg column, by Joshua Kurlantzick, a southeast Asia specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said one way to look at how Trump may govern is to “study the slew of elected autocracies that have taken over developed nations during the past decade.”
Indeed, there have been a lot of autocrats — in Russia, Italy, Poland, Thailand, the Philippines, Venezuela and Ecuador.
“Many of these elected autocrats had little or no government experience before winning national elections,” Kurlantzick wrote. “Like Trump, they’ve built personality cults greater than exist in most far-right European parties. Most won elections as much on the power of their own charisma as on any set of coherent policy ideas.
“They’re indeed deeply devoted to themselves and their images, making their administrations reliant on their own personal influence.”
Another common denominator among foreign autocrats is domination of the media, either by buying major outlets or taking steps to muzzle others. Vladimir Putin in Russia and former Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi used this strategy with great success.
Finally, autocrats tend to undermine existing government institutions that provide continuity between administrations — an extreme version of draining the swamp, as Trump likes to say.
Candidly, a lot of this sounds like things Trump could do once he takes office. He’s used to being in charge but now will have to deal with that inconvenient system of the separation of powers, in which the legislative and judicial branches also get their say. How will he react when he doesn’t get his way? That truly is the grand mystery premiering in January.
All Americans, whether they voted for Trump, Hillary Clinton or someone else, should hope these warnings are a false alarm; that Trump will use the power of his new office respectfully, being mindful of American traditions. Kurlantzick points to an incentive for this behavior:
“Elected autocrats’ extreme personalization of power is often their downfall.”
Recent global autocrats have tended to put unqualified supporters in important positions, which increases the likelihood of corruption.
Because their movement is based on their own personality, they also have difficulty building political movements beyond themselves.
In Italy, Berlusconi went to prison for tax fraud. Thailand’s leader, facing corruption charges in 2008, fled the country. His sister got elected but then was deposed in a coup. Putin “seems unable to imagine a future Russia without himself,” Kurlantzick observes. And in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez led his country down the socialist road of ruin, then died and left a weak successor who has made things worse.
Trump benefited from the cult of personality that he created. His mission as president will be to tame this cult and make it subservient to his larger mission of restoring America.
