On Oct. 30, 2024, U of T hosted a discussion with political scientists Janice Stein and Lucan Way about the rising threat of authoritarianism in the U.S. Watch a recording of the event here.
In recent history, the United States has often served as a kind of global democratic ideal – a “shining city on a hill,” as former president Ronald Reagan used to say, “open to anyone with the will and heart to get here.” Not perfect by any means, but a durable example of a government that responds to the will of its people.
But with Donald Trump’s victory on November 5, many political observers worry that the country will soon slip into uncharted territory. They fear that Trump will usher in an authoritarian government – one willing to ignore elections and the rule of law in order to enact its agenda and stay in power.
Fortunately for democracy, any authoritarian government in the U.S. would face strong and ongoing opposition. Yet this struggle could lead to years of political instability and violence, says Lucan Way, a professor of political science at U of T Scarborough who studies authoritarian regimes. “We need to recognize that there are severe threats to American democracy. But I think we also need to be cognizant of the factors that mitigate against these threats,” he says.
Way makes a distinction between authoritarian systems where leaders have managed to consolidate power, and elections, if they occur, are meaningless (such as Russia under Vladimir Putin or Hungary under Viktor Orbán) – and those where there is still effective opposition. He calls the second kind “competitive authoritarianism.” In Ukraine, for instance, former leader Viktor Yanukovych jailed a political opponent during his time in power. Yet opposition parties were able to keep campaigning and competing in elections. The election of Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 signaled a move toward democracy. “It’s actually very hard to consolidate authoritarian rule,” Way says.
In the U.S., Way adds, the Republican Party has become “openly authoritarian” and is supporting a president-elect who tried to incite a coup after losing a democratic election. “I think it’s important to say this because it is true. If you support the Republican Party, you are supporting autocracy in the United States. And that is simply the reality.”
Sources of resistance
Nevertheless, the U.S. is in a good position to resist, he says. It has a long history of democratic government, as well as organizations that are already well-funded and well-organized.
There is the Democratic Party itself, which has won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. There is a robust and well-organized civil society, which includes unions, universities and independent media outlets. “When Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, he was eventually able to establish de facto control over 90 per cent of the media. That’s really just impossible to imagine in the United States,” Way says.
There are also government institutions that rein in presidential power. These include Congress and the courts – despite recent signs that both Congress and the Supreme Court has become more politically partisan. Finally, state governors and legislatures have a lot of power in the U.S., and many would resist an authoritarian federal government. “A president can control the executive but will never be able to control California,” Way says.
Generally, developed nations are much less vulnerable to authoritarian takeover than less-developed ones, Way says, though this is not necessarily because of a greater commitment to democratic principles. “What really preserves democracy is making sure the opposition has access to money, resources and media. It’s the dispersion of resources across different groups that really bolsters democracies,” he says.
“There’s good reason to worry,” says Janice Stein, a political science professor and the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. “But you have to think about this deep institutional infrastructure beyond government. There are strong newspapers, strong public employee unions, strong civic associations, as well as a vigorous private sector. All of these will be sites of resistance to authoritarians,” she says.
The problem of polarization
Even if the U.S. resists a slide into autocracy, extreme political polarization will continue to cause problems, says Christopher Cochrane, an associate professor of political science at U of T Scarborough who studies polarization. “It does seem to me that very intelligent people are living in completely alternate realities,” Cochrane says. “It’s one thing to disagree about what to do. It’s another thing to have an entirely different understanding about what’s actually happening in the world and what’s true and what isn’t.”
The U.S. was once considered among the least polarized political systems in the world, Way says. But that unity came at the expense of Black Americans, who had largely been excluded from the political system by voter suppression and other means. “After the civil rights movement, and the gains made by Blacks, the two main political parties diverged – not just on race but on most issues, with Republicans becoming more conservative and Democrats more liberal overall.
Then, in the 2000s, Republicans became concerned that they could no longer win the popular vote, and began a series of voter suppression efforts, Way says. “So, you have this perception of an existential threat from ‘outsiders’ who are going to take control. And I think that, to an important extent, is what motivates a lot of authoritarian behaviour,” Way says.
Political scientists tend to blame polarization in the U.S. on some combination of economic anxiety and racism. Way thinks it’s mostly driven by racism, and Trump was the first modern-day politician at a senior level to activate it. “He tapped into this sentiment, which I think is rooted in fears of, in quotation marks, racial threat, that kind of motivates this energy,” Ways says.
Stein thinks economic anxieties and a perception of downward social mobility are also to blame. “We’ve had a hollowed-out middle class that’s been developing for the last three decades, and you see the implications of this in Germany and France, in Italy and the United Kingdom. It’s not only the United States and Canada,” she says. “We’re encountering the first generation in a long, long time that is deeply worried that their children are not going to have as good a life as they had,” she says.
Regardless of the cause, polarization often leads to legislative paralysis, Cochrane says, which can make some people decide that a strong leader is needed. “It doesn’t mean authoritarianism will follow. But if there’s a legislative assembly that can’t do its job, it wouldn’t be the first time that an authoritarian movement was born of democratic incapacity,” Cochrane says.
What this means for Canada
If the U.S. does take an authoritarian turn, Canada will have to deal with a powerful but unstable neighbor. “It’s hard for us to imagine just how consequential civil strife in the U.S. would be for Canada, given how dependent we are on that country economically, for our military security, and even the cultural influence. It’s that old cliché: ‘when America sneezes, Canada catches a cold,’” Cochrane says.
In an article she co-authored with Edward Greenspon and Drew Fagan, Stein observes that it’s impossible for Canada to simply ignore the U.S. Our southern neighbour accounts for almost 80 per cent of our exports, and a full quarter of our GDP. But Canada can build stronger alliances with other international partners, and in the meantime strengthen and diversify its economy by investing in critical minerals, clean energy, artificial intelligence research and other forward-looking sectors.
Perhaps more worrying than the economic fallout is the possibility that Canada could begin its own slide towards authoritarianism. “We’re generally five years behind,” says Stein. “By the time that flame has burnt itself out in the United States, it’s arriving in Canada.” She notes that Canadian political parties have become more polarized, and are more strongly controlled by their leaders than they used to be. In that way, they have become more similar to U.S. political parties.
But Way points out that all of the Canadian political parties have large, multi-racial constituencies, which he thinks makes them less likely to become authoritarian. In fact, all three of the political scientists we spoke with think Canada is less authoritarian than the U.S. at the moment, and more likely to be able to resist authoritarianism in the near future.
But there are no guarantees. “I don’t think there is any comparison, for example, between Pierre Poilievre and Donald Trump,” Cochrane says. “But there are far-right tendencies in Canada. They just haven’t taken over a major political party yet.”
Nevertheless, he adds, “If the rhetoric hardens, and there’s really heightened polarization in the U.S., it’s almost inconceivable that we wouldn’t see that bleed into Canada as well.”
This article was updated November 8, 2024, to indicate that Donald Trump won the U.S. election
12 Responses to “ Will the U.S. Resist a Slide into Authoritarianism? ”
I live in the U.S. Saying Donald Trump is a threat to democracy is absurd. This is a falsehood perpetrated by the mainstream media and the Democratic Party. In fact, it’s the Democrats who are a threat to democracy. We have a problem with out-of-control inflation, out-of-control crime and out-of-control immigration. We have a bumbling president and a vice-president running for the presidency who wants to use taxpayer money to fund sex-change operations for inmates and illegal immigrants. This is not acceptable to the majority of Americans. America needs a strong leader, not someone who wants to put tampons in boys' bathrooms in schools and allow men to compete is women’s sports. It is biased articles like yours that create the political divide.
Insightful article that explains the realities so well. The middle class has been hollowed out, and the greed of corporations starts the spiral of authoritarian rule.
The degree of harm being done to the American middle class is not so severe in Canada, with our medical safety net and income stabilization across the provinces. Canada's Achilles heel is government intrusion into the economy and the disincentives it creates to capital formation and private investment.
Returning Canada to an even keel will be painful because too many Canadians, the business sector included, will need to be weaned from government largesse. And the "leader(s)" that administer this will, regrettably, be painted as a populist strongmen.
Thank you for this article. As a Canadian who has lived in the United States for 22 years, I would suggest that Canada's multi-party political system is a sufficient hedge against political autocracy -- I don't see the NDP, the Green Party or the Parti Quebecois disappearing. It is the two-party system that seems to drive polarization. When you couple this with the electoral college, which renders millions of votes meaningless, you get what you see today. But I am hopeful that enough Americans with sense will prevail and that the U.S. Supreme Court will resume its role as the impartial branch of government it is meant to be.
One of the forces that drives support for Donald Trump is the perception that the mainstream media and political class ignore the concerns of the middle class. When the votes come in, at least 90 million people will have voted for Donald Trump. Is Professor Way saying that all of them support autocracy in the United States? That is not a realistic assessment of American politics.
This article is some ways symbolizes the problems that exist in our political culture. The author interviewed three sources, all of whom are essentially saying the same thing. Why didn't Kurt Kleiner interview a small-c conservative academic who would have offered a different perspective on the American election?
@John
The magazine selected professors as sources for this article based on their expertise (in U.S. politics), not on their political affiliation. While views about what happened during the 2020 U.S. election and its aftermath differ among the American electorate, there is very little disagreement among political scientists that the election was, indeed, fair and that abetting the use of violence in an attempt to overturn a democratic election is, by definition, authoritarian.
As Prof. Lucan Way notes, where there is debate among academics is about the trajectory of American democracy. “Some,” he says, “such as Daniel Treisman (at UCLA) and Jason Brownlee (at UT Austin), believe that high levels of development in the United States mean that democracy will almost certainly survive the current crisis. Treisman, for example, believes that Trump’s efforts will fail because of the strength of the rule of law. Others, such as Timothy Snyder, are much more pessimistic. I fall somewhere in between.”
As a U of T graduate in history and political science, I regard this article as complete nonsense. I have lived in the U.S. since 1974 and have seen many elections. Your view of the Republican Party is wrong. This is not the level of intellectual discussion I was exposed to when I studied at U of T. It's also worth pointing out that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada was authoritarian! I, on the other hand, live in the free state of Florida. What a difference!
I am concerned about the bias of this article. No mention of Kamala Harris getting zero primary endorsements or of the Democrats hiding the president's cognitive decline.
It seems that these authoritarian accusations are being made by those who do not respect democracy. Should Americans be free to choose who they want without all the authoritarian hyperbole? Despite Donald Trump's unusual personality, he provided a safe border, a good economy and peace in the world. If Trump is elected and is able to bring back peace to the world, will the magazine write an apology? A very weak neighbor to the south in not in Canada’s interest -- or the world’s.
I am writing this on the day after the U.S. vote in which Trump was elected president. As a Brit, I believe his election will have disastrous long-term, global consequences.
Commenters here such as L. Lewis, who write that to call Trump undemocratic is mainstream media "nonsense," should pay more heed to sane and respected Republicans who say the say thing: Trump has no scruples, no principles, no ideology and is only interested in himself.
Trump is economically illiterate and has as much understanding about the nuanced nature of national economies as your average barfly. To impose tariffs on all imports to the U.S. betrays a woeful misunderstanding of how economies work. If and when firms do repatriate jobs to avoid tariffs and employ local Americans, costs are almost certainly to rise as U.S. workers demand higher wages.
I watched Trump's interview at the Bloomberg forum in Chicago. He was an embarrassment. It was obvious he did not understand many of the questions put to him. Knowing this, he simply ignored them and talk about something different.
America, watch out. Your country might seem to benefit from Trump's policies for several months but it will nosedive. And you will only have yourselves to blame.
I am dismayed when I see comments from my fellow Americans, such as L. and John, who apparently choose to put on blinders and reject the notion that Donald Trump carries the tenets of authoritarianism with him. How can they not see it? He broadcasts it with everything he says and does.
They accuse the Democratic Party of introducing uncomfortable issues like globalism and progressive economic policy and protection for minorities. But these are not existential threats to the nation -- they are manifestations of a political party and ideology that are subject to the democratic principle of change with fair elections every two or four years. The Democratic Party has not attempted to undermine and destroy that very system of elections and separate but equal powers that our Founding Fathers constructed and by which we are fortunate to have a representative constitutional republic and the liberties we enjoy today.
And no, the party didn't do secretive things in the middle of the night in the 2020 election that a certain person would have you believe. How could you be so shortsighted and sell us out? You handed the American Dream over to authoritarianism.
I'm a U.S. voter approaching age 60, and I've never voted for a presidential nominee from either major party.
The glaring hypocrisy of both the Kushner pardon and the Hunter Biden pardon provide adequate evidence of the ongoing subjugation of the electorate by a duopoly engaged in an ongoing conspiracy against third-party options, wholly-financed by self-serving billionaires and their corporate interests.
As this competitive authoritarian structure devours U.S. democracy in the name of "freedom," Canadians should insulate themselves from the same cross-border infection that subjected Ottawa and Toronto to a trucker-led siege in the middle of winter just a few years ago.
As the Party claimed in 1984, "Ignorance is Strength," or maybe just an indication of how low the capitalists are willing to stoop in order to avoid proper taxation. Read more of what I have to say here: https://wastedink.substack.com