In the four months since more than five million people took to the streets to protest President Donald Trump’s dictatorial policies and behavior, the administration has rapidly escalated its shock and awe campaign against American democracy. The No Kings protests were reportedly one of the largest political marches in U.S. history. On Saturday, millions are expected to participate in the latest round, with more than 2,500 events scheduled in all 50 states. 

The need for resistance is urgent. Trump has “pushed the country even farther into authoritarian territory,” as Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen and an organizer of the No Kings marches, put it. 

Trump, who promised to be a dictator on “day one,” is acting like a king — and he has been empowered by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to behave as such. “He’s sent National Guard troops into multiple American cities against the wishes of their governors and mayors,” Gilbert said, “he’s threatened media organizations and comedians, pressuring ABC into firing Jimmy Kimmel for jokes on late night TV; and he’s blatantly ignored court orders. The state of the country and our democracy feel more dire than ever before.”

MAGA world has gone on the offense ahead of the protests. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson disparaged the protests as an example of “the scourge of left-wing violence.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., labeled them a “Hate America” rally and told Fox News the protests were “pro-Hamas” and sponsored by “antifa.”

These lies, and the hostility behind them, reflects a larger dynamic: Trump is seen by many of his supporters as a type of god-king on a divine mission. In this worldview, resisting Trump and the MAGA movement is an act of evil — unpatriotic at best, and outright treasonous at worst.

But for Gilbert and millions of others, Saturday’s events “will be a peaceful day of unity and resolve.” She said, “Millions of people are coming together, fed up with an authoritarian regime that’s forgotten the people it’s supposed to serve, standing together in the belief that America belongs to its people, not to any king or dictator.”

As historian Adam Hochschild told me in a recent interview, when civil society was under attack by President Woodrow Wilson a century ago, the country “did not have millions of people in the streets.” The “overt resistance” created by No Kings, he said, is reason for hope. 

After the No Kings protests in June, a YouGov poll found that nearly half (49%) of Americans supported them, while 35% expressed opposition. These results were driven by partisanship. A large majority of Democrats (80%) supported the marches and an almost equally large number of Republicans (68%) opposed them.

Autocrats, though, are not highly responsive to public opinion — unless they can use it to legitimate their corrupt rule. They monitor the public mood for dissent and resistance, and in search of opportunities to crush it. Democratic processes and public opinion are treated as tools to manipulate, not mechanisms for accountability.

But America is still a democracy, albeit an increasingly weak one, and Trump still needs to maintain a veneer of public support. Protests and mass mobilization threaten his legitimacy. They counter the narrative that Trump and the MAGA movement enjoy unstoppable, popular momentum. No Kings will remind political bystanders — and the undecided — that resistance is not futile. Such protests can also send a signal to elites that it may be in their self-interest to reconsider their relationship to the regime.

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Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat highlighted the moral dimension of collective action. “[T]he history of resistance suggests that pro-democracy movements that claim the mantle of moral authority and show care and solidarity in the face of plunder and violence can have an impact,” she wrote. “In fact, even a tiny percentage of the population — often just 3.5 percent, according to one study of successful civil resistance movements — can make a difference if they mobilize on behalf of democratic values in situations of tyranny.”

Peaceful protests are vital, she pointed out, allowing activists the chance to “model the behaviors the authoritarian state wants us to abandon.”

In a recent essay, Ben-Ghiat emphasized how “Weak authoritarians fear empathy, a sense of justice and morality, love for others, and collective action. All they have is force and lies. They may feel immensely empowered right now, but those protesting them are on the right side of history.”

But protests and marches also provide an opportunity for autocrats to expand their power. Trump has repeatedly signaled his desire to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to bypass the courts and to “legally” deploy the military against the American people to put down “civil unrest” or a “rebellion.” Such a move could also be a prelude to de facto martial law, cancelling elections and suspending other civil rights and freedoms. 

Many have observed that Trump, with his actions against Democratic-led cities like Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Portland and Chicago, is looking to create a pretext for a much harsher crackdown. This makes Saturday’s No Kings protests even more consequential. In the event of any violence, whether from protesters or agent provocateurs, the president will doubtless seize on it to expand his power. 

While important, attending No Kings protests is a beginning and not an end. It should be seen as a first step of sustained political activity to slow down the Trump administration and MAGA movement’s attempts to end multiracial democracy. 

Beyond the symbolic power of millions of people engaging in corporeal politics, one of No Kings’ most important aspects is how it provides spaces for political learning, relationship-building, agency and self-actualization, and coordinating resources that are necessary to affect long term political and social change.

Even small actions can make a huge difference when sustained over time,” Gilbert said. “Everyone should take one more action than they have done before, that is how we build a movement.”

Americans are an impatient people; we have a short attention span. To survive the remaining years of Trump’s presidency, we will need to unlearn those habits — and learn to sit with our discomfort. To paraphrase Frederick Douglass, power concedes nothing without a demand. 

The struggle to save American democracy will be long and difficult. It will not be resolved in one day, or even days and weeks, of marching and organizing. What awaits the American people is a generational struggle to save, rebuild and strengthen our democracy — and to inoculate it against the forces of authoritarianism. 

In her latest book “The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies,” political scientist Susan C. Stokes traces the recent erosion of democracies around the world, including the United States under President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. 

“In earlier eras,” she writes, “the main threat to democracy was the military coup, a threat confined to new democracies in poor countries. Now we face the prospect of democracy eating away at itself from within, and doing so in some wealthy and seemingly established systems. And whereas coups came as sudden explosions, impossible to hide, democratic backsliding has had a stealthy, gradual, slow-drip quality, making it harder for the population to realize what is happening until the process is well underway.”

Stokes, who serves as the Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and directs the Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago, sees Trumpism as not just an American crisis, but a global one. 

I recently spoke with Stokes to better understand the ongoing collapse of American democracy and how this reflects a much larger global dynamic. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You just finished a book on global autocracy and our embattled democracies. Given the escalating political and social crisis in the United States — especially over the last few weeks — how are you feeling and trying to make sense of this all?

I’ve felt best when I am working with other people to try to push back, even in little ways. We may not have succeeded in these efforts, but it was invigorating to be around people who feel just as strongly as I do about the threats to our country’s democracy and civil society and to use whatever skills we have to try to make a difference. When we are isolated in such times as these, we feel much worse. I’ve felt the worst when I’ve felt isolated.

People ask me all the time what I think will happen with the age of Trump and what comes next. I tell them that these are the good times compared to what comes next: Enjoy them. What are you telling the people in your life?

I tell them that we now have an administration, with Trump back in the White House, that is basically authoritarian, but it is operating in a society that is still democratic. I also tell them there are realistic scenarios in which Trump sinks very low in public opinion and comes to be seen as a failed president. If this were to happen, Trump and his MAGA movement’s hold on the Republican Party would loosen, and they could lose elections badly enough that efforts to distort or steal them would be unlikely to succeed,

This scenario is by no means inevitable, but Trump’s insulation from wise counsel, his reckless treatment of the economy and other irresponsible behavior could result in such an outcome.

Blind optimism is not helpful for those Americans who want to save American democracy. But nor is it the case that democracy in our country is a lost cause. Moreover, pessimism can be immobilizing. The end of American democracy is not a fait accompli under Trump — yet.

How is America like other countries that have experienced the collapse of their democracies? How is it different?

I completed my book in 2024. It includes a table that explains the would-be autocrats’ “playbook” — the targets they take aim at [such as] the press, courts, opposition parties, etc. and gives examples of the kinds of actions that each target has experienced in various countries around the world. I divided these actions between “milder” and “more severe” actions or strategies. Actions by Donald Trump and his administration in his first term were typical of the playbook but generally milder than in several other countries. For example, with regard to the press, some backsliding governments beat up on the press verbally, as did Trump. Others elsewhere in the world closed down major publications and even turned a blind eye to the killing of journalists.

Now, as of mid-2025, some actions of the U.S. government under Trump appear even more extreme than in other eroding democracies around the world.

Given how quickly and how far the shift toward autocracy has gone under the second Trump administration, I am beginning to favor terms like “democratic breakdown” over “erosion” or “backsliding.” The latter terms suggest a gradual process. There is nothing gradual about [the] autocratization under Trump II.

Have scholars and the commentariat been too complacent about democratic backsliding under Trump? What does the data and other evidence tell us about the rise of autocracy and authoritarian populism and forms of illiberalism around the world? What are the trends?

[D]uring the first Trump administration, some scholars and commentators insisted that the country was safe from autocratization. This was understandable in a sense, given the well-known stealth with which democratic backsliders often act. (All stealth has gone by the wayside under Trump II.) And it is also the case that — again, in Trump I — scholars and commentators sometimes voiced more dire predictions than what actually happened.

The events of Jan. 6, 2021, sparked more clarity and — for a time — consensus around the idea that Trump was at least fully autocratic in his intentions and would take drastic action to carry those intentions out. But after he briefly retreated from the scene, there were some debates about whether the United States had returned to its normal state of democracy, or whether we dodged a dangerous bullet and experienced some good luck in avoiding a further descent into autocracy.

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The first eight months of Trump II have changed all of that. Those who deal in facts and who are paying attention are fairly uniformly terrified for the future of American democracy. There is much disagreement among experts about how to try to claw our way back to democracy in this country, but little serious disagreement about the dangerous state of affairs at present.

Trump has been described as putting the United States in…the orbit of autocratic and authoritarian regimes such as Russia and Hungary. Trump and the American right have literally modeled their attempts to end multiracial pluralistic democracy — and their assaults on civil society — on [Viktor] Orbán’s Hungary. 

Democracy-eroding leaders around the world come in basically two ideological flavors: Right-wing ethnonationalists or left-wing populists. (Though not all right-wing ethnonationalists or left-populists attack their democracies if they rise to power.) The right-wing ethnonationalist backsliders mobilize electoral support for themselves by vilifying minorities of various kinds, especially those with relatively little power or electoral clout. The despised Other is often the migrant or refugee, to whom many evil intentions and actions are imputed. They are supposed to be criminals, rapists; they want to steal your social benefits; they don’t understand “our” way of life; they eat the “real” people’s pets, etc. And the vilification spills over onto domestic minorities: Muslims in Modi’s India and in Orbán’s Hungary, for example.

A liberal tolerance of difference goes out the window in such settings.

In a shining example of how democratic systems and the rule of law punished an autocrat, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was just convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in an attempted coup that was inspired by Jan. 6. What do these recent events in Brazil potentially mean for the global autocratic project?

In some ways the Bolsonaro case represents a re-democratizing path forward for countries that have experienced democratic backsliding. Bolsonaro himself will never again be able to run for any public office [in Brazil]. The example of this double accountability may act as a deterrent for other Brazilian leaders who might want to follow his examples.

But of course, nothing is ever easy. Brazil, like many eroding democracies, is extremely polarized. Bolsonaro’s prosecution and the guilty [verdict] are interpreted on the pro-Bolsonaro side of the divide as evidence of improper manipulation of criminal justice to silence a political opponent of the now-ruling party. This is the interpretation championed by international allies of the former Brazilian president — most notably, Donald Trump. Never mind that the fairly aggressive judge in this case, Alexandre de Moraes, is linked to a conservative political party, not President [Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s] Workers Party — and there is no love lost between de Moraes and Lula.

In all likelihood, holding a former autocratizing leader to account will always involve trade-offs between keeping them away from power and allowing for a perception among their supporters that the other side has no commitment to democracy or the rule of law.

Trump admires strongmen like Bolsonaro and the leaders of El Salvador and Argentina. There are many “little Trumps” all over the world. Bolsonaro and [Argentinian President Javier Milei] have also been feted by Republicans and conservatives at meetings such as the Conservative Political Action Conference. Why are these autocratic alliances between the American right and their foreign counterparts so important?

Autocratic leaders draw inspiration and strategy ideas from one another. Trump has inspired leaders like Bolsonaro and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. But the admiration goes in the other direction, as well — Trump has taken not just inspiration but strategy advice from international autocrats.

Trump’s attempt at a national-level gerrymander is exactly what Orbán did in 2011, thus allowing his Fidesz Party to avoid losing many parliamentary seats in 2014, even though its vote share declined [from] 2010.

[Trump] attributed to Vladimir Putin the idea of moving away from mail-in ballots. Trump said that Putin told him that fair elections were impossible with this voting method. The irony of taking advice from the Russian dictator about the conduct of free and fair elections did not appear to bother [him].

Trump recently visited the United Kingdom. Trump himself is unpopular in the UK, but Trumpism and other forms of right-wing authoritarian populism are not. Can you explain some of the dynamics at work there?

Trump’s tariff policies, his inconsistent support of Ukraine and perceived tilt toward Russia, as well as his reversal of climate policies are all unpopular in the UK. 

[He] is more popular on the British right than on [the] left. Conservative Party leaders and voters are more positive about him, more so those from the “Brexit,” anti-immigrant wing of the party. Trump is more popular still among supporters of the Reform Party, the political party formed by Nigel Farage, one of the key proponents of Brexit [and an] opponent of migrants in the UK…

Internecine conflicts on Britain’s far right might get in the way of the Reform Party’s path to victory in British national elections, which will have to be held by mid-2029 at the latest. Though much can happen in the meantime, the current Labour government’s performance, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has been lackluster. The Conservatives were voted out decisively in 2024, after 14 years in power, and lack strong popular support at the moment. The Reform Party is leading in many polls. Its victory would bring to office a leadership that shares many policy orientations and uncertain commitment to democracy, like its allies in the MAGA GOP.

Before he died on Sept. 4 at the age of 99, psychologist Robert Jay Lifton left us with stark warnings about President Donald Trump and the American right. One of the country’s leading experts on how societies succumb to authoritarianism and collective cruelty, Lifton’s theory of “totalism” — an extreme, absolute devotion to a particular group or ideology — is essential for making sense of our present moment.

Writing about Lifton’s passing, New York Times columnist M. Gessen noted his observation that totalism “propels participants toward acting in the name of their ideology.” Lifton saw Trumpism, Gessen wrote, as “a totalist movement that promised to envelop its participants in a secure, closed universe of lies.”

But the psychologist knew that totalism encompasses more than authoritarian tendencies. It can help to explain social inequality, the culture of cruelty and how individuals treat one another in a society.

Trump and the larger right-wing’s revolutionary project has been called “Robin Hood in reverse,” where public money and resources are taken from the poor and vulnerable and given to the rich and powerful through legislation, such as the “Big Vile Bill,” and other policies that will make poverty, homelessness, hunger and other forms of social inequality worse.

According to a new poll released by the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Americans are sharply split along partisan lines over what causes poverty and homelessness — and what responsibility, if any, the federal government bears in addressing them. “Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite personal choices as major factors for both poverty (77% vs. 49%) and homelessness (77% vs. 51%),” the survey found. “In contrast, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to cite lack of government support as major factors for both poverty (61% vs. 21%) and homelessness (63% vs. 26%).”

This divide is stark, and it backs up a recent observation by New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie that the American right sees the market as the ultimate decider of survival. “The maintenance of a particular moral order in which survival — to say nothing of comfort — is earned in the market,” he wrote. “Those who can’t swim, or at least float, will sink.”

Since Trump’s return to power, this right-wing moral economy has become even more hard-hearted. Today’s conservatives and members of the right increasingly view human empathy as a weakness, something wholly alien. This attitude was reflected in Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s suggestion on the Sept. 10 episode of “Fox & Friends” that mentally ill homeless people should be executed. After facing widespread condemnation, he apologized on Sunday for what he called his “extremely callous remarks.”

Decades of social science research shows that poverty — especially intergenerational poverty — is driven largely by structural and institutional forces beyond an individual’s control. A person’s family wealth, their access to education and even the zip code they’re born into shapes their chances at economic mobility. The myth of individualism and “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” rarely stands a chance against those realities.

But there’s another issue at play that’s not addressed in the survey, at least not in the form of a question: Whether the American people are capable of connecting poverty, inequality and homelessness to the collapse of democracy and civil society under Trumpism. Sadly, the aggregate findings from the poll — and decades of other research — suggest the answer is no.

Americans have historically been hyperfocused on individualism, which can make community-oriented thinking difficult. Europeans, by comparison, are better able to connect their individual troubles to larger systems of power and institutions. 

For example, while 76% of those surveyed — including 80% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans — believe the federal government should be responsible for addressing poverty, 6 in ten cite personal choice as why people remain in poverty or are homeless. 

Summarizing the findings of the new poll, Bruce D. Meyer, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School and one of the lead researchers on the project, told the Associated Press that “people are a little conflicted…[about] the complexity of what leads people to get in trouble in terms of their economic circumstances. And I think a lot of people are generous at heart and will help people out and think the government should as well, even when individuals aren’t blameless.”

This conflict is shown in other research, including a recent Pew poll that found approximately half (51%) of American adults want a bigger government that provides more services. But 47% desire a smaller government that does less. There are huge partisan divides: 75% of Republicans want a smaller government and 24% want a bigger government. Democrats want the opposite: 79% support a bigger government, and 20% want a smaller government.

Today’s Republicans are driven by a small government ethos. President Ronald Reagan famously articulated this vision: “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

But as Trump expands his power and control over all areas of American life, those same so-called principled conservatives who spent decades howling about “states’ rights” and “big government” have fallen deafeningly silent. When Democrats like Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in office, these people waved their pocket Constitutions and wrapped themselves in the American flag as “patriots” and “defenders of individual rights and liberties.” Now, their values have been revealed as a sham — and about obtaining power to impose their will on other people.

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Research shows that today’s Republicans — especially the white working-class people who form the base of Trump’s MAGA movement — hold some alarming ideas when it comes to the social safety net.

They support government assistance primarily for white people like themselves, whom they deem deserving and to be “real Americans.” When they use programs like welfare or food stamps, they see it as temporary and justified. But when Black and brown people — especially women — use the same programs, they are labeled lazy, undeserving takers or “welfare queens.” They are ready, if not eager, to elect leaders who are willing to “break the rules” to “get things done.” Federal power, they believe, should be wielded to punish those they dislike.

Undergirding these notions, as well as Trump’s appeal to the white working-class, is how that group “resents professionals but admires the rich,” as Joanne C. Williams pointed out in a much-cited 2016 article published in the Harvard Business Review: “The dream is not to become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you feel comfortable — just with more money.” 

While noting that “[p]rogressives have lavished attention on the poor for over a century,” Williams argued that the government’s focus on means-tested programs to alleviate poverty have excluded the middle class and “are a recipe for class conflict.”

But a society’s values are, in large part, reflected by how it treats its most vulnerable members — and America in the 21st century is growing increasingly Dickensian. In many cities today, it is a crime for the homeless or poor to use public spaces. Recently, Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to use its resources to forcibly place homeless people in camps, institutions or otherwise remove them from society. Under Trumpism, America’s prisons and mental health facilities are in danger of becoming de facto poorhouses. “Ugly laws” could soon follow. 

As American society continues to fracture, the public and their leaders must broaden their understanding of how poverty and other forms of social inequality are directly linked to structural — and political — violence.

“[W]hen a pregnant woman dies of sepsis in a hospital that could have helped her but is legally prevented from doing so, that’s political violence,” author Jessica Valenti recently wrote. “It’s political violence when a child is shot in their classroom because lawmakers refuse to take action on guns. An abortion provider being assassinated after years of conservatives calling them ‘baby-killers’ is political violence, as is the death of a person who had their medical claim denied by companies more interested in their bottom line than people’s lives.”

She concluded, “We live with this kind of violence, we experience it, every single day. We just don’t call it ‘political.’ To conservatives, it’s not even violence.”

Healthy democracies have a strong social safety net that helps to prevent and alleviate poverty and other forms of social inequality. Autocrats, authoritarians and demagogues, though, have little — if any — sense of obligation to the public good. They view power as a way of accumulating more wealth and resources for themselves and for their loyalists. These leaders have an interest in keeping their constituents vulnerable. Economic insecurity breeds malleability, and an increased willingness to seek out the protection of a strongman. Inequality, they know, is a dagger to the heart of democracy — and it’s one they enthusiastically wield.