Trump has also targeted law firms who have filed lawsuits he opposes, while the Federal Communications Commission, led by a Trump appointee, is investigating every major broadcast network except Fox, which owns the pro-Trump Fox News channel. Trump has personally sued news channels over critical coverage and fired the government’s top labour statistician because she published jobs data that he didn’t like.
He has threatened Democrats with prosecution, and demanded that former president Barack Obama be investigated for treason. Trump has done all this as his family has ostensibly earned millions of dollars from his presidency.
None of these things are typical for a democratic leader. So … is Trump a dictator?
“Yes, of course,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology at Princeton University who spent years researching autocracies including Hungary and Russia. Scheppele said she had been wavering on using the term “dictatorship” until recently, but said: “If I was hesitating before, it’s this mobilization of the national guard and the indication that he plans to overtake resistance by force that now means we’re in it.”
He’s absolutely NOT a dictator. He’s absolutely an authoritarian who wants to be a dictator though. But I feel like we hyper-focus on the “totalitarian dictator” too much without acknowledging that there are plenty of ways to achieve dictator-like powers without the title. Putin is technically elected for example. But he wields near absolute control.
Given that like 98% of what has been happening since January 20 is a consequence of unilateral executive orders, I’d have to say that I disagree.
He’s literally been dictating what he wants to happen (and then it happens). I’m not sure what else you could call it…
You’re not disagreeing.
This is what I was disagreeing with. He is, de facto, a dictator right now.
But he isn’t. He still has some checks. There are still laws that you can argue he is violating. He literally has to work around institutions to do what he wants to do. A pure dictator does not have anything in their path. It’s important to remember that there is still resistance.
But they simply ignore the court orders, and nothing is done. No one is punished, nothing change, no one is held accountable. Sounds like he can do whatever he wants, which he has. He fired all the people at the institutions that didn’t agree with his regime’s plan. So not much resistance to be had.
Kim Jong Un is a dictator - he doesn’t ignore court orders. There are no court rulings against him.
He absolutely is a dictator, undermining the democratic process, and disregarding the laws that are democratically decided.
He is behaving like a dictator, and way way overstepping the bounds of the office he was elected for. That makes him de facto a dictator despite he was originally elected.
Putin too is clearly a dictator, he imprison and kill the opposition, and the media and campaigns are rigged to his advantage, and finally elections are rigged to ensure his victory.
So no technically Putin is not elected, because the elections are staged and fake just to appear legitimate to the population, when obviously they are not.
To NOT be a dictator, the first requirement is that you are instated by an actual lawful democratic process.
Isn’t the definition of an autocracy, a system where laws are used for leaders to control the people instead of people using laws to control the leaders?