Donald Trump’s second term has seen a sustained assault on democratic institutions – political, judicial, media, cultural, academic – that appears to be only accelerating
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he anger was raw and resolute. Speaking at the Republican congressman Mike Flood’s town hall in Lincoln, Nebraska, a woman pointed to the estimated $450m cost of “Alligator Alcatraz”, an immigration detention facility in Florida. “How much does it cost for fascism?” she demanded. “How much do the taxpayers have to pay for a fascist country?”
The crowd erupted in applause and whoops. In the week that Donald Trump marked his 200th day in office, few mainstream political commentators are bandying around terms such as “fascist”. But many are warning of a societal march towards authoritarianism that, far from losing momentum, appears to be gathering pace.
Over the past month the US president has demanded that his predecessor, Barack Obama, be prosecuted for “treason”, fired the government’s top labour statistician following a weak jobs report and forced Columbia University to pay more than $200m in a settlement that many saw as capitulation.
