People who have experienced the kind of authoritarianism the US used to condemn abroad highlight worrying signs
When it comes to the rise of autocracy in America, Justice Potter Stewart’s famous pronouncement on pornography might be particularly appropriate at the moment: “I know it when I see it.”
The cult of personality was apparent as Donald Trump’s cabinet convened on Wednesday in a marathon session that could have embarrassed even a seasoned strongman, providing for three hours and 17 minutes of fawning television coverage.
There was Steve Witkoff, the president’s top envoy and negotiator, standing up in the increasingly gilded Cabinet Room, offering praise that could have made even Vladimir Putin blush. “There’s only one thing I wish for – that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about,” he said to applause from secretaries of state, defense and other top cabinet officials.
Or was it Stephen Miller on Fox News in effect criminalising the opposition to Trump and calling Chicago a “killing field” despite controverting facts. “The Democrat party is not a political party, it is a domestic extremist organisation,” he said in a strident tone, claiming that the party was devoted “exclusively to the defence of hardened criminals, gangbangers and illegal alien killers and terrorists”.
