Under Trump, America’s descent into authoritarianism may be unstoppable

In Ernest Hemingway’s debut novel, The Sun Also Rises, the author has one character (Bill) ask another (Mike) how he went bankrupt.

“Two ways,” Mike responds. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

Who knows what Hemingway, the great American writer and anti-fascist, would make of Donald Trump’s America, which this week seemed to segue from the “gradual” part of its march to authoritarianism, to the “suddenly” phase of that journey.

One of the reasons Hemingway fled America for Paris, where he became a leading light of the so-called “Lost Generation”, was because he felt artistic freedom was being stifled in his homeland.

In 1920, James Joyce’s Ulysses was banned in the United States under obscenity laws, because of its sexually explicit sections. In contemporary America, nothing is too obscene to be published or broadcast, and that’s before you even get to the unregulated sewers of the internet.

This week, long-serving Fox News host Brian Kilmeade proposed, during an on-air discussion, that mentally ill homeless people be killed by “involuntary lethal injection”.

“Just kill ’em,” he said.

Kilmeade later apologised for his “extremely callous remark”. He had endorsed a redux of an actual Nazi policy, but he wasn’t taken off the air. It was obscene, but that is no longer a reason to censor something in the United States. Censorship is now confined to media outlets which criticise MAGA in general, or Trump in particular.

This week, the late-night talk-show host, Jimmy Kimmel, had his show taken off-air after critical commentary about the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

In his opening monologue, Kimmel said that “many in MAGA-land are working very hard to capitalise on the murder of Charlie Kirk” – a statement which is firmly under the rubric of fair opinion and which is self-evidently true. Trump proved Kimmel’s point when, on Thursday, he raised the prospect of revoking the broadcast licences of networks airing evening shows that “hit Trump”.

“They give me only bad press. They’re getting a licence. I would think maybe their licence should be taken away,” Trump told reporters.

Kimmel also said that the “MAGA-gang” were “trying to characterise this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it”.

This was an odd comment because it doesn’t seem factual – Kirk’s alleged killer appears to have been motivated by his opposition to the right-wing Christian conservative-nationalism Kirk advocated.

Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, who was handpicked by Trump as the new head of the US industry regulator, seized on the error. He appeared on a right-wing podcast and said Kimmel’s show was “a concerted effort to lie to the American people”.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said, sounding like a mafia boss. Media companies could either “change conduct” or “there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead”.

Soon after, the ABC network – which is owned by Disney – cravenly announced its decision to suspend Kimmel’s show. Carr and his MAGA cronies seem unaware of the irony of censoring someone for speaking freely about a man they are eulogising for his dedication to free speech.

In the same monologue, Kimmel mentioned Trump’s “yelling at a reporter from Australia who dared to ask about the billions of dollars he’s been raking in since the election”.

This, of course, was the ABC’s John Lyons, who angered Trump on Tuesday when he asked the president about his self-enrichment in office. Trump also implied that Lyons was hurting his country’s interests with the US, before a planned meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese next week.

Trump has made a career out of normalising the outrageous, but it is worth pausing to note how extraordinary it is that the leader of the free world would openly intimidate a journalist from the public broadcaster of a close ally. And that’s just one week’s worth of free-speech violations in the land of the free.

Since Trump came to office, he has ramped up his personal denigration of journalists, he has stacked the White House press pool with sycophantic pro-MAGA influencers, and he has brought defamation proceedings against The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for journalism which shows him in a critical light.

Late-night talk-show host Stephen Colbert – a long-time Trump mocker and critic – has had his show cancelled. CBS, which broadcasts Colbert’s show, settled a lawsuit brought by Trump over journalism that was perfectly defensible. Its parent company, Paramount, needed federal regulatory approval for a multibillion-dollar merger.

Free speech (and a free media) is not a fun side benefit of a democracy – it is a key element of it. The first task of an authoritarian leader is suppression of free speech.

The American creed of freedom is the reason why it is the most innovative and creatively brilliant culture in the world. From Hemingway to hip-hop, America’s cultural output over the past century has been extraordinary.

But that is now threatened by the creep of an authoritarianism being pre-emptively acceded to by media companies, business leaders, and the pathetically compromised Republican Party.

As Venezuelan-born journalist Gisela Salim-Peyer wrote in The Atlantic, “the disintegration of democracy is a deceptively quiet affair”.

“Each authoritarian milestone – the first political prisoner, the first closure of an opposition media outlet – is anticipated with fear. Then the milestone goes by, and after a brief period of outrage, life continues as before.”

What enters, along with authoritarianism, is fear – the sure knowledge that the cost of any opposition will be high. Which only makes the need for opposition more urgent.

In 2002, leading American democracy scholars Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way came up with the concept of “competitive authoritarianism”.

It applies to nations which are not totalitarian or even fascist, but which have a constant push and pull between democratic and autocratic forces.

A leader may be elected legitimately (as Trump was) but then he uses his power to destroy democratic norms, compromise democratic institutions, and to enrich himself.

In February this year, the two scholars published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine entitled “The Path to American Authoritarianism”, in which they wrote that “democracy is in greater peril today than at any time in modern US history”.

They predicted that “US democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration”, as the protection of civil liberties, free and fair elections, and full adult suffrage are all swept away.

In March, Levitsky told New York Magazine that he and Lucan used to have “dark fantasies” about their theory applying to their homeland.

“Would we ever have to write a piece saying that the United States is becoming competitive authoritarian?” he said. “We’d talked about it, but we always came to the conclusion that no, it would never really happen.”

Now, Levitsky has changed his mind. “We’re pretty screwed,” he said.

Are we there yet? Suddenly, it seems, we are.

Jacqueline Maley is a columnist and author.