When will the US become a Dictatorship?

The events that will transition the US into an authoritarian state

The law is broken with little consequence by the Trump regime today (8th of April). People are sent to El Salvadoran prisons without any ability to prove their case or appeal. It means, in theory, any one of you could be sent there. Trump doesn’t like what you say? He just sends immigration authorities to round you up and deport you to El Salvador. There is no way to get you back afterwards. No way to appeal.

This is already happening to legal U.S. citizens and residents. Think you can’t be sent out because your ancestors came over on the Mayflower? Think again. They won’t let you make your case in court. They do what they want.

This is just one of many examples of how U.S. law is broken daily. Elon Musk’s DOGE is another example—thousands of illegal firings, illegal shutdown of funds.

But is the U.S. a dictatorship today because of it? I wouldn’t go quite that far. It is certainly not a functioning democracy at this point, but here are important things that still exist:

• U.S. media is still operating and reporting—even liberal media opposing Trump.

• There are still judges making rulings against the regime when it breaks the law.

• People are still allowed to gather for protests, and they do protest.

In other words, Americans still have a chance to fight back. The regime is still far from having seized or secured all power. But many of these functions rely on people in the state apparatus who swore an oath to the Constitution. These people are now getting fired in large numbers and replaced by loyalists. This is the old fascist playbook: you root out the bureaucracy and replace it with yes-men. Ever heard of the Chinese Cultural Revolution? That was, in fact, very similar to what is happening in the U.S. today. It was Mao’s attack on the Chinese bureaucracy, which he felt was not loyal enough. Red Guards decimated bureaucracies and installed yes-men—or instilled fear in those who remained, making sure they did Mao’s bidding.

Trump isn’t using Red Guards. He’s using Elon’s DOGE to do a similar job under the guise of eliminating waste and fraud. No doubt, they believe that’s what they’re doing—but this movement has also long spoken about the need to dismantle what they call “the deep state.”

In reality, this is simply newspeak for installing loyalists. Once firm control is established at all levels, it becomes easier to simply break the law. Loyalists won’t question it. That’s why Trump 1.0 couldn’t break the law at the scale now happening—he lacked yes-men in key positions. Now, Trump has loyalists in far more places, which allows him to ignore the U.S. Constitution at will.

Once a bureaucratic takeover is secured, we might see the dismantling of the free media. Licenses for MSNBC, CNN, etc., could be revoked.

However, this is not a given. We should not look at this as some 4D chess plan. Trump simply isn’t that smart or strategic. I’m speaking of what can happen when you install lots of loyalists.

I frankly don’t think creating a dictatorship is Trump’s long-term plan. Why? Because he doesn’t see himself as a future dictator. In his mind, he is the guy the American people want, and so he has no need to be a dictator. The people want him.

Of course, that is a delusion. The American people do not want him. That’s why millions are marching against him. But he doesn’t accept this reality. They are dismissed as actors paid by the likes of George Soros—or as far-left activists. No, these people are not the American people in his mind. Because, in his mind, he is the most popular president in American history. The people love him.

In other words, my prediction is that dictatorship will evolve in the U.S. when this delusion hits reality like a wall of bricks. When will that happen?

Numerous judges have made rulings against the Trump regime. As these rulings continue to be ignored, there will come a time when one judge is forced to issue arrest warrants for people in the Trump regime. Once his people start getting arrested, I think you’ll start seeing the big shift. Judges going against him will be pushed out, arrested, intimidated—whatever is needed to stop his people from being held accountable. He will simply not accept that outcome.

When this happens, a real crisis will emerge, and the media will be filled with reports of power abuse. People will flood the streets in outrage. Things will spiral out of control—and that is when Trump will begin the clampdowns, and the first steps toward a genuine dictatorship will occur.

Let me clarify what argument I’m making: I do not believe an American dictatorship is a step-by-step plan they are working toward. Rather, a dictatorship will emerge as a consequence of action and reaction. One action will cause a reaction, which causes a counter-reaction, and so the dominoes fall.

The fundamental driver that could cause a chain of events leading to dictatorship is that Trump, at present, simply does not respect the law—and he is unlikely to back down. Should Trump back down, the U.S. may never evolve into a dictatorship.

However, I simply don’t believe Trump will ever back down.

There is, of course, the chance that Republicans will begin turning against him. That could also hinder a slide toward authoritarianism. I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t say how much Republicans or conservative Supreme Court justices will tolerate.

But there is one problem with turning back. These judges and Republicans are now, in effect, on the fascism treadmill. They can’t jump off. If you know you’ve been breaking the law for Donald Trump, you can’t step away without facing prosecution and prison. Once you start breaking the law for a regime, you’re compromised. You can’t turn your back on that regime.

On the other hand, the U.S. has a long un-proud history of not prosecuting the privileged for their crimes. The 2008 financial crash was caused by widespread lies and fraud. Tiny Iceland, with just 350,000 people, prosecuted dozens of bankers and put them behind bars.

What about the U.S.? Not a single one. To my knowledge, the only person who did jail time was a whistleblower who called out these crimes. You look at Epstein and Diddy and might conclude you can commit serious crimes for decades before facing consequences.

Thus, if Republicans know the justice system is a joke anyway, they may not be intimidated by it. And that, ironically, could help democracy in this case. Funny, isn’t it?

Why This Crisis Might Be Impossible to Fix

The fundamental problem in stopping this slide into authoritarianism is that the U.S. has a two-party system. When one party evolves into the party of Quisling, how do you fix that? If Republicans are arrested and prosecuted for treason and the party is banned, the U.S. is left with a one-party state.

In European proportional voting systems, you don’t have this problem, as there are typically around ten different parties. That’s the case in Norway and Sweden, for instance. Arresting members of one party and banning it would be dramatic—but not the end of democracy. There would still be nine other parties voters could turn to, many with related political ideologies.

Yet, if you’re not willing to arrest the people dismantling your democracy, then how can you protect it? But by arresting these people, you also end up with a one-party state, which lacks democratic legitimacy. In other words, the U.S. risks falling into a Catch-22 with no clear solution.

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My Solution Out of This

This is a dramatic—and perhaps crazy-sounding—solution, but I believe it’s the only sane one that might avoid a potential civil war: democratic states should leave the Union and form a new country. That would solve a problem that currently has no solution. There is no quick fix for the MAGA brainwashing. Even if Trump is ousted, you’ll still have millions of Americans wedded to the delusional MAGA worldview. There’s no way to simply sit down and convince them, with well-crafted arguments, that they are wrong.

There is a precedent for this. Nazi voters in Germany were studied in the 1950s. They never changed their core beliefs. It was never possible to undo the damage Hitler and the Nazi Party did to their worldview. It was the new generation of Germans who had to turn their backs on that ideology. But this was only possible because of a ten-year-long Allied occupation of Germany, during which specific parties were banned and voting was tightly monitored.

Such an approach is completely unworkable in the U.S. MAGA will never accept Democrats assuming a role as occupiers working to de-radicalize them. Thus, the sensible outcome is to accept irreconcilable differences—and divorce.

What about civil war? That is certainly a danger. But remember—it’s possible to talk about this. It may be that Republicans would actually prefer this solution. They dislike sharing a country with liberals as much as liberals dislike sharing a country with Republicans. Not every exit from a union ends in war. My native Norway left Sweden, and while conservatives demanded war, they were voted down.

You may call me crazy for suggesting this, but is it not better than a civil war? Sure, it may never come to that—but then walk me through how exactly the dominoes stop falling, as you pointed out?

Do you really think Trump will just stop his agenda if a few Republicans turn their backs on him? Remember how they yelled “Hang Pence”? Who exactly will dare stand up to Trump?

Those Republicans know very well that Trump’s brownshirts—sorry, I mean the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers—have been released from prison and stand ready to act on any hint Trump gives them. These Republicans know that if Trump goes hard against them in public, there is a real danger that a Proud Boy or Oath Keeper will take it upon themselves to do the bidding of their Führer. No direct order is needed. Trump didn’t explicitly order his loyal minions to storm the Capitol. He only needed to dog-whistle. Plausible deniability is everything in this world—and the American right has perfected it.