Has the Eagle landed? Part 3

The top ten characteristics of an authoritarian regime…cont.

Welcome to Part 3 of my series asking whether we are witnessing the emergence of the US as a Fascist or at least authoritarian state under the current leadership.

In this article I conclude my examination of the top 10 characteristics of an authoritarian state and consider whether  the behaviours, actions and words of President Trump and his allies fit these characteristics.

6. Appeal to populism and nationalism

Most would-be autocratic leaders today exploit existing tensions within society in order to solidify their support. In many places, fears of migrants and refugees have fueled resurgent nationalism, driving policies like the U.K 's Brexit. In India, religiously based nationalism has maintained the power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Blaming external forces for a country’s problems, such as Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s demonization of George Soros, a Hungarian-born philanthropist who supports democracy-building, is also common.

The most obvious and infamous example of the Trump administration’s efforts to fan the flames of an already dangerous situation was the President's incitement of his supporters to storm the capitol on the 6th of January, 2021. 

Whilst that in itself raises serious questions about Donald Trump's respect for the  democratic process, remember the ballots were still being counted, I have focussed on his efforts, this term, to deliberately exploit existing tensions both on the domestic and international fronts, in order to gain support for his causes.  

Donald Trump’s success is based on the American public’s support for his populist policies. The rise of Reform in the UK is down to the same attraction. In the impending collapse of the UK’s 2 party system, privately educated, millionaire ex stock broker Nigel Farage, has, astonishingly, convinced many of the UK electorate that he is nonetheless, a man of the people!

The rhetoric of populism stresses benefiting “the people” who have been ignored by a corrupt elite, whether that elite is political or economic. If the reality is to match the rhetoric, then populist governments should provide social and economic benefits for the public, including healthcare, education, and income redistribution. 

Interestingly though, a research paper by Maurice Falk Professor of Government, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA, published in 2022 and available on The Springer Nature Link found that , “whilst populist governments may see some initial, short term success in producing changes, the reality is that these changes are not sustained over time”.

I will analyse a few of Trump’s key election issues and explore some of his recent statements and, of course, his tweets too, in order to establish whether or not, as many experts claim, the current US government can legitimately be said to be exploiting existing tensions within complex societies in order to solidify their support.  

If we take domestic policy first, it's clear that immigrants are the latest target Du Jour for populist parties in The West, having taken over the mantle from communists, heretics and witches!

One of the most memorable claims made by Trump during the run up to the 2025 election was that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were abducting and eating pet cats and dogs. This wasn’t a one off slip of the tongue. The then presidential candidate repeated the claim on a live TV debate. The ABC news moderator immediately fact checked the claim and was told by the city mayor that the claim was utterly baseless and that his office had not received a single complaint about the eating of household pets. A fact later confirmed by both the local police chief and Mayor Rob Rue.

The demonstrably false rumour that Haitian immigrants were eating peoples pets was first circulated in known right-wing chat groups on GAB and Telegram and soon spread to Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

It wasn't just Trump who was happy to help circulate the lie. JD Vance posted on X;

 "people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country”. The full text of the now president's statement makes it clear that these were not just flippant statements but formed part of a deliberate strategy;

"They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats," Trump said during an answer to a question about immigration. "They're eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame."

Let me remind you of the key characteristic of authoritarian regimes, “Most would-be autocratic leaders today exploit existing tensions within complex societies in order to solidify their support.”. And let me remind you again that the current  US president's statement was false. It was a lie and Donald Trump either knew it was a lie or considered the spreading of an unconfirmed, palpably racist rumour an acceptable way to increase his support.

In a recently published paper, researchers for the International Journal of Press and Politics analysed 32 million tweets by parliamentarians from 26 countries and rigorously fact checked them.

Their conclusion was that; - “Only when combined with right-wing ideology is populism significantly associated with the spread of misinformation.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886

Populist, authoritarian movements frequently portray elites as corrupt, self-serving, or disconnected from the struggles of ordinary citizens. This can include politicians, bankers, media figures and crucially, corporations and NGOs. Often presented as being part of a powerful, hidden network that benefits at the expense of the "common person". 

Don't get me wrong, there is more than enough evidence, often corroborated by whistleblower testimony and declassified CIA documents, to support the notion of the deep state. Or, more accurately, the Military Industrial Complex. Less clear are Donald Trump’s reasons for seeking to expose the deep state. So far, most attempts have resulted in friends of his getting richer and, as of today, includes Qatar donating the new Air Force One. Yes Qatar, a country Trump described in 2017 as having, “historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”

Indeed the entire political project of the Trumpist camp consists less in questioning elitism in general than a specific vision of the elite particular to liberal democracies, the corporate elite.  Donald Trump brings in his wake a new cohort of political personalities. While one of his campaign promises was to topple the "corrupt elites" he accuses of flooding the American political arena, his second term has propelled to the country's helm, elites chosen, above all, for their loyalty to him. Does Donald Trump's new presidency herald the coming to power of "the people and the end of corrupt elites", as he claimed during his election campaign? Contrary to what this populist rhetoric claims, the president-elect is actually bringing an "anti-elite" elite to power.

Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai explains, “the success of Trumpian populism as the standard-bearer of a revolt by ordinary Americans against the elites, casts a veil over the fact that, following his victory in the last presidential election, it is a new elite that has ousted from power the, despised Democratic elite that had occupied the White House for nearly four years". Cited on January 19, 2025 in Science-Society

Neo-elitist theorist John Higley sees behind this form of anti-elite discourse an association between so-called "forceful leaders" and "leonine elites" (who take advantage of the former and their political success). A phenomenon that threatens the future of Western democracies. (https://www.umontpellier.fr/en/articles/trump-2-0-larrivee-au-pouvoir-dune-elite-anti-elite)

The idea that we are witnessing the formation of a "Muskoligarchy" - that is, an economic elite (including Tech barons such as Jeff Bezos, Mark Zukenberg, Marc Andreessen, etc.) rallying around the figurehead of Elon Musk, is by no means, a far fetched idea..

It perfectly combines the vision of an alliance between a "conspiratorial, coherent, conscious" ruling class and an oligarchy made up of the"ultra-rich". For the renowned Financial Times editorialist Martin Wolf, it is even a sign of the development of "pluto-populism", described by Collins English Dictionary as; - “a political movement in which a wealthy individual offers ideas and policies that appeal to the common person”.

Many observers  are cautious about the advent of this "Muskoligarchy". They point to the sociological eclecticism of the new Trumpian elite, whose facade of unity is held together above all by a political loyalty to the "MAGA" leader that is, for the time being, unwavering and is matched only by Trump’s unwavering demands of loyalty, not to the office of the president, to himself. Classic authoritarian behaviour !

Nonetheless, the various factions of this new "anti-elite" elite are converging around a common agenda: ridding the federal state of the supposed stranglehold of Democratic "insiders ".

In other words, the desire to get rid of the "Deep State”. 

This stated desire quickly loses all credibility in the face of Trump’s willingness to accept the help of companies like BlackRock, specifically as CEO Larry Fink provided the idea and financed the $23 billion paid to purchase the ports at each end of the Panama canal in response to Trump’s nonsensical claim that America should own the canal!

On the international front, Trump’s attempts to appeal to Populist leaders and their agenda again shows his administration’s willingness to be, at the very least, economical with facts.

7. Control information at home; misinform abroad

While propaganda and state-owned media is not new, control of modern technology and information has become a key battleground and it is in this arena that the incumbent  displays the classic authoritarian trait of not only controlling the narrative, but being proficient at spreading misinformation to ensure that the narrative fuels their populist support. Regardless of facts?  

Trump's attempt to dominate the local narrative is best demonstrated by looking directly at a set of facts.

In the first months of his second term, Donald Trump and his administration have made and in some cases, doubled down on, the following ten demonstrably false statements.

Donald Trump has prevented 300k - 300 million fentanyl related deaths.

At the height of the opioid crisis, there were 80k deaths across the US, related to fentanyl. Attorney General Pam Bondi recently made a staggering claim, - “ that drug busts during the first 100 days of the Trump administration had saved 119 million lives. She soon issued a correction, announcing in a Cabinet meeting that the true figure was more than twice as high, 258 million.

$50 million for Condoms.

When press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced at her first official White House briefing that Trump had thwarted a plan to spend $50 million “to fund condoms in Gaza,” it was immediately clear the claim was highly dubious; the Trump administration had no evidence to substantiate it. Trump not only repeated the $50 million figure the next day, he added an incendiary claim that the condoms were “for Hamas.” Then, days after it had become obvious the $50 million figure was pure fiction, he inflated it to $100 million.

At today’s prices, that's 116 million condoms.

This was another example of Trumpflation – the president’s years-old habit of making his inaccurate stories more and more inaccurate over time.

Blaming Ukraine for starting the war on Ukraine:

Regardless of where you stand with regards the validity of Russia’s claim to sovereignty over Ukraine, Russia started the war in Ukraine when it invaded Ukraine in 2022. That is an obvious fact. Yet, when Trump dismissed Ukrainians’ complaints about their exclusion from US-Russia negotiations about ending the war, he falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war – saying, “You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal.” 

The (non-)uniqueness of birthright citizenship:

Trump offered what might have sounded like a reasonable rationale for his attempt to get rid of birthright citizenship. The United States, he said, is the only country that has birthright citizenship.

Except that is not true, as CNN and other outlets pointed out when Trump made the same claim as president in 2018 and on various other occasions. Dozens of countries, including Canada and Mexico, also grant automatic citizenship to people born on their soil.

Wildfires and California water policy:

Amid disaster, more dishonesty. First, Trump linked the Los Angeles wildfires to California’s decision to use some of its water to protect a fish species in the northern part of the state – even though the two things have nothing to do with each other, as befuddled experts explained to anyone who would listen.
Then, after ordering the sudden release of billions of gallons of water from Central Valley reservoirs for no apparent good reason, Trump declared that some of this water was heading to Los Angeles – even though it wasn’t heading to Los Angeles and couldn’t go to Los Angeles.

That fable about Olympic boxers, again:

Trump continued to demonstrate a willingness to lie about not only policy issues but also individual people. This time, to promote his push to try to get transgender athletes banned from the Olympics, he told his familiar story about how two gold medalists in women’s boxing at the Games in Paris last year were men who “transitioned.”

Wrong. As the International Olympic Committee repeatedly noted during the Olympics, when Trump and others made such claims, neither champion had transitioned; both were born as female and have always competed in women’s events. Even the discredited boxing authority that controversially disqualified the women from a 2023 competition, vaguely claiming a test had found they had unfair competitive advantages, did not allege they had transitioned.

The president’s fictionalised northern neighbour:

Before taking office, Trump casually asserted that the Canadian people “like” his idea of Canada becoming the 51st US state. That was the opposite of the truth and the idea is hugely unpopular with the Canadian public. Then, after his inauguration, Trump continued to invent falsehoods about Canada, at one point posting on social media and then saying out loud that Canada prohibits US banks from doing business there. He added, “Can you believe that?” No doubt some people believe it, but it’s false.

Blasting Biden for a program launched under Trump:

After the deadly January collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet, Trump blamed Biden administration diversity initiatives at the Federal Aviation Administration without providing any evidence any FAA diversity policy had anything to do with the crash. He added in a fictional story about a frantic last-minute Biden push to hire people with significant disabilities as air traffic controllers, failing to explain that this FAA pilot program was actually a years-old initiative launched during his own administration in 2019.

Relentless deception about who pays tariffs:

When Trump talked about the tariffs he imposed on Chinese imports in his first presidency, he spoke of how much money “from China” these tariffs generated for the US Treasury. When he talked about the additional tariffs he plans to impose on various other countries during his current presidency, he spoke of a need to “charge them.” At no point did he acknowledge that US importers, not foreign countries, are the ones who pay the actual tariff charges, or that study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan trade commission, found that Americans ended up bearing almost the entire cost of his first-term tariffs on Chinese products.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w25672

Trump’s invented dominance with “the youth vote”:

Trump said some accurate things while touting his victory in the 2024 election, such as the fact that he swept all seven swing states. But in keeping with his long standing practice of exaggerating even legitimate accomplishments, he also kept sprinkling in a claim that wasn’t even close to correct, an assertion that he won the youth vote “by 36 points.” In fact, exit polls show he lost the youth vote to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Even if these polls were off, there’s no basis for the claim that he won the youth vote by 36.

The list is endless and has already formed the basis for research papers so I will briefly mention a few of the more memorable examples of Donald Trump deliberately misrepresenting the facts in order to manipulate US foreign policy and to control the narrative amongst overseas countries.

• White people in South Africa are at risk of becomming victims of a genocide. Ironically, at the time of writing, I am in Rooihuiskraal, Gauteng province in South Africa. The most pressing item on my personal admin’ list is renewing my SA passport, not dealing with genocide. Indeed, to call out the situation in South Africa as genocide whilst denying the same for residents of Gaza, is as irrational as it is demeaning.

• The Gulf of Mexico should be called the Gulf of America! I don't think we need to discuss this whopper any further! 

• America has donated more to Ukraine in arms than the whole of Europe. The Kiel Institute data shows that Europe, the European Union plus individual European countries, had committed and allocated more total wartime military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine than the US had up to the end of February 2025.Iin aid allocated, it was about $157 billion for Europe to about $135 billion for the US. It should also be pointed out that DT claims the US figure is closer to $500 billion.

Now it would be unfair to the US press corp not to point out that some outlets have challenged Trump and / or his officials on their claims. As a result, on April 15, the white house announced that wire services from Reuters and Bloomberg News will no longer hold a permanent slot in the small pool of reporters who cover President Donald Trump. A clear act of state sponsored censorship coming a week after the Trump administration lost a court challenge brought by another wire service, the Associated Press, over its earlier exclusion from the press pool.

At press conferences the president and his team refuse to answer questions from CNN or ABC. When Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic revealed that he had been added to a whitehouse chat group where classified information was shared, rather than deal with the real issue, a major security breach, Trump and his commanders attacked The Atlantic and Goldberg personally. 

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights and destroyed German democracy. Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government. Even telling a joke about Hitler was considered treachery. People in Nazi Germany could not say or write whatever they wanted. 

Examples of censorship under the Nazis included:

• Closing down or taking over anti-Nazi newspapers; 

• Controlling what news appeared in newspapers, on the radio, and in newsreels;

• Banning and burning books that the Nazis categorized as un-German.

Book removals, often referred to as book bans, are a growing concern in the United States, particularly in public schools and libraries. The American Library Association and PEN America track these removals, noting a significant increase at the behest of MAGA associated groups. Many of these attempts target books that are written by or about people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. 

8. Cripple the opposition

Damaging the opposition parties, while not completely destroying them, is now essential practice for authoritarian regimes. Infiltrating parties, co-opting members and using pure scare tactics are some possible actions in the autocrat’s playbook. After the failed assassinatin attempt on Donald Trump, his staunch ally Elon Musk asked in a since-deleted tweet why “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden and Harris” !

In an attempt to slur the democrats, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio,  pointed the finger at democrats over what he called "inflammatory" rhetoric. Suggesting they had deliberately provoked the attempt on Trump’s life.

“No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months,” Vance said in Atlanta at an event for the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Trump’s demand that the attorney general and director of national intelligence seek evidence to prosecute the previous administration shows the impartiality and independence of the justice system are being continuously challenged. Trump’s willingness to challenge the legal process by delaying the implementation of the TikTok ban, passed by Congress with bipartisan support and upheld by the Supreme Court, reinforces concerns about fraying checks and balances.   

9. Covert election manipulation

Mostly gone are the days of vote-rigging and vote-buying as a path to power. Would-be autocrats have found cleverer ways to tilt the playing field in their favor. These new tactics include hampering media access, gerrymandering, changing election and voter eligibility rules and placing allies on electoral commissions.

On April the 24th, President Trump signed an executive memorandum aimed at investigating ActBlue, the leading Democratic fundraising platform.

The memorandum directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to “investigate allegations regarding the unlawful use of online fundraising platforms to make 'straw' or 'dummy' contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees, and to take appropriate action to enforce the law." It specifically names ActBlue as an online fundraising platform being used "to improperly influence American elections."

Tucked away in Trump’s initial executive order rescinding 78 of Biden’s executive actions was the suspension of voting protections meant to expand voting access and provide accurate election information to the public. This raises questions of whether the federal government, including the Department of Justice (DOJ), will protect fundamental voting rights for Americans. A failure to enforce these laws would have a dangerous cascading effect with voter protection eroding. For example, Trump’s DOJ, despite its obligation to protect every American’s right to vote, has already dismissed a critical voter access case in Virginia.   

10. Play the emergency card

Some autocratic leaders continue to use traditional strong-arm tactics, like declaring states of emergency, to enable further repression.

In his first 100 days, President Trump has declared more national emergencies than any president in modern American history.

Powers originally crafted to give the president flexibility in rare moments of crisis now form the backbone of Trump's agenda, enabling him to steamroll Congress and govern by unilateral decree through his first three months in office.

So far, Trump has invoked national emergencies to impose the largest tariffs in a century, accelerate energy and mineral production, and militarise federal lands at the southern border.Paired with his assault on the judiciary, legal scholars fear Trump is exploiting loosely written statutes to try to upend the constitutional balance of power.

From this analysis of the top ten characteristics of an authoritarian government, it cannot be benign that the current Trump administration regularly displays all of them and furthermore, when challenged, often doubles down on outlandish and demonstrable false claims in order to justify their often Orwellian behaviour. 

Now, that in itself is a strong indicator of the Trump government's true nature however, not all authoritarian governments are fascist and in order to fully answer the question this series poses, we will need to look at the four main categories of these regimes as well as the key question determinant behind anyone's behaviour. Who has influenced Donald Trump and what motivates him.

In Part 4 I will provide possible answers to these questions.