Speaking in the oval office this week, Donald Trump had something he wanted to clarify.
I am not a dictator. I don't like a dictator, said the president.
However, his comments occurred for weeks after having deployed armed soldiers and human -style military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington, affirming, despite all the available evidence, that the use of the National Guard was necessary to control crime.
The remarks followed Trump to remember or threatened to retain billions of dollars from universities, and after the raid increasingly politicized by the FBI on John Bolton's house, an eminent critic of Trump.
Trump also targeted law firms who have deposited pursuits to which he opposed, while the Federal Communications Commission, led by one named by Trump, survey on all the main broadcasting network, except Fox, owner of the Fox Pro-Trump news channel. Trump personally continued information channels on critical coverage and dismissed the best statisticians of governments' work because she has published job data he did not like.
He threatened the Democrats with prosecution and demanded that former President Barack Obama are the subject of an investigation for betrayal. Trump did it all because his family has won millions of dollars at his presidency.
None of these things are typical for a democratic leader. So, is Trump a dictator?
Yes, of course, said Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology at Princeton University who spent years looking for autocracies, notably Hungary and Russia. Scheppele said that she had hesitated to use the term dictatorship until recently, but said: if I hesitated before, it is this mobilization of the National Guard and the indication that he plans to go beyond the resistance by force which now means there.
Trump, embarked on by a republican party who seems willing to let their leader do whatever he wants, now threatens to send troops to democratic cities, notably Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco and New York, causing an outcry and accusations of abuse of power.
Scheppele said: he really plans a military and repressive force, to get out of the streets of the places that are most likely to resist his dictatorship and simply put everything by force.
Most modern dictators try to hide their aspirations. Scheppele said that leaders such as Russia Vladimir Putin, the Hungaries Viktor Orbn and the Recep Tayyip Erdoan turkeys have moved away to avoid resembling dictators of the 20th century in the hope that they can avoid the label.
If you consider dictators like, you know, tanks in the streets and a large number of soldiers greeting the chief, and the big posters of the leader who go up in national buildings, all this reminds everyone of the Germany Hitlers and the Stalines of Russia and everything and Mussolinis Italy, she said.
Hence Orbn, Erdoan and others try to avoid these scenes. But that doesn't seem to bother Trump.
A portrait of Donald Trump is hung at the headquarters of the Labor Department near the Capitol in Washington DC on August 29. Photography: Jos Luis Magaa / AP
This week, a giant banner was draped on the building of the Ministry of Labor, showing Trump in the process of establishing himself on Washington DC above American slogan workers. The day of his birthday, which coincided with the 250th anniversary of the training of the American army, he organized a military parade in the capital and would have been furious that the troops were not sufficiently threatening.
In Trumps, the first mandate, while rushed against political standards, the book How Democracies Die which examined the detangling of democracies around the world has become a bestseller. Steven Levitsky, the book co-author and political scientist at Harvard University, said Trump had the mentality of a classic tin box dictator, but said the president has failed to become so.
Technically in terms of political science, no, he is not a dictator. The United States, I think, collapse in a form of authoritarianism. But he did not consolidate in a pure and simple dictatorship, said Levitsky.
Trump said he was not a dictator, but said last week: many people say: maybe get married like a dictator. It is not clear to whom he was referring, but he continued the theme on Tuesday.
The line is that I am a dictator. But I stop the crime. So, many people say: you know, if this is the case, I prefer to have a dictator, said Trump at a meeting of the cabinet.
The Guardian asked the White House what data that Trump quoted when he said that the Americans wanted a dictator, but did not receive an answer.
Dictators everywhere, first of all, say they are not dictators. And secondly, a little contradictoral, says that the people want a Levitsky dictator, author and political scientist
Levitsky reiterated that he does not believe that Trump is a dictator in the real sense, but added: dictators everywhere, first of all, say they are not dictators. And secondly, a little contradictory, says that people want a dictator. These are classic dictator lines.
The United States has already expressed interest in authoritarianism. At the height of its fame, a third of the Americans expressed themselves in the radio broadcasts by Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest whose anti -Semitic programs praised Benito Mussolini. The laws of Jim Crow were authorized to apply racial segregation in the 1960s, while Senator Joseph McCarthy was authorized to persecute the alleged communists during the so-called red breakdown.
You can always, in many periods in American history, find 25, 30% of the American electorate that was authoritarian, and I think it's really true today, said Levitsky.
Today, this is a large part of the Republican Party, he said, and Trump is looking at this basis.
There is a real performance side of this authoritarianism of governments, which suggests that there is a constituency for this, which is very frightening. And I really haven't seen something like this kind of performative authoritarianism, honestly, since the 1930s in Europe, he said.
Most authoritarian countries of the 21st century are hybrid regimes, said Levitsky. He underlined Venezuela, Hungary, Tunisia and Turkey, where Erdoan spent more than two decades in power, cementing his position by repressing the country's media and bringing thousands of criminal cases against people who insult the president.
They are authoritarian, in that they are not entirely democratic: there is an abuse of generalized power which inclined the rules of the game against the opposition. So no one would look at Turkey and said: it is a democracy. But that's not what I would call a dictatorship. And that's what I think the great danger is in the United States.
There is, said Levitsky, a no zero chance that Trump can use emergency powers as he had immigration measures and prices justify to overthrow the Constitution, potentially undergoing elections.
But, he said: the most likely result is a lighter authoritarianism where the opposition exists, the opposition is above the board of directors, the opposition competitions for power, participate in the elections.
The government does not win all its battles, but the abuse of power as we have seen in the last six months, the abuse of power of seven months are so widespread, so systematic and violations of the law, the violations of rights are so widespread and systematic that the playground begins to include opposition.
And you wouldn't call it a complete democracy.
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