The five steps in Trump's Authoritarian Playbook

There’s a very common playbook that leaders use when they fear that they or their party are going to lose an election. So, here are some of the steps in that authoritarian playbook that you should look out for:

1⃣ Install loyalists to key positions around the elections. The president, unlike his first term, has really put in deep loyalists across the government; in the attorney general’s office, in charge of elections and election security. Putting in people who are more loyal to him than they are to the Constitution and who will do whatever he says.

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2⃣ Sow doubt in our election system. The president has been doing this since 2020. He’s talking falsely about how our elections were rigged in 2020. He’s been talking about how the elections we just had in Los Angeles were rigged. He said in the State of the Union this year that if he and his party don’t win in November, then the 2026 are rigged. The president has come out against mail-in voting and absentee voting. The president is already starting to do this by suing states across the country, including Michigan, for their voter rolls. He has particularly taken a sharp look at the city of Detroit and in Wayne County. This is all part of a bigger play to sow doubt into the efficacy of our elections.

3⃣ Suggest that there is a crisis threatening our elections. This is all about amping up the stories and the coverage and the tweets about how we are actually in an emergency. That our elections are so unsafe, so problematic, that the president has to declare some sort of emergency.

4⃣ Respond to the perceived threat. Once you’ve created an emergency and you’ve said our elections are under threat, now the head of state has to respond to that emergency. Maybe they send the uniform military; maybe they send the federal law enforcement; maybe they feel the need to be on location at polling places. Maybe now they are seizing ballots and voting machines.

5⃣ If none of that works and the elections don’t go the way of the leader, completely question the results. Sue to try and have them overturned. We lived through this in 2020, and as someone who, on January 6, barricaded herself in her own office, we’ve seen that President Trump does not accept the results of elections that he loses.

You can watch me discuss this playbook here on YouTube.

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