One year moving into authoritarianism

It’s been one year this week since Donald Trump returned to office.

One year and the United States is no longer a democracy.

One year and the United States has not just abandoned but often attacked its long-time allies.

One year and the cowardice and silence from those with power and a megaphone – from business leaders to virtually every elected Republican to most of the leadership of the Democratic Party to university leaders to those at the top of prominent U.S. media to major sports and entertainment figures – is stark, as stark as the extraordinary courage of ordinary people who have stood up face-to-face with ICE agents with guns and who have organized the largest protests in the history of the United States.

A short, incomplete summary of some of the most appalling things Trump’s administration has done in the past year include massive deportations by force and without due process, employed the National Guard against peaceful protesters, dismantled USAID and climate action, announced tariffs (with dramatic see-saws back-and-forth) against nations around the world, eliminated health care subsidies, attacked Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky while cozying up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, attacked media outlets for exercising freedom of the press, taken gifts valued at hundreds of million dollars from foreign and business leaders, demanded payouts from companies in order to get deals approved or to avoid sanctions, purged the military of most female and minority leaders, censored government websites to avoid words he dislikes and forced universities/scientists/medical entities to succumb or face vengeance, kidnapped Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, announced the indefinite halting of immigration visas for nearly half the countries in the world (you’ll be shocked, I’m sure, that almost all are majority Black or Brown), insisted the U.S. must gain possession of Greenland even if it ends the Transatlantic Alliance and NATO, operated the most corrupt administration in history, turned U.S. government accounts into close imitations of Nazi propaganda, ordered investigations of his “enemies” while pardoning friends and those who paid tribute as well as all those involved in the Jan. 6^th Insurrection.

This is, necessarily, wildly incomplete, or you’d be reading until tomorrow.

Virtually every day, sometimes several times a day, Trump does something that would have been shocking to people a decade ago. Frequently, he does something that is plainly illegal and unconstitutional.

Yet he has assembled around him only Cabinet members who will do exactly as he says, and has cowed virtually every Republican remaining in Congress, with only occasional murmurs from someone who plans not to run for re-election or a rare exception.

So here we are, with the United States dynamiting what has made it the wealthiest nation in the history of the world (if also wildly unequal and with repression of minorities throughout history). Blowing up scientific investigation, shutting off the flow of immigrants that are the best of America, and enraging allies who have tried everything to appease him but are finally at their wit’s end.

I’m not optimistic about elites and foreign heads of state swiftly developing enough spine to stand up strongly to Trump. I think it will be up to the people.

But there is one thing that I think about constantly, as an American living in Spain. I live in a country that was a dictatorship half a century ago – Francisco Franco died Nov. 20^th , 1975 – and is now among the most progressive countries in the world (despite a current surge of support for the far-right). The first time I left the U.S. was as a 19-year-old college student. I came to Spain to study for a semester in Toledo, living with a Spanish family, having the chance to travel through many regions of Spain (which of course I fell in love with), and taking all classes in Spanish. That semester, I took a course called “La Transición Española Hacia la Democracía” (The Spanish Transition Towards Democracy). Democracy in Spain was just over 20 years old at the time, still relatively fledgling. During Franco’s dictatorship, women had limited rights, LGBTQ people had virtually none, divorce was banned, there was not freedom of the press or speech, and much more. Today, Spain is one of just 14 countries with full legal protections for women, Spaniards show among the highest support for LGBTQ rights in the world and also among the highest support for immigrants.

This speaks to me as an indication of how rapidly things can change.

For good or for bad.

What happens in the next few months is up to all of us. We must as the people of the United States stop the authoritarian attack and defend our neighbors.