One thing to keep in mind is that Nazi-style totalitarianism is one outcome but not necessarily the only one. It’s probably the worst that enters our imagination, but it’s less likely than many of the outcomes that fall short of that. However, those less extreme scenarios can be pretty bad.
The immediate danger is a defacto hybrid democratic-authoritarian regime - a government that poses as a democracy in many forms but is, in fact, behaving more and more like an oligarchy and kleptocracy.
And the bad news is, we are already there now in some respects. The firings of the IGs, the abdication of the senate to do its basic responsibilities, the hyper-politicization of the judiciary selection process - that’s one aspect of this system. It’s significant in that these steps destroy confidence in the democratic systems, both in terms of the electoral processes and also in terms of a public legislature that is responsive to the needs of people.
Ordinary people won’t notice the effects of the de facto authoritarian democracy right away. Instead it’s the people who are directly in the path of the authoritarians who feel it first. And right now, the public servants in this country absolutely have virtual bullseyes on their backs. They are no longer valued for their intelligence or their competence; instead, they are despised for it. They are targeted for their independence and for their attempts to faithfully execute the law and the public interest. That is typically a very, very bad sign for a democracy. Using Turkey’s authoritarianism as an example, one of the steps that Recep Erdogan took was to purge the ranks of government civil servants - even school teachers - of anyone who was considered to be disloyal (the failed coup was the green light for the purge). This happened in Putin’s Russia as well - civil servants who stood up to him had to flee the country eventually.
The next step is the assault on the rule of law and also on the ability to control the flow of official information. Democracies depend heavily on fair and impartial justice and the flow of information, and on having people who value these things. What we’re seeing now is that the rule of law is not only being used to exonerate criminal loyalists but also to target or to merely intimidate opponents. The idea that Trump and his surrogates openly toss around the prospect of investigating people who conducted the Mueller probe or the initial Russia meddling investigation isn’t just talk; it’s psychologically conditioning people to accept that this is normal, and that “truth” and “justice” and “laws” and “constitutional principle” really depends not on facts, but rather on who owns power and who owns the flow of information.
Odds are, America may not end up quite as bad as Nazi Germany, but that’s hardly consolation. What’s very likely is that, if given enough time, the Republicans will erode confidence in the system to the point where people no longer expect it to function properly. The more likely outcome is that we know the government is corrupt and stealing our tax dollars but feel powerless to stop it. Those who speak out get prosecuted, perhaps even convicted and die mysteriously in a federal prison. Others get assaulted by violent right wing militia members who get winks and nods from the administration that they can do the country a favor by roughing up a journalist or a rising progressive political star.
And the further the right wing minority government goes down the path, the more enemies they make, the more laws they break, and the more important it is to remain in power indefinitely. And with that, the more extreme measures they will take to maintain and consolidate power. The only thing that can stop it is a massive “fuck you” from the people who finally get out of their own way and put their petty little differences and desires for political idealism aside and can effectively unite as an opposition to “illiberal democracy.”
