Ian Bassin and Justin Florence suggest we avoid a repeat of the last 4 years by paying attention to the following. ...
Spreading disinformation: Trump began doing this on Day One with petty
efforts to doctor images to make his inauguration crowd seem bigger and continues this behavior today through his false claims of electoral victory.
Politicizing independent institutions: Trump sought to do this with the Department of Justice, the intelligence community, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and even the U.S. Postal Service.
Delegitimizing vulnerable populations: Trump tried to do this
by falsely claiming he would have won the popular vote in 2016 but for millions of “illegal votes” from communities of color, and continued this with abusive immigration policies that separated families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Aggrandizing executive power: Trump repeatedly did this in such forms as declaring a fake emergency to appropriate funds that Congress refused to authorize for a border wall as well as asserting
“the right to do whatever I want” and that his
“authority is total.”
Quashing dissent: Trump tried to do so by
using regulatory powers to retaliate against critics in the media,
stoking violence to silence opponents, even
attempting to ban books.
Corrupting elections: Trump was impeached for trying to pressure Ukraine into corrupting the 2020 election. And to this day his baseless claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent are
undermining public trust in our electoral system.