Editor’s note: This commentary is by John Bossange, who is a lead donor to the College of Education and Social Services and the University of Vermont Foundation, and is the founding chair and a current member of the College’s Board of Advisors.
I spent two years living under a dictatorship in Brazil, and I remember well the impact of decades of a “strong man” on the well-being of the population. Citizens just gave up and fell into a state of compliance living their lives through family, sports, music, and their church. Getting involved in politics, elections, and local governments as citizens was a long lost memory and not worth the time or fear of reprisals. I remember my Brazilian friends saying, “That’s just not the way things are here, John.” There was a quiet acceptance of a “normal” totally different from my American “normal” of participation and the good feeling of discourse and making a difference in my town, state and country.
Dictators are not leaders. Instead, they control the press, the courts, the assemblies, and the military. We’re not too far from that now. President Donald Trump has his own TV station (Fox) and thanks to social media (tweets), he can completely bypass the rest of the print, TV, and radio media and still communicate effectively with the country. He has an attorney general who believes in a strong, separate executive branch, and he has packed the courts, including the Supreme Court, with judges sympathetic to a hands-off approach to the executive branch and presidential checks and balances. He will have the Senate in his control until Jan. 20, and of course he is the commander in chief.
It’s no wonder people are talking about the unthinkable: Trump not conceding an election loss next week, taking the election results to the courts, state legislatures, and maybe not even leaving the White House at noon on the 20th, as required by the Constitution. All the ingredients for remaining in power are there. He’s been talking about not accepting the vote count for months now, hinting at voter fraud and fake news. Last week he said the man he replaced and the man he is running against should be in jail. His rallies reveal a more and more desperate candidate, even calling people “stupid bastards” last week as one of his maskless rallies. It’s a new normal for his supporters, including most of the existing Republican Party members. Fearing his attacks and not being reelected to their congressional seats, they have accepted his violent, demeaning character as well as his values and policies.
This is not the Republic Party of 1974, when the party leaders confronted a combative, stubborn and prideful Nixon and told him that he must resign for the good of the country. If the president loses I don’t see that happening in 2020, no matter how big the margin. With the control of the Congress, the courts, the press and the military, we could be another Brazil very easily and very quickly. That’s not a stretch, and Trump knows it. And that’s why he has been emboldened to challenge our time-honored peaceful transition of power, the hallmark of American democracy.
