Think the NSA is scary now? Wait till Donald Trump controls it.

Democrats should have tied down the national security state when they had the chance

Donald Trump could take his authority to new levels.
(Image credit: Luciano Lozano/Ikon Images/Corbis)

Donald Trump is pretty obviously an incipient tinpot dictator. He's got the demagogue's knack for both playing off and encouraging the worst instincts of his supporters, including violent reprisals against scapegoats. He's got wide support among authoritarians. He's even got the taste for garish prestige construction projects.

What makes a Trump presidency genuinely terrifying, however, is the prospect of him at the helm of the American security apparatus. That could turn a merely bad presidency into a huge advance of authoritarianism, and perhaps the beginning of the end of constitutional democracy in the United States.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.