Refusing to submit

"Do not obey in advance." In his classic book "On Tyranny," that is historian Timothy Snyder's first rule for resisting a slide from democracy into authoritarian rule. Most of the power that autocrats accumulate, he warns, "is freely given" out of fear and resignation. We are now seeing that phenomenon come to life as Donald Trump and Elon Musk attempt to seek total, unfettered, and blatantly unconstitutional control of the federal government. "Real power," Trump once said, "is fear." His second coup attempt has deeply frightened much of Washington, the nation, and our allies. Even as their constitutional authority is stolen, congressional Republicans have turned into a herd of cowed lickspittles. Owners of major media organizations such as ABC, CBS, and Facebook are settling nuisance "bias" lawsuits by making multimillion-dollar blackmail payments to Trump, hoping these tributes will persuade him to leave their businesses intact. Facebook and X are actively collaborating with Trump's agenda.

But Trump is far weaker than he seems. He won the popular vote by 1.5%; his approval rating even before this week's surreal cascade of chaos was just 47% — a record low for a modern president in the honeymoon period. Barack Obama was at 68% at this stage, and George W. Bush and Joe Biden were at 57%. Republican control of the House is razor-thin, making significant legislation unlikely. And so Trump seeks to rule by personal edict, in a blizzard of executive orders, and by empowering tech terrorist Musk to launch a blitzkrieg on the federal government. "Trump is acting like a king," Ezra Klein observed in The New York Times, "because he is too weak to govern like a president." Trump seeks to overwhelm and terrorize, so that people give up — that is, obey in advance. If they do, his autocratic pretensions become reality. But if enough Americans stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law, Trump will again prove he's manifestly unfit for the presidency, as he did in 2020, and his power will wane. Let's hope most of the damage can be undone.

This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

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