…“I consider Trump a very serious threat to American democracy,” said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and the author of numerous books about democracy. “He has repeatedly demonstrated in word and deed that he does not value democracy, does not respect constitutional norms, does not accept the results of democratic elections if he loses and only values the friendship of strongman autocrats like Orban and Putin rather than our democratic allies.”
I met Diamond in July 2019, when Trump was 2½ years into his presidency. He had just published “Ill Winds: Saving Democracy From Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency,” a disturbing look at the retreat of democracy and rise of authoritarians around the world. An entire chapter, titled “The Decline of American Democracy,” is devoted to Trump.
“We can survive sleaze and vulgarity in a president,” Diamond wrote. “We can challenge and reverse bad policies. But the threat that Trump poses to America’s democratic institutions and norms is unprecedented.”
And, Diamond told me Thursday by email from Taiwan, the threat has only grown more serious, especially since the Supreme Court undermined the bedrock American ideal that no one is above the law.
“He is much more unhinged now than he was when he ran in 2016 or 2020, and I truly fear for his potential to abuse presidential power and weaponize it against his opponents,” Diamond wrote, “even more so in light of the recent Supreme Court decision expanding immunity from prosecution for virtually anything a president does in office that can be claimed to be an official act.”
One of the most distressing aspects of Trump’s popularity is his supporters’ willingness to accept a president with unchecked authority…
Source: Is Donald Trump really serious about being a dictator? – Los Angeles Times

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