“We Need the GOP to Reclaim Its Role as a Check on Trump,” argues Associate Professor Rory Truex of Princeton University in a wide-ranging interview with ECPS. He warns that the United States is “in the middle stages of democratic backsliding,” driven by Trump’s effort to “capture the referees” through loyalist appointments across the DOJ, FBI, and Department of Defense. Dr. Truex cautions that framing opponents as “enemies from within” is a classic precursor to authoritarian repression, even as recent mass protests—“the largest in American history”—underscore civic resilience. While electoral results in New Jersey, Virginia, California, and New York signal public fatigue with Trumpism, Dr. Truex maintains that meaningful reversal hinges on Republican elites: “We need the Republican Party to come back to its senses.”
Interview by Selcuk Gultasli
“We Need the GOP to Reclaim Its Role as a Check on Trump” — this stark warning from Associate Professor Rory Truex of Princeton University underscores the fragility of institutional constraints in the United States amid the continued rise of Trumpist politics. In an extended conversation with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Truex situates the contemporary US experience within a comparative framework, drawing on scholarship on democratic backsliding, authoritarian power consolidation, and the erosion of norms.
An expert on authoritarian governance—particularly in China— Dr. Truex argues that the United States is currently “in the middle stages of a process political scientists call democratic backsliding,” a trajectory in which formally democratic institutions are gradually transformed into mechanisms of asymmetric competition that systematically disadvantage opponents. While he stops short of declaring the US an autocracy, Dr. Truex emphasizes that Trump should be seen as “a proto-autocrat—someone with authoritarian ambitions whose ability to realize them remains uncertain.”
The most distinctive and dangerous dimension of the current moment, Dr. Truex suggests, is Trump’s systematic personalization of power—particularly his effort to sweep aside neutral bureaucratic oversight in favor of loyalists. Appointments at the DOJ, FBI, and Department of Defense reflect what Dr. Truex calls a classic strategy of “capturing the referees.” As he notes, “You really can’t have people around you who are going to stand up to you and check your power.” These dynamics have intensified under a second Trump administration.
The danger, however, is not limited to institutional subversion. Dr. Truex identifies a rhetorical shift that strikes at the heart of democratic culture: the demonization of political opposition. He warns that branding rivals “enemies from within” constitutes a foundational step toward authoritarian politics: “Anytime you see a phrase like ‘enemies from within’ or ‘enemy of the people,’ this is usually a precursor to some form of political violence or authoritarian crackdown.”While mass demonstrations in response—remarkably “the largest protest in American history”—have illustrated the resilience of civil society, the stakes remain high.
Against this backdrop, Dr. Truex underscores the critical role of Republican elites in determining the country’s democratic trajectory. The 2024 elections in New Jersey, Virginia, California, and New York (notably Zohran Mamdani’s victory) demonstrate, in his view, public “dissatisfaction with Trump and the Trump policy agenda.” These results also raise the possibility of a strategic recalibration within the GOP. As Dr. Truex puts it, the key question is “at what point [Republican members of Congress] will begin to try to distance themselves from Trump.” His appeal is unambiguous: “We need the Republican Party to come back to its senses. We need people to begin to check Trump.”
Whether such realignment will occur remains uncertain. But as Dr. Truex stresses, US democracy’s fate hinges not only on electoral outcomes but also on whether the institutional and normative guardrails that once constrained executive overreach can be rebuilt—and restored.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Associate Professor Rory Truex, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
A Proto-Autocrat in the White House?
Professor Rory Truex, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How would you characterize the Trump administration’s current trajectory in comparative perspective—does it resemble a transition toward competitive authoritarianism, or does it constitute a novel form of “autocracy” adapted to US institutions?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: I would characterize the US right now as being in the middle stages of a process political scientists call democratic backsliding. This is when the level of democracy erodes in some meaningful direction toward autocracy. Typically, in a case like the United States—where you have a well-consolidated democracy—the backsliding would be toward what we would call competitive authoritarianism, competitive autocracy, or electoral autocracy. There are different labels, but it essentially refers to a non-democratic system that nevertheless maintains elections. The key issue is that the ruling party uses the tools of power to make those elections fundamentally not free and fair—tilting the electoral playing field and using other instruments of power to erode the opposition in fundamentally anti-democratic ways.
I think the Trump administration is moving in this direction, and there is debate in political science over how exactly we should label it. On the one hand, this is a leader who did try to overturn the results of a democratic election in 2020, so we know he has authoritarian impulses and ambitions. On the other hand, we continue to have vocal opposition in the United States. We had elections last week that went off without a hitch. We saw large-scale protests. So there is a substantial degree of pushback.
Thus, I would characterize him as a proto-autocrat—someone with authoritarian ambitions whose ability to realize them remains uncertain. As for whether this is novel, I would say this process unfolds differently in every case; there is no single path. We can look at analogs—Hungary is a common example—but many other countries, roughly 30 in the last 20 or 30 years, have gone through some version of this process. So while there are aspects unique to the United States, I don’t think the overall process is especially unusual.
Purging the Referees: A Classic Authoritarian Strategy
Recent actions targeting the DOJ, civil service, and military leadership suggest an attempt to dismantle institutional autonomy. To what extent do these moves reflect classic authoritarian strategies of purging neutral bureaucracies and creating personalist control?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: In general, what we observe in the authoritarian world is that checks and balances erode pretty darn fast, and these leaders’ style of governance does not really tolerate independent centers of power. That might manifest in the military, the judiciary, or the civil service. There just needs to be a tight relationship between the leader and all aspects of the bureaucracy. And we’ve observed that personalization of power under Trump. More so than any other president, you could argue that he’s really prioritized political loyalty, and the people he’s appointing to key positions—whether it’s in the DOJ, or Kash Patel in the FBI, or Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense—are individuals who have essentially pledged loyalty to him. This contrasts with the first Trump administration, where there were more independent centers of power around him.
So yes, I think this is a fairly well-defined, non-democratic strategy. It’s particularly important in institutions that would reasonably check his power and that are central to coercion. To be more precise, the judiciary is really important—the Department of Justice, anything associated with the legal apparatus—but also the military and police apparatus as well. This is a well-established authoritarian strategy that they’ve been quite successful at implementing over the last several months.
Managed Participation Without Democracy: Mobilizing Support, Marginalizing Dissent
Your research on consultative authoritarianism shows how regimes create participation channels to consolidate legitimacy. How does Trumpism employ similar “managed participation”—e.g., rallies, online mobilization—to consolidate loyalty while delegitimizing dissent?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: That’s a great question. I’m a China scholar by trade, so most of my research is on the Chinese case, and one thing we’ve observed in China is that the CCP, over time, has created channels for public participation—things like mayor’s mailboxes, the petition system, the parliament—that fall well short of democracy and real, meaningful democratic channels, but nevertheless allow the CCP regime to learn something about the population and respond. That allows them to keep things stable and stay in power. This is an example of what we would call a closed authoritarian system with no elections, no opposition parties, creating some mechanisms to be just slightly more responsive. Now, in the US setting, I wouldn’t actually say that these are terribly comparable, because we have a robust democracy and civil society that is going through this authoritarian moment.
What’s happening is, unfortunately, the political system has become so bifurcated into two different communities that the overlap between them has really diminished. In political science, we talk about something called affective polarization, which is the difference between how someone feels about their own party versus the other party. Over the last three decades, people have increasingly loathed the other party and are now operating in different media ecosystems and increasingly different social ecosystems. They are living in different parts of the country; they’re not socializing across party lines. That’s how I view what’s happening. Obviously, the far right or the American right has its own media ecosystem centered around a lot of different platforms and podcasters, and there is a high degree of mobilization. Trump has a personal charisma for a lot of people in the United States, and he’s able to captivate audiences, and did that a lot on the campaign trail. So, that’s part of it, but I would say it’s quite different from what I would call consultative authoritarianism.
Labeling Rivals ‘Enemies’ as a Prelude to Crackdown
Trump and senior advisers have framed political opponents as “enemies from within.” How significant is this reframing in eroding the democratic norm of loyal opposition, and does it constitute a foundational step toward autocratic rule?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This language—“enemies from within” is deeply troubling. Again, I’m a China scholar, so anytime you see a phrase like “enemies from within” or “enemy of the people,” this is usually a precursor to some form of political violence or authoritarian crackdown. So it’s really problematic language.
In a democracy, parties need to recognize each other as legitimate opposition and treat one another with a degree of respect, even if there is some underlying disdain. The minute you start talking about people as enemies of the American population, or link them to terrorist groups—using words like “terrorist” or “foreign government”—that’s a significant escalation in rhetoric. What we saw in the US was that this escalation occurred just prior—it’s been ongoing, but it really ramped up—in the lead-up to the No Kings protest of mid-October.
What was notable is that, in turn, those protests wound up being overwhelmingly peaceful—and the largest protest in American history. I don’t think people fully grasp that. The estimates are anywhere from 5 to 7 million people; whatever number you use, it’s the largest protest in American history. It wasn’t a bunch of violent Antifa people running around throwing Molotov cocktails. It was a bunch of normal people out with signs, wearing costumes, playing guitars, and it was quite beautiful. I was there with my family in Connecticut, and it was quite a striking moment.
So, one notable development is that the Trump administration is trying to paint the opposition as anti-American, disloyal, an enemy of the people—and trying to paint them as violent. The reality is quite different, and the protest event just a couple of weeks ago revealed the Trump narrative to be fundamentally off-base, and hopefully that was a turning point.
Emergency as Strategy: How Autocrats Exploit Chaos
The administration’s weaponization of crises—such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk—as pretexts for expanding executive power evokes comparisons to the Reichstag Fire. How does this align with historical and theoretical models of emergency-driven authoritarian consolidation?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: We know that instability is good for a would-be autocrat. This is a general historical pattern where a lot of these guys try to create, foment, or exploit some form of instability or threat to justify crackdowns. And crackdowns are usually done in the name of national security, peace and stability. Anytime violence emerges, or a foreign conflict emerges, it really plays into the hands of these leaders, because they appeal to a broader feeling among some of the population that you need a strong ruler to keep the peace and maintain law and order. That’s a very classic authoritarian trope. We’ve seen this play out, as you alluded to.
Nazi Germany—I don’t think that’s the best comparison for the United States—but we saw it this past year in South Korea, when there was a brief declaration of martial law on the grounds that the country had been infiltrated by communists and other groups. And in El Salvador, the drug war provided the pretext for Bukele’s consolidation of power. So it is a very common strategy.
I think the killing of Charlie Kirk was a national tragedy, not because I particularly agree with Charlie Kirk on many issues, but because once we start to see violence really emerge, violence tends to spiral. I was quite worried, in the aftermath of that event, that we would see retaliatory killings going back and forth, leading to greater violence and potentially consolidation of control through Trump. Surprisingly, to date, we have not seen that emerge. In fact, the protests—their overwhelmingly peaceful nature—and then the election result, which is also a bit of a rebuke to Trump, may have broken the cycle and poked a hole in this narrative, and that is noteworthy.
So anyway, it’s something to keep an eye on. I worry about Venezuela and the kind of emerging security narrative there. I worry about the use of the National Guard in our cities and how that’s being deployed. Then, of course, the big foreign threat they’ve been discussing is illegal immigration, which has been used to justify the augmentation of ICE and other measures. So there are plenty of threats to go around for this administration to use. I don’t think they’ve been 100% successful quite yet on this front.
Can Institutional Resistance Survive Political Militarization?
The politicization of the US military or militarization of US politics, including calls to deploy troops domestically against supposed internal enemies, signals erosion of military neutrality. Based on your work, how likely is institutional resistance to remain effective under escalating partisan pressure?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This is really important, and what we know, again, about authoritarian governments is they need to have a tight relationship with the military to be able to control domestic opposition, especially when it spills out into the streets. The US military is a very highly respected organization in American society, and it has a long tradition of neutrality and staying out of politics. This is not a military that stages coups like we see in much of the world. This is a military that does its job and has extremely high standards of professionalism. We’ve seen pretty dramatic efforts to bring them to heel. We saw this meeting with Pete Hegseth and basically the top military brass from all over the world, which was unprecedented, bringing them all into one space. And he gave them a talking-to about fitness and DEI issues and many other things. So I think there is an effort to rein the military in. The fact that you have someone like Hegseth in charge, who’s a tried-and-true loyalist, is notable.
There’s a difference between that and the really dirty stuff of putting down a protest, potentially using violence against the people. You see these images in American streets where you have these National Guard people deployed in places like D.C. or other places. They’re normal people; they don’t really want to be there. They’re maybe away from their families, and then you see normal Americans interacting with them, telling jokes and stuff. So I don’t think there is that sense that this is an authoritarian military force that’s going to crack down on the American people. I don’t see that in the National Guard in particular.
ICE is slightly different, because ICE has been deliberately augmented under the Trump administration. There’s an ideological component to working for ICE. I don’t mean to disparage the integrity of the folks working for ICE—I’m sure it’s an extremely hard job, and there are many dedicated civil servants. But I also think there’s a deliberate effort to recruit folks into that organization right now who are loyal to Trump, and that is a little bit more concerning to me.
But in general, I don’t think we’re quite there yet, where the American military is going to do Trump’s bidding, especially if it does come to putting down mass mobilization like we’ve seen militaries do in other parts of the world.
Capturing the Referees: Purges as a Path to Power
To what extent do recent attempts to purge “disloyal” military officers, federal prosecutors, and civil servants reflect a broader effort to replace professional staff with patronage networks typical of personalist authoritarian regimes?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: We’ve already talked a little bit about this. I think there’s a well-established pattern—what Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their book How Democracies Die, call “capturing the referees.” And again, if you’re going to be engaging in norm-violating behavior, potentially even illegal behavior, you really can’t have people around you who are going to stand up to you and check your power.
Trump has been very deliberate in firing large numbers of lawyers from the military. He fired a lot of JAGs from the military. He fired a lot of lawyers in the DOJ, and then has either not rehired those folks or put people into power like Kash Patel or Pam Bondi, or many of these other figures who are fully loyal to him. So I do think they’ve been successful on that front.
The other thing to note is, of course, with the advent of the Trump administration, we saw this massive effort to downsize the federal bureaucracy and spending in a very haphazard way. I know folks who work for the US government, and that type of capacity isn’t rebuilt overnight. I think part of the purpose of those moves was just to destroy.
So if you destroy the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), or if you destroy the Department of Education, and all these people who have been working there for decades leave, they’re not coming back in four years—or if they do, it’s going to take a while for them to come back online and rebuild. So I do think part of the underlying goal of Project 2025 and the broader conservative movement with respect to government is just to destroy. So, it didn’t matter, really, that it was so haphazard. That was, in some sense, part of the point.
A Two-Tier State: Punishing Blue America
How do you interpret the Trump administration’s systematic punitive strategies—such as withholding federal funds from Democratic states—as a mechanism to cultivate a two-tiered partisan state? Could this accelerate democratic fragmentation?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: I think it’s disgusting. I tend not to use hyperbole, but the fact that if a disaster occurs in your state and your state voted for Biden, that could affect whether you get relief from FEMA is disgusting, and it’s a completely inappropriate use of power.
I do think there’s an undercurrent in American society right now of, as I said, polarization, but the more extreme version of that would be: can the system hold together at all? And if you have blue states, which are feeding a lot of tax dollars into the federal government, and those funds are now being withheld and funneled elsewhere—and being withheld as a punishment—that’s not a sustainable equilibrium.
I personally think that quite a lot of what’s going on under the Trump administration is revealing fundamental issues within the American political system. It’s revealing the role of money in politics, the ease with which we can politicize the judiciary and other institutions, and how broken our two-party system really is.
So my hope, perhaps irrational, is that when this chapter is over—it might be over in three years, it might be over in 15 or 16; these spells often last longer than people think—there will be a period of rebuilding and reform. The practice you just referenced is obviously heinous and inappropriate, and the American people will see that and hopefully put better institutional guardrails in place to prevent this type of behavior moving forward.
Threats, Fear, and the Future of Free Expression
You have written on self-censorship under repressive systems. Do current patterns in the US—media intimidation, citizen fear, legal retribution—suggest the emergence of similar dynamics of preference falsification?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: “Preference falsification” is a very academic word, and it’s basically the situation where people don’t feel comfortable saying how they really feel about politics. For that reason, they would not speak out, or they might even affirm the regime or the government, even if they don’t really feel it in their heart of hearts. That disconnect between what you say in public and what you feel in private—that’s preference falsification or self-censorship.
We know that in authoritarian systems, this behavior can take hold. I often think of authoritarianism as a chill, where people learn that speaking up about politics and criticizing the leader of the government gets you in trouble. Once that chill takes hold, it can be hard to reverse, and it can spread quite quickly.
What I’ve noticed, though—and I find it very inspiring—is that this is America. We have a long tradition of democracy. We are an unruly people, and we don’t like to be told what to do or think. We’ve seen efforts by the administration to intimidate the American people. You could interpret the National Guard deployments as a form of intimidation.
We’ve seen prominent people—they’ve tried to silence people like Jimmy Kimmel, who’s a very prominent comedian here. It’s backfired. People rallied behind Jimmy Kimmel, they put pressure on Disney, he’s back on the air. I don’t see many comedians on late-night TV self-censoring about what they think about what’s going on. Then you saw the largest protest in American history—normal people out there, and they weren’t wearing masks. They were out there with their friends and family in full view, and I was really inspired by that. There has been an attempt at intimidation. Because we have such a vibrant democracy, our people don’t know that, and they reacted the other way, becoming more vocal and more critical. That’s not to say it will forever be that way.
The other thing I would keep an eye on is violence. There’s an undercurrent, as we talked about, of political violence in the US, where a lot of judges, congresspeople, prominent writers, thinkers are being threatened with violence on a regular basis. We don’t observe it because the violence doesn’t usually come to fruition. But the fact that if you speak out, if you oppose Trump, you might be subjected to violent threats—and your family might have to spend Thanksgiving in a hotel—that is noteworthy, and that is actually the more likely force that would create self-censorship.
But to date, I would say there’s pretty darn vibrant opposition, and that’s been really inspiring, frankly.
Trumpism Without Borders: The Making of a Far-Right Network
The global diffusion of authoritarianism often takes place through ideological and strategic alliances. How is Trumpism embedding itself within a transnational far-right ecosystem—collaborating with illiberal leaders in Europe, Russia, China, and elsewhere?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This is a big story, and people like Anne Applebaum have written about this network of authoritarian leaders that are becoming more assertive on the global stage. It’s important to remember, Trump is a certain type of proto-autocrat, whatever we want to call him, and he naturally has affinity for people like Viktor Orbán, Jair Bolsonaro, or Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Even Vladimir Putin—obviously, we know there has been an unusually close relationship between Putin and Trump over the years. That doesn’t extend all the way to Xi Jinping; their relationship is more fraught, for many reasons that I’m happy to talk about. What I’m trying to say is that there is a natural affinity here, and what is interesting is this diffusion of tactics across the backsliding world. We know that there was a close relationship between Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz Party and Project 2025. Orbán has spoken at CPAC in Hungary. It’s noteworthy that these illiberal leaders are operating out in the open with their friendship and affinity. We know that Trump has extended support to Bolsonaro while he faces his own criminal investigations.
These guys are learning from each other, and they’re providing moral support for each other. That’s the shortest way to say it. That matters and that leaves the democratic world—in much of Europe, and I spent time in Taiwan this summer, places like Japan, Korea, Australia—wondering what to do here. Who can we count on? Can we count on the United States in particular? What is the normative commitment of the Trump administration to helping the democratic world, helping traditional allies and partners? So there’s a bigger-picture foreign policy implication there.
Flooding the Zone: Trump’s Most Notable Innovation
In your view, does Trumpism export an actionable governance model—expanding beyond rhetoric to institutional templates—that could assist foreign autocrats in consolidating power?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: That’s a great question. I think he’s using the model of others. So it’s not the Trump model; it’s a model that your institute studies quite well, which is this sort of populist authoritarian model, where these leaders project masculinity, charisma, strength, talk in the language of “enemies of the people,” fight against some corrupt elite, and speak the language of nationalism and national rejuvenation. That’s a compelling pitch, and it tends to take hold in a lot of different places, in a lot of different historical moments. So, Trump could be understood as just one of many leaders in that mold.
But then there’s also the question of what he has innovated—what he has done differently that could be used elsewhere. So, for some would-be Trump in another country 10 or 15 years from now, what could they learn from him? We’ll see how the story unfolds, but I think one thing we’ve noticed in political science—I run a small podcast called The Civic Forum, and I had Steve Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, Sue Stokes, and Adam Sheingate on, who are some of the most significant scholars of authoritarianism and democracy—is the pace at which this is unfolding in the United States.
We are only 10 months into this thing, and the rapid, blitzkrieg nature of what the Trump administration has done is deliberate. This is not an accident. Steve Bannon, among others, has talked about “flooding the zone,” the idea that you overwhelm the opponent by doing so many different things at once that they don’t know how to respond. So, they’ve been quite brazen. If you had asked me a year ago, “Are we gonna see troops in the streets by November?” I’d have said we probably won’t. “Are we going to see them attempt to take prominent comedians off the air?” No, we’re not going to see that. But they’ve been quite brazen, going on all these different fronts at once.
I do think there’s a degree to which it has overwhelmed folks. The opposition and the institutional checks are starting to kick in. What Garry Kasparov has called the “democratic immune system” is starting to fire up, so we’ll see. But, if I were to point to one thing the Trump administration has really been innovative about, it’s just the pace and the boldness of what they’re doing. Maybe it’s because this is not his first time in office. He was in office for four years; he had four years to prepare for this. So, in some sense, it’s part of a longer arc.
Strongmen in Parallel: A Cooler US–China Rivalry?
How do you foresee a second Trump administration shaping US-China relations? Could intensified ideological confrontation—coupled with domestic authoritarian drift—produce a more unstable bilateral equilibrium, or might mutual illiberal tendencies paradoxically enable pragmatic coordination?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This is actively unfolding. So whatever I say could be irrelevant in the next few days. But, there have been a few notable developments. The first is that the Trump administration hasn’t prioritized the China issue overall like it did in the first go-around. When the Trump administration first came in, there was a concerted effort to shift US-China relations in a very new direction. That direction has largely remained constant, even under the Biden administration, so there’s not the same need to break—or disrupt—US-China relations as there was the first time. Now, they view China as just another thing to be dealt with—another object of this trade war. So that’s one notable development.
The second notable development is that they haven’t really been effective in doing this, and China has pushed back in a much stronger way. The Chinese government learned from the first go-around and figured out how to target the Trump administration politically, whether through soybeans or the more extreme measure of rare earths. So I don’t think the trade war has gone well for Trump, and he’s trying to get out of it now—minimize damage to the economy but still claim a win.
On the other side, it’s not as if Xi Jinping is doing particularly well. He’s getting older; there are rumors about health issues; he’s got a party congress coming up; and the Chinese economy is fine, but it’s not doing particularly well. Reports say youth unemployment is upwards of 20%, and the Communist Party does not like large numbers of angry young people.
So, in some sense, both of these leaders have this nationalistic, strongman style, which means there’s an upper bound to how much they can cooperate—they have to represent their respective nations. But they’re also both in a pinch, and they probably both just want to be done with each other and focus on domestic issues. Both governments are very focused on domestic stability and power consolidation.
So I actually would expect, especially given the last couple of weeks, that US-China relations stabilize a little bit. I don’t think there’s going to be war; I don’t think there’s going to be an invasion of Taiwan. I know many people are worried about that—and I care a lot about Taiwan—but I’m more confident that general stability will hold and the relationship will just muddle through. I don’t think it’s going to be some grand friendship between Trump and Xi. There’s too much skepticism among both national security communities and the people around those leaders. But I’m more confident that things will stabilize and we won’t see that level of global conflict.
How Far Will Democratic Erosion Go?
Looking ahead, what scenarios do you see for US political institutions? Are we observing a temporary democratic recession, a stable competitive-authoritarian equilibrium, or a longer-term path toward democratic disintegration? What factors could reverse the current trajectory?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: The answer is we don’t know yet. We don’t know how this story will unfold. It’s clear that we’re in the middle stages of democratic backsliding or erosion, and the question is: how deep does that go, and how long does it last? That will depend on events; it will depend on the strength of the opposition. The Democrats had a good week. They got multiple electoral results they wanted, including governorships in New Jersey and Virginia.
So, it will depend, and a lot rides on the upcoming midterms—whether those go off without a hitch, and whether the Democrats are able to regain a bit of footing in Congress. And then, of course, there’s a presidential election two years later. So, we will see.
In general, it’s quite difficult to heal in this type of setting. Some people might think, if Trump leaves power, it’s all over. No, not really. You have a political party that has embraced a fundamentally authoritarian figure; you have large numbers of people who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election at the mass level and among Republican politicians. And they’ve learned a governance style and practice that’s going to be hard to unwind. We know that democracies rely on civility, forbearance, respecting the other side—how do we come back from this?
So, my hope—and maybe we can end on an optimistic note—is that this moment teaches us something about the issues with our system: the level of corruption, the influence of money in politics, the problems of polarization, the toxicity in our discourse. And that there’s a healing in American society, and by extension in our political system, that unfolds over the next decade. Maybe that will be what the next decade holds—this kind of rejuvenation—and that will require some political reform.
I will say, people are more engaged in politics than they’ve ever been right now, at least among the centrist and progressive side. It has re-energized our civil society. You could argue that that had been in decline, and people were becoming more and more atomized because of social media. But people care about politics again and are doing things. They’re protesting, they’re voting, they’re getting more involved—and that’s a good sign.
So, we have a long road back to being a fully functional, healthy democracy. I hope it’s a short road—but we don’t quite know yet.
Election Results Show Growing Backlash Against Trumpism
And one last question, Professor Rory Truex: what does the election of Mamdani, together with the election results in New Jersey, Virginia, and California, tell us about the trajectory of Trumpist policies?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: It’s definitely a rebuke for Trump, and the margins of victory in all of these places—especially New Jersey and Virginia are much higher than people expected. And then, of course, Mamdani winning. New York politics are different than the rest of the country. But it’s definitely a sign that there’s real dissatisfaction with Trump and the Trump policy agenda.
Then the question is, among the Republican Party establishment—congresspeople running for re-election—at what point will they begin to try to distance themselves from Trump? Frankly, that’s what we need. We need the Republican Party to come back to its senses. We need people to begin to check Trump. Congress is not really checking Trump. The Republicans in Congress are not a meaningful check on his power, but if they realize that their electoral fates are getting worse and worse because Trump is so incompetent and corrupt and authoritarian, maybe they will turn.
People are already basically going to be campaigning in the next few months. The elections are coming up in a year, and so that means the electoral cycle is already starting to begin. So we’ll see. The last three weeks have been a shift in momentum back toward the opposition, and that’s been good. My guess is the pendulum will swing back; we’ll see more counter-moves from the Trump administration, but the economic costs are mounting. The pain that is being inflicted by this administration, and the cruelty being inflicted by this administration, is really front and center.
If you’re a Hispanic voter—these voters swung toward Trump in the last election—and then we’ve seen American citizens of Hispanic descent detained by ICE. We’ve seen communities destroyed by ICE. So that’s just one example, but the kind of cruelty inflicted by the Trump administration is becoming harder and harder to deny. And I do have confidence that the majority of the American people understand that and don’t want to live this way, and so hopefully we’ll see some swing back.
