The Rise of Authoritarianism in Twenty-First Century United States

the Dictatorship of Trump-Kushner Dynasty and the Decline of American Democracy

The Rise of the Dictatorship of Trump-Kushner Dynasty and the Decline of American Democracy

The Election of 2016

In 2016, intelligence agents directly reporting to the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, collaborated with a seemingly unlikely candidate for the U.S. executive office of the President—Donald J. Trump. While one point man worked directly with his campaign and exchanged information, the Russians also infiltrated the American social media network to coordinate misinformation dumping and "fake news" articles. They specifically targeted Sarah Palin type, far right (or alt-right), and pro-NRA Republicans (pre-coalition). A third attack was aimed at coercing and deceiving disgruntled workers, rural residents, prominent conservative religious leaders, and "independent voters" to build a cult of personality around Trump.

On a fourth front, the Russians infiltrated and exploited the Democratic opposition. This was accomplished through the hacking and social engineering of Trump's opponents in the Democratic Party. Hackers infiltrated the e-mail databases of several key targets. Other targets were mined for information over social media outlets. These select e-mails and information were coordinated and edited, then exposed and publicly posted to expose the Democrats negatively.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party was fracturing when their leadership used their own coercion and deception to select Hillery R. Clinton as their candidate while its far-left wing was sidelined and alienated for their democratic socialist choice, Bernie Sanders. The Russians and the Trump campaign worked in tandem to exploit this divide, first by making sure Clinton was the chosen Democratic candidate, sometimes by fraud. Then Russian misinformation teams seeded the Sanders wing with carefully engineered messages in order to cause confusion, disenfranchisement, disengagement, and even some disloyalty among the party's faithful. Once Clinton was secured as the Democratic candidate, the Russian-Trump team turned their efforts towards discrediting Clinton to the independent and undecided voters.

The fifth tactic used by Russian government was to seed opinion polls to suggest that the election would be a landslide for candidate Clinton. They had understood the powerful effect of American political apathy, and exploited it. Despite winning the popular vote by three million, Trump won the country's electoral votes, propelling him into office and starting his rise to the country's first authoritarian.

The First Trump Term

Throughout his first term in office, Trump used executive orders to circumvent legislation until his allies in the Senate began to champion his personal agenda. He initiated a trade war with China and stagnated the U.S. economy despite suspending various taxes to corporations and worker payrolls. His propaganda machine would claim his actions stimulated the economy, but the facts show only the U.S. stock market as the only real beneficiary, which was fueled more by desperate speculators than any attempt by the executive branch.

It was also during this time that Trump, Kushner, and their allies dismantled any participation of the United States in dealing with climate change and global warming. Continually calling it a hoax, despite the overwhelming scientific data, he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, the only meager attempt by the global community to reduce and eliminate carbon emissions. As one of the largest carbon polluters in the world, and either ignoring, denouncing, or downplaying evidence to the contrary, the United States did more to contribute to the global climate crisis and eventual demise than any other country, including Russia (which thought it would actually benefit by it due to the thawing of Siberia and the opening of the Arctic Ocean), India, Brazil, and China. Pollution also exploded in America as every environmental law was revoked, including the landmark ones enacted during the Nixon era. The EPA was eventually dissolved.

As a last desperate maneuver by his political opponents (the old pre-coalition Democrat Party), Donald J. Trump was impeached. But the attempt to remove him and his cronies from the executive office failed. Due to clumsy execution by his opponents, the determined opposition of the pre-coalition Republican Party in the U.S. Senate, and the obstruction of justice to submit the evidence to the Supreme Court, the opposition failed. This only emboldened Donald Trump to increase his dictatorial aspirations.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‑19) Hits America

In January of 2020, the first known case of a coronavirus disease appeared in the United States. While local governments sought to contain the outbreak of a pandemic, the country's chief executive first denied its existence as just another "Democrat hoax" (due to the recently botched impeachment) and then downplayed its effect. It wasn't until mid-March that the government began to take steps to address the issue. But for months after, the U.S. president continued to question scientists and doctors, promoted false and dangerous "cures" (including injecting of bleach or "sunshine" into one's body). He politicized the pandemic, urging his followers to overthrow state governments with emergency lock-downs (e.g. armed Michigan militia invading the state capitol) and refuse to wear masks.

As a result of the lack of unified federal guidance and even its obstruction and mismanagement, the United States counted for over a quarter of the world's infections for most of 2020 despite having only about 4% of the world's population. An initial wave of illness looked to be under control until Trump saw the impact on the economy, his only real issue he thought was important enough to win reelection. When he started to encourage rebellion against governments run by politicians belonging to the Democratic party, and the easing of stay-at-home orders, the disease surged. "COVID-fatigue", the social phenomenon where populations become tired of distancing and wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE), mostly in democratic nations, was exploited by the QAnon cult, and a second and third wave of the disease struck in the summer and autumn in progressively larger proportions. QAnon also tapped into the leftist anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists, further making it impossible for the United States to ever fully control the disease for decades.

By the time a vaccine was created and approved, the QAnon Party had gained control (see below), and it was only made available to its party members. The only way Americans would be able to get vaccinated was by pledging loyalty to the party, leaving people of color and their allies to either fend for themselves, or pay an exorbitant price to get the vaccination. By that time, those anti-vaccination allies of Trump were no longer needed, so nobody cared about their survival.

Social Unrest, Black Lives Matter, and Anti-Trump Demonstrations versus QAnon, boogaloo movement, and White Supremacist Groups

On May 25, 2020, a man named George P. Floyd, Jr. was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, while three other officers stood by. The event was captured on video and soon this video was witnessed throughout the free world. Other events like the killing of Brianna Taylor in Louisville on March 13 or the hunting and killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Atlanta on February 23 by white supremacists sparked nationwide protests by black and white groups.

When it was discovered that the coronavirus disease mortality rate was higher among those affected by poverty, non-white racial and ethnic populations, and in areas of industrial pollution, the Trump/Kushner loyalists saw an opportunity to "cleanse the country of s███-hole ██████s". By the end of 2020, a group called QAnon went from being a fringe conspiracy theorist group to a political power with the election of openly supportive political candidates in a handful of states. Claiming that a "deep state" was trying to overthrow their figurehead, Trump, they were the ones who actually organized a clandestine organization meant to dismantle what they considered "leftist" opposition.



Trump often used federal agents and occasionally national guard forces to violently and brutally attack protestors. In Washington D.C., he ordered the tear-gassing of a completely peaceful protest and the arrest of the pastor of St. John's church across from the White House to take a photo-opp of him holding up a Christian Bible (reportedly upside-down) held in one hand. Cities across the United States were put on a list of "anarchy zones" along with Portland, Seattle, and New York, which had already been branded by the US Justice Department in mid-2020. After the 2020 election (see below), all or parts of Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Ferguson (MO), Kenosha, Charlottesville, Baltimore, Austin (TX), Denver, and Miami-Dade, were added to this list, originally for economic sanction. But then, Trump and his supporters either directly called in federal agents, the national guard and even the U.S. military*, or—through their QAnon network—organized far-right radical vigilantes, such as the boogaloo, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other NRA-affiliated militias armed with automatic weapons to terrorize protestors.

It was later discovered that much of the violence blamed on protestors in the early 2020's was actually seeded by infiltrators (again, coordinated by the secretive QAnon network). But whether instigated by a few anti-fascists or the alt-right moles, the violence was justification enough for federal and many local governments to use retaliatory riot-suppression efforts, further inflaming the social and political divide.

America's Economic Collapse

By the autumn of 2020, chaos and unrest had dominated the news, not only in cities like Portland, Chicago, Kenosha, Atlanta, New York and Seattle, but also throughout the medical and economic landscape in America. When the real estate and stock markets, seen as the last refuge for investors in the American economy, collapsed, millions of people lost their jobs for good—twice as many as the initial employment losses at the beginning of the year due to the global pandemic.

When the realization of an economic depression that would even surpass that of the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s began to manifest in mass business failures, unprecedented homelessness due to evictions and foreclosures, and the stock market crashes in September and October, the country panicked. The opposing parties in the country's legislature had driven any hope of relief into a stalemate (again, it was later revealed that several key QAnon legislators were sabotaging efforts in order to foment political and social unrest in hopes of driving voters to Trump). Riots, looting and demonstrations surged across America and into the suburbs, overwhelming police and convincing millions to set up their own vigilante security teams in their neighborhoods.

But despite attempts to stem the violence and provide relief, only a handful of individual states (mostly in Democrat-controlled regions) were able to provide some economic stimulus. Even then, it wasn't enough. Supply chain disruptions, the see-saw condition between underemployment and unemployment, and crippling inflation caused destruction and outpaced constructive efforts. The country never regained its economic muscle in the world's economy.

The (Attempted) American Coup of 2020

Sometimes called the Second U.S. Civil War (by American mass media pundits) or the "Weekend in America", a majority of serious historians and political analysts believe that calling it a civil war is quite a stretch. However, the Coup of 2020 is seen as the final nail in the coffin for legitimate democracy in the United States after the U.S. Senate gave the president unlimited dictatorial powers following a botched attempt at impeachment. It is often blamed as the event eventually leading to the Democracy Crisis of the later Twenty-First Century.

During the U.S. presidential elections of 2020, an increasingly paranoid and emboldened Donald Trump used the dictatorial executive authority given to him by the U.S. Senate earlier that year. When he was unable to cripple the U.S. Postal Service, he issued a nationwide "emergency" martial law the day before Election Day. He cited various reasons, from the first CoViD outbreak and economic turmoil to Russian, Democrat, Black Lives Matter, and/or Chinese election interference (his own Twitter messages contradicted one another, and no proof of this actually occurring ever surfaced).

The National Guard had already been mobilized in every U.S. state (along with voluntary paramilitary militias in several states) to enforce quarantines, distribute medical aid, and maintain economic order during the prolonged CoVid-19 pandemic, social unrest, and subsequent global economic recession/depression. In October, they were suddenly ordered reinforce and aid federal agents to seize authority, shut down polling sites, and declare several state absentee and mail-in ballots null and void by some kind of "executive order" (most notably in left-leaning and swing states).

In the next days, Trump ordered the arrest of every Democrat in the House and Senate, and the arrest of two Supreme Court judges for treason, mail fraud, election tampering, and collusion with foreign governments (unsubstantiated). A little over half were taken into custody, and the House Speaker was summarily executed on the steps of Capitol Hill—an "accident" by an "overzealous militiaman" according to White House propaganda.

Following the arrests, Trump's (with his son-in-law and "only trusted advisor", Jared Kushner) suppression orders extended to the millions of protestors marching in cities across America. Hundreds of "ring leaders" (mostly associated with the Black Lives Matter movement) were arrested or simply taken into custody without cause. Reports of clashes and casualties began flooding in. Soon, reporters themselves were being arrested. One video of a reporter being shot managed to air before being deleted and suppressed by social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for violating its content policies. Seizure of the major critical American news sources that were deemed "nasty people" soon followed. Most of their executives were either forced to pledge absolute loyalty or face confinement (FoxNews, the New York Post, and Breitbart were among the glaring exceptions).

By mid-November, however, a military coup turned on their commander-in-chief and promised a return to democracy. Once in control, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment was swiftly invoked and Democrat prisoners were released. Although civilian control was mostly restored, the interim military government had to deal with the one-third of their own and a third of the American public who supported Trump's martial law.

Smoke and Mirrors

But while the military attempted to restore peace, the Trump Republicans had already mobilized their real strategy. Declaring the mailed ballots and walk-in polling results in certain key swing states states null and void, the Republican governments in states like Wisconsin and Florida decided, for the first time in over a century, to appoint electoral delegates strictly loyal to Trump, ignoring the popular vote results. During the chaos and confusion of both the military's attempt to restore peace and Trump's own hourly tweet storms contesting "fraudulent ballot stuffing by [illegal/dead/foreign] agents", the electoral collage was stuffed with pro-Trump voters who tipped the final electoral college vote to Trump.

The QAnon Cult Takes Over

Once the chaos of the American 2020 election and coup subsided, the beneficiary of the enacting of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, Mike Pence, pardoned his boss, Donald Trump, of any and all charges. Once that was accomplished, he made Trump his vice-president, and the next day, resigned his position as the President of the United States of America, claiming that since Trump had been "legally and constitutionally elected by the people of the United States and appointed by God's will, he is, by right, its lawful and constitutional president. It is likewise through God's will that I must honor the commands of the Lord." Despite a mounted effort to oppose this move, which made its way to the United States Supreme Court, now packed with Trump appointees after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September of 2020, and the rushed appointment of Amy Coney Barrett, it was ruled that, while unorthodox, there was no prohibition in the Constitution for this kind of maneuver.

Once firmly in power, Trump, Kushner, and the now openly public organization, QAnon, (called "the Cult" or "the Q_ULT' by its opponents) moved to consolidate and solidify authority. The first act was to eliminate everyone left who identified as a "Never Trump" Republicans, starting with the family of a former opponent, Senator John McCain. The arrest and silencing of the entire McCain family was quickly followed by actions against other anti-QAnon Republicans, most notably Wyoming Rep. Elizabeth Cheney, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, and those associated with the Lincoln Project. Some were arrested on charges of conspiracy and sometimes treason to subvert and corrupt elections. A third of the pre-coalition Republicans were now openly proclaiming their allegiance to the newly reorganized "Trump Republicans" or Q-T Party. Those that were not apprehended or considered "small fish" joined with centrist Democrats, and the two groups rebranded themselves in a unified coalition as the "Democrat-Republican Party" or D-R Party.

Seeing certain intelligence organizations as a threat by exposure, Russia and QAnon worked together to abolish these organizations, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and military intelligence focused on foreign attempts to influence and destroy American democracy. Once the last legal watchdogs of American democracy were abolished or repopulated with dedicated QAnon authorities, there was nothing left in the United States government to protect and inform its citizens.

During this time, science went from being denied to the outright intimidation, suppression, and eventually arrest of academics across the United States. The economic depression and continuing pandemic in America had destroyed the objective press. First Amendment rights were systematically denied to anyone in opposition to the Trump/Kushner/QAnon party.

Any such persons or organizations were now being actively squelched as "traitorous". Participants and leaders associated with Black Lives Matter were rounded up, and a few executed. Fear kept millions from organizing unless displaying the now infamous "Iron Q-T" symbol armband or red hat.

Between these and other consolidations of power and suppression of any opposition, and the severe disillusion of voters in America that their vote actually amounted to anything, the QAnon Party, it's loyal cult following, and the successive dynasty of Trump and Kushner successors went unchallenged for decades.

The Abolition of Executive Term Limits and the Dismantling of the Democratic Election Process in America

With the Supreme Court of the United States now firmly controlled by the Trumpists, the court methodologically dismantled certain "unenumerated rights" by striking down abortion, women's rights, minority rights such as voting, and LGBTQIA+ issues such as "gay marriage" as unconstitutional--first by removing federal protection, then by outlawing these when the Q-T Party gained majorities in all branches of government.

Next, SCOTUS dismantled democratic institutions in a manner that threw the U.S. Congress into permanent stalemate. Strategically placed court cases were initiated and then accepted by the court as opportunities to form the country into the Trump image. They gave certain powers to the Executive Branch that could only uphold certain conservative values (for example, uphold gun rights, brutal police and national guard actions, and armed nationalist militias, but no power to do anything about the environment, worker rights and safety, immigration, or education). It struck down nearly all voting protections for minorities while turning down instances where the ruling party clearly tampered and overturned democratic elections. And they handed state legislatures friendly to the Q-T Party the power to appoint their own electors regardless of popular democratic outcomes. These same state legislatures were also given the power to disregard their own state judiciaries, particularly when it came to local elections and congressional districting. This made it possible for the ruling party to control the outcomes of their own elections (for example, if a loyal Q-T incumbent lost, the Q-T legislature would overturn the result based on arbitrary and false claims of "voter fraud" as suited their party). Any voting district could now be drawn to always favor the ruling party.

Without any checks, the D-R Party became little more than a benign entity incapable of making any further impact on American politics. And thus, with little resistance, a number of constitutional amendments were pushed through, among them the federal prohibition of all abortion, the modification of the Thirteenth through Nineteenth Amendments that weakened non-white and female representation and rights, and the outright repeal of the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Fifth Amendments limiting presidential term limits and the potential removal of the president from office if found unfit.

The Conflict

Outcome

In the eyes of Americans and the world alike, the power of the United States top government offices was never trusted again. Ravaged because of the CoViD-19 pandemic, its devastated economy, and its bankrupt moral standing in the world, the nation began its slow decline as a superpower.

Aftermath

With the collapse of American power and influence in the world, a substantial vacuum was left. This is the beginning of the rise of the Dictators, particularly the Russians and the Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Brazil and India (although their similar failure to contain the coronavirus also crippled their governments and economies for decades before they could restore influence and power).
No longer protected by American military, countries like Japan and Korea, the United Kingdom and Europe, and others who depended on the United States had to start taking their security into their own hands. Unfortunately, in Europe, the Putin government and in the Far East, the Chinese government had already a head start in their military power, which lead to their domination in the middle and late Twenty-First Century.

Start Date

November 2016

Ending Date

TBD

The U.S. Elections of 2020

The Slogan of the Q-T Party