The Threat

So far, one person has thrown their hat into the ring in the race for president in 2024.

Let’s take a look at his qualifications or lack thereof.

In their book, “How Democracies Die,” authors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt identify four key factors in predicting authoritarian behavior:

1. Rejection of democratic rules of the game.

2. Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents.

3. Tolerance or encouragement of violence.

4. Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media.

These criteria are based on the authors’ study of political despots all over the world in recent decades. But the framework they’ve developed is particularly useful in assessing the role of Donald J. Trump in American politics.

Like the dictators who have risen to power elsewhere, many of whom he admires, Trump has already engaged in all four behaviors of an authoritarian.

1. He has led an unrelenting crusade against the legitimacy of U.S. elections, claiming without any evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, and refusing to this day to concede.

2. He undermined his political opponents, Democrat and Republican alike, with unprecedented viciousness and ridicule, leading his supporters in chants of “Lock her up!” against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

3. He on a number of occasions told his supporters to rough up his opponents, saying he would pay their bail if they were arrested for doing so. Most critically, he incited his supporters to commit an insurrectional riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

4. Finally, he repeatedly urged his supporters to attack the press, including physical assaults, labeling us the “enemy of the people.”

By all of these measures, Trump qualifies in a global context as an authoritarian. He emphatically does not, by any measure, qualify for president. The case is closed.

LINKS:

• With House Republicans holding just a four-vote majority, the influence of the party’s far right will only grow in the new Congress as each GOP vote holds sway. Find out more about the group of House members who are also something perhaps more powerful: influencers. [HuffPost]

• McCarthy fails on marathon vote for speaker (AP)

• How Kevin McCarthy Could Lose The Election For Speaker Of The House (538)

• The Republican Majority’s Opening Debacle (Atlantic)

• FDA decision on experimental Alzheimer’s drug expected this week (CNN)

• McCarthy Proposes Gutting Office of Congressional Ethics in Bid for Speaker (Time)

• Arizona’s final rejection of election denialism ends 2022 on high note (Edit Bd/WP)

• U.S. Capitol Police are prepared for any possible future attacks on Congress, its chief said ahead of the second anniversary of the deadly January 6, 2021, attack and the dissolution of the congressional panel investigating it. (Reuters)

• Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon wanted to "turn up the heat" following the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, according to text messages obtained by the House select committee investigating the attack. He told an aide he would "surround the Capitol in total silence" after President Joe Biden's inauguration. [HuffPost]

• Bryan Kohberger Could Be Linked to Other Unsolved Murders—Ex-FBI Agent (Newsweek)

• Bills’ Hamlin in critical condition after collapse on field (AP)

• Elon Musk has lost a bigger fortune than anyone in history (CNN)

• Internet providers warn against EU plans to make Big Tech cover telcos costs (Reuters)

• 4 reasons to give up defending fossil fuels (The Hill)

• Deadly Strike on Russians in Ukraine Exposes Moscow’s Military Failings (NYT)

• Russia plans to 'exhaust' Ukraine with prolonged attacks says Volodymyr Zelensky (BBC)

• In Romania, U.S. Troops Train Close to Russia’s War, in Signal to Moscow (NYT)

• Ukraine Has Digitized Its Fighting Forces on a Shoestring (WSJ)

• How Russia’s War on Ukraine Is Worsening Global Starvation (NYT)

• New COVID subvariant spreads rapidly in Northeast, sparking concerns it evades vaccines (PBS)

• State media in China played down the severity of its surge of COVID infections ahead of an expected briefing today by its scientists to the World Health Organization, which is hoping for detailed data on the evolution of the virus. (Reuters)

• ‘Brutal’ storm hitting Northern California on Wednesday (SFGate)

• We Finally Know Why The Southern Hemisphere Is So Much Stormier (ScienceAlert)

• At least seven European countries, including Denmark and the Netherlands, had their warmest January weather on record on New Year’s Day, with highs in the 50s or 60s. (WP)

• ‘There’s been a fundamental change in our planet’: hunt on for spot to mark the start of the Anthropocene epoch (Guardian)

• As legal pot grows, more kids sickened by edibles at home (AP)

• Legal Use of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms Begins in Oregon (NYT)

• Defeated Man Too Tired To Fight New $14.99 Fee On Phone Bill (The Onion)