Trump’s fawning cabinet and the threat to US democracy
Strongman authoritarianism thrives on sycophancy
Gideon Rachman
© James Ferguson“Mr President I invite you to see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor.”
That was the US Labour secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, speaking to Donald Trump during a marathon, televised cabinet meeting last week.
Trump’s appetite for praise is insatiable.
His officials have demeaned themselves, one by one.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s hapless peace envoy, told the president that he was “the single finest candidate” ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Scott Bessent, Treasury secretary, gushed: “You have saved this country.”
The insistence on absurd and public flattery for the leader is a hallmark of authoritarianism.
Nicolae Ceaușescu, the former dictator of Romania, was referred to in the official media as “the Genius of the Carpathians ”.
Stalin’s henchmen were fond of paying tribute to his “guiding genius.”
This kind of enforced sycophancy is not just ridiculous — it is dangerous.
It signals that a megalomaniac is in charge and that nobody feels able to stand up to him.
In such a climate, Trump’s every whim will be indulged.
Send the National Guard into Washington?
Absolutely. Investigate former president Obama for “treasonous conspiracy”.
We’re on it, sir!
At the televised cabinet meeting, Trump mused that he has “the right to do anything I want to do.”
As he explained: “If I think our country is in danger . . . I can do it.”
Those statements encapsulated two crucial ideas that underpin strongman authoritarianism.
The first is the constant insistence that the nation faces a crisis that requires drastic measures.
The second is the claim that the supreme leader alone gets to decide what is done.
“L’État, c’est moi”, as Louis XIV famously put it.
Trump’s assertions came in the context of a rambling discourse, in which he actually denied wanting to be a dictator — while using the familiar “most people are saying” formulation — to suggest that a dictator might not be such a bad idea after all.
You would not know it from the cabinet meeting but Trump’s approval ratings hit a historic low of 37 per cent last week.
But the president’s authoritarian turn has so far not been characterised by a single, shocking act that announces that democratic government has definitively come to an end.
There has been no equivalent of a general seizing control of the national television station.
Instead, Trump has pushed ahead with a blizzard of smaller actions that are eroding the norms of democratic government with increasing speed.
There are so many of these measures that it is hard to keep track.
That, surely, is part of the point.
There is no time to dwell on one particular outrage because it is followed so swiftly by another.
That is why it is important, every now and then, to pause — and simply take stock of what is going on.
So here is a list of recent actions taken by the Trump administration.
Last week, the president announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, a governor at the Federal Reserve, “effective immediately” — intensifying his assault on the independence of the central bank.
Cook is accused of making false statements on a mortgage application — an allegation also deployed against other foes of Trump, such as Senator Adam Schiff.
Then the White House fired Susan Monarez, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Pentagon has also just dismissed the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency — who upset Trump by not endorsing the claim that Iran’s nuclear programme has been obliterated.
The head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was sacked in early August for publishing a jobs reports that displeased the president.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, recently announced that she was withdrawing the security clearances of 37 senior US intelligence officials — who were apparently suspected of disloyalty.
With armed members of the National Guard now patrolling Washington DC, Trump has announced his plans to take similar action in Chicago.
He also ordered the Pentagon to create new National Guard units to combat civil disorder.
And he signed an executive order that sought to punish flag burning with a year in prison.
In recent days, the FBI has raided the house of John Bolton — who was once Trump’s national security director but became an outspoken critic of the president.
Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, an immigrant who the Trump administration had mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was detained again and threatened with deportation to Uganda.
Trump is vindictive.
Nobody stands up to him and gets away with it.
That applies equally to a powerless immigrant like Ábrego García; or a famous former public servant like Bolton.
The president now has people running key government agencies — Kash Patel at the FBI, Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon, Gabbard at the National Intelligence Council — who will reliably do his bidding.
This is a marked contrast to Trump’s first term, when even highly conservative figures, like his attorneys-general, Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions, sometimes refused to follow orders.
Vengeful, vain, headstrong — and surrounded by ambitious mediocrities — Trump is increasingly out of control.
Narcissistic strongman leaders have inflicted terrible damage on other countries.
There is no reason to think America will be any different.
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