Professing in the Age of American Autocracy

Before the semester started, I wrote about how the US is now an authoritarian regime, or autocracy for short.  Since then, well, oh my, I have lost track of the many ways that the Trump regime has proven this to be correct, with the latest being the firing of a comedian for daring to make fun of the Mad King.  And all of this has happened as I am teaching US Foreign Policy.  It has raised a few challenges along the way, such as having events happen mid-class (the aforementioned Kimmel suspension).  

The biggest challenge is how to approach the course as a whole.  In the days of yore, I used to teach the class quite conventionally: here are the institutions that shape US foreign policy, here are the interests of the various actors.  And before social media existed, I was able to say critical things of Republicans and Democrats, and students would wonder which side of the political spectrum I was on.  Indeed, in Montreal, more than a few that I was right wing because I studied the military and didn't mind hanging out with folks in uniform.  The advent of social media and the way I am pretty blunt ended that to some degree, but I still tried to be even-handed (although as I referred to the disbanding of the Iraqi army as the dumbest decision in US foreign policy history).

During Trump 1.0, I started to raise questions about whether the institutional approach made sense, and I tweaked the class and was more critical in the course discussions of Trump than the average American president.  At the time, I started getting frustrated with the false equivalence that was often used by the media to normalize Trump, so that affected my teaching.  Trump acting in ways that went beyond normal GOP/Dem differences, like his approach to North Korea swinging from war-mongering to, well, submission.  

Last fall, in anticipation of a possible Trump admin, I assigned most of the usual readings and supplemented with, yes, chapters of Project 2025, and this time, I was quite clear that Trump was a convicted felon and insurrectionist.  That these were not just my political opinions but facts.  

When preparing for this fall, my starting point changed quite a bit from how does US foreign policy work in a democratic society in ways that constrain and incentivize the President to how does US foreign policy work in an autocracy where the constraints are gone and it really is about the personality of the President.  So much so that I started the first class with: is an utterance on social media--a tweet or whatever--policy?  This might seem to be taking a partisan approach, that my personal stance is affecting what I teach and how I teach, but, again, I think we are in a very different situation than in the past based on the objective criteria of coding democracies and autocracies.

• Is the President constrained by the legislature? No, he killed USAID without a vote.  He has refused to spend money allocated by Congress in violation of the Constitution.
• Is the President constrained by the law?  The destruction of Venezuelan boats says no.
• Is the President constrained by public opinion?  Nope, as many of his policies are wildly unpopular.
• Is the President constrained by the media?  Nope, the media has been bullied into submission.
• Is the prospect of the next election serving as a constraint?  Does not seem so.

Which means we have focus on other stuff to explain US foreign policy. I have borrowed readings from the study of autocratic foreign policy, and I am relying a bit more on psychological approaches since the mind of the person at the top matters more when that person has fewer limits on what they can do.

This week, it came to a head for me.  The focus was on public opinion, Congress, and polarization. I warned that polarization can be seen as a false equivalence kind of thing, suggesting that both parties are spinning away from the center equally.  But we know that one party has moved farther from the middle, much farther from the middle on many issues, such as NATO, immigration, and others.  I even drew the myth of centrism--how exactly in between two parties is not the middle but just an average.  That if one party becomes more extreme, the average moves but the middle of the American public may not.  

As the conversation developed, I responded to some of the questions by indicating, yes, the GOP is supporting autocracy, and, yes, it is seeking to deny the rights of various people: trans people most obviously, but also women's rights. The latter refers not just to abortion but, thanks to some outspoken GOP folks, voting rights.  We got into the whole "why don't Dem women date Republican guys" thing, and, yeah, it went that far.  I realized I might be pushing things a bit much, moving from the analytical and the objective to the partisan.

As I was thinking about this after class, a student approached me having just checked her phone, and she told me about Kimmel. This reinforced my thinking about where we are today--the US as an autocracy and the GOP as the party facilitating the end of American democracy.  It sounds partisan, but if it is the objective truth, then so be it.  

I will continue to be uncomfortable.  This is natural when one is living through unprecedented times and having to adjust to an America where the President is unconstrained, where power is being abused on a daily basis, and where fear of the regime drives the behavior of major media conglomerates, Republican politicians, and so many previously relevant actors.  

To be clear, my discomfort pales in comparison to those professing in the US, as I know I won't get fired for writing this.  Too many (one is too many, of course) have already lost their jobs due to fear of Mad King and his mob.   I can only hope that Trump's unpopularity will be his undoing, that the US can start to recover, although it will take much time and concerted effort.  And, yes, rebellions are built on hope.