Unlike Viktor Orbán, in Hungary, or even Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in Turkey, Donald Trump is astonishing in that he does not make the slightest effort to hide his colors. He is crudely explicit in his desire for authoritarian capture of the state apparatus and justice if he becomes president again — notably promising to replace up to 50,000 civil servants with worshipers of his cult. Also, the decision rendered Tuesday by the Supreme Court of Colorado to disqualify his candidacy in this state for his responsibilities in the insurrection of January 6, 2021 is of capital significance: it highlights the urgency for the courts to play their role of counter-powers, before it is too late, in the defense of the rule of law.
Repeating that his adversaries are “vermin” and that “illegal immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country”, Donald Trump gives his faithful a speech of astonishing violence at the same time as chilling political effectiveness. The judgment rendered in Colorado will add grist to the mill of his victim argument. It’s clear: Colorado is a Democratic state and the judgment is therefore politically biased. Faced with a decision with currently impenetrable repercussions, and with the prospect of an appeal before the Federal Supreme Court, the entire activist street and the far-right intellectual movement which supports the authoritarian and populist of which Trump is the bitter bearer will go to the barricades, fiercely taking over social networks and the Fox News sets.
Who and what is this intellectual movement made of? From a nebula of radicals convinced that Trump represents the savior, not to say the messiah – as their words are peppered with religious references – capable of tearing the United States from the throes of the “liberal and egalitarian democracy” that they shame. Against “progressive tyranny”, we must consider a right-wing dictatorship, bluntly says one of its most influential proponents, Michael Eaton, of the Claremont Institute, a Californian think tank. Along with Mr. Eaton, figures like Curtis Yarvin, a Silicon Valley tech guru, and Patrick Deneen (author of Diet Change) judge that the possible re-election of Joe Biden represents an “existential threat” to the United States and that it must be prevented by all means, including if necessary by a call to “the people” to take up arms. Increasingly normalized in the public and republican sphere, these neo-reactionaries are part of a movement irrigated by clearly racist currents and a particularly virulent dose of anti-feminism. At the heart of their positions: the State reduces to its strict minimum, private property and individual freedoms as cardinal values, social ultraconservatism. If Trump can hardly be seen as a man of ideas, others are responsible for thinking for him.
Their ideas have been infusing for a long time, initially marginally, in the swampy waters of the Republican Party. They gained momentum with the emergence of the clan united around the Tea Party at the end of the 2000s. They gained ground with Trump and the rise of the alt-right.
It does not go without saying, some say, that the Supreme Court — with a conservative majority — will agree to hear the appeal. If she accepts and the repercussions of her decision will be immeasurable. Moreover, the judgment in Colorado, which, whatever the Trumpists say, is based on an essentially apolitical reading of the Constitution, will probably not remain an orphan for long since similar cases are before the courts of other states, such as Michigan and Minnesota. . With the primary season beginning and the tangle of multiple lawsuits filed against Mr. Trump, the year 2024 will unfold in the most complete tumult, against a backdrop of insecure Democratic ambivalence towards Mr. Biden.
Robert Kagan, an old-guard anti-Trump neoconservative, recently wrote in the Washington Post : “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We have to stop pretending. » Immoderately alarmist, is all this? He called on “constitutional Republicans” to stand together against Trump and to state loud and clear that his candidacy was simply unacceptable. “It doesn’t take a miracle, just courage. » However, the decision had barely been rendered by the Colorado Supreme Court when dozens of Republican elected officials came to Trump’s defense. The others were silent. They still have to find the courage.