History Helps Us See Patterns in the Present and Know What to Expect in the Future
History is the study of the past, but identifying historical patterns, including how autocrats behave when their power is threatened, can help us to understand what may happen in the future. The exact action the autocrat may take is hard to predict, but we can know that he will do something.
This was the feeling I had, based on my historical studies, when Donald Trump refused to concede the 2020 election. As the days passed, I grew more and more worried that we were entering into an unprecedented and fateful period, and I wanted to get the word out that we should be prepared for anything.
I started a video blog called The Transition to document this “state of exception,” as I called it in a November 15, 2020, video you can view here. I observed that we had entered as a nation into “uncharted territory” due to the refusal of Trump and the GOP to accept the results of the election, and forecast continued instability. “Crisis time is exhausting. Conserve your energies. You may need them in the weeks to come,” I counseled.
I had just published the first edition of Strongmen, which looked at the violent and lawless things other leaders had done to get to power and stay there. I had turned in the book to the publisher in May 2020, and inserted a warning that Trump’s fear of being held accountable lay behind his desire to remain in office no matter what.
The 2021 paperback’s epilogue includes the Jan. 6 outcome of that fear. (It also warns that Putin’s persecution of Navalny would lintensify, and saw the neo-Fascist politician Giorgia Meloni as a likely future female head of state).
I also published an op-ed in the Washington Post on November 9, 2020, which I have excerpted below. “The rage that will grow in Trump as reality sinks in may make for a rocky transition to Biden’s presidency. Americans would do well to be prepared,” I concluded.
The op-ed reminds us that the destructive dynamics unfolding in 2026 America are not new: the fixation on having bunkers and places to hide, the loyalty tests, and the loss of power experienced as a personal betrayal, leading to a will for vengeance that becomes all-consuming. Ultimately, that vengeance is exacted against the American people who committed the sin of rejecting him, and now must pay the price.
Excerpts from my November 9, 2020 Washington Post Opinion Piece
The authoritarian playbook has no chapter on failure. Nothing prepares the ruler to see his propaganda ignored and his charismatic hold weaken until his own people turn against him. It has no pages on the horror of being voted out of office, as happened to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, or forced into exile, like Ugandan despot Idi Amin.
Democratic heads of state often see their departures from office as an opportunity to build on their legacies of leadership. For rulers with authoritarian inclinations, loss of power looms as a kind of psychological annihilation — even as it also often evokes practical concerns about the end of immunity from prosecution for them and their families.
While Trump was not in power long enough to dismantle American democracy, he did succeed in installing a form of the “personalist rule” that characterizes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and other autocrats he so admires. Personalist governance concentrates power in one individual, whose own political and financial interests (and relationships with other despots) often prevail over national ones in shaping domestic and foreign policy. Loyalty to the head of state, rather than expertise, is the primary qualification for serving him. By way of example, look to the Republican Party itself, which reduced its 2020 party platform into a mere expression of support for Trump.
Of course, this high degree of personal power brings no security to strongman rulers, who are pursued by the demon of fear. Fear impels them to buy off and intimidate elites, making it harder for their supporters to separate themselves. It is fear, too, that makes them throw on a cloak of masculine invincibility and seek out other strongmen as partners who will legitimate their authoritarian worldview.
Having it all is never enough for men like Trump, who consistently make recourse to behaviors that let them feel safe but ultimately prove counterproductive. Chief among these is erecting walls to shield themselves from unwelcome realities. These are not just physical barriers, like bunkers and compounds, but also a style of governance that privileges inner sanctums filled with flatterers and family members who screen out unwanted input and criticism and tell the leader only what he wants to hear.
None of this cushioning serves the leader well. Living inside his cocoon, he inevitably comes to believe his own propaganda. This encourages his worst traits — paranoia and hubris are common — and leads to bad decisions that eventually turn his people against him. Authoritarian history is full of disastrous actions taken out of pride and megalomania. Benito Mussolini insisted on entering World War II at Adolf Hitler’s side, against the advice of many of his generals.
It’s not surprising that most authoritarians leave office involuntarily. They experience decreasing popularity as a personal betrayal and often abandon their people, blaming them for the messes they themselves have caused.
Trump hews to this history of denial in front of adversity. He has refused to accept defeat by Biden, seemingly embracing as true the fiction that the election was stolen from him, rather than accept responsibility for mismanaging the pandemic. The president reportedly has no intention of preparing a concession speech, leaving his cowed inner circle to contemplate holding an intervention to get him to accept the truth. As Bess Levin writes in Vanity Fair, “Trump apparently thinks he can just go on being president even though the American people have fired him.”
Strongmen have gained power in different ways over a century, but one thing holds true: They are especially dangerous when their power is threatened. Trump could not pull off the solutions his illiberal contemporaries have used to stay in office, such as gaming elections through digital and legal manipulation (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s methods), or by consolidating power sufficient to rule by decree (Orbán’s way).
But the rage that will grow in Trump as reality sinks in may make for a rocky transition to Biden’s presidency. Americans would do well to be prepared.
Hmm, feels like yesterday. Last night He put on a red hat at the end of the correspondents dinner that said Trump 2028. So he’s not finished messing with this country. I am so over him. And yes, Professor Ben-Ghiat, thank you for your wisdom and help in these times. I know I would be a basket case without you.
Prescient and chilling. And we've had six more years to watch this horrible evolution, which continues his isolation, self-delusion, and desire for revenge against opponents and supposed enemies everywhere. Whenever I think we've hit rock bottom, he does something else. And I wonder: just how bad will it get before this nightmare is over? We do need to be aware, be prepared, and brace ourselves. And we need to fight for democracy, every day.