American Autocracy Threat Tracker
A Comprehensive Catalog Based on Donald Trump and His Associates’ Plans, Promises, and Propositions
Introduction
Donald Trump, his allies and key appointees have proclaimed plans that would turn America towards dictatorship. If they succeed in realizing their stated aims, they will transform our 250 year democracy into an autocracy along the lines of Victor Orban’s Hungary—or worse. That follows from statements like that of the President-elect that he will assume dictatorial powers on “day one” of his administration or that he will seek to retaliate against his opponents—a revenge theme endorsed by his announced nominees to run the FBI and DOJ. For example, Trump said in his Meet the Press interview on December 8th that Liz Cheney “should go to jail” for her role on the Jan. 6th Committee. Then on December 17th, he doubled down based on a “report” by one of his congressional allies:
We should take deadly seriously those and the thousands of other threats against democracy by Trump, his key nominees and his allies. Indeed, Trump has already begun acting on threats to other targets, and on December 17th began suing The Des Moines Register and others over a pre-election poll that turned out to erroneously state his level of support. And yet while some are springing into action to address these perils, many others remain supine. It is imperative to sound the alarm so that Congress, other federal and state officials, the press and the public can respond commensurate with the risk and based on accurate, in-depth information about the specific autocratic plans.
The “American Autocracy Threat Tracker” aims to sound that alarm and spur that preparedness. In the over 300 pages of detail that follows, we comprehensively catalog Trump’s and his allies’ specific plans and promises for his second term. We focus on announced actions that are of greatest concern for the future of our democracy. Throughout, we rely on quoted statements and citations to the publicly available factual record. We update the Threat Tracker regularly to include important new developments.
