Trump is right about one thing: Many Americans want a dictator

Following his rambling, incoherent speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Donald Trump said that his opponents often call him “a horrible dictator-type person.” He continued, “But sometimes, you need a dictator.”

He is certainly trying to govern as one. Under Trump, the Department of Justice has begun targeting Democratic elected officials such as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, as well as private citizens who oppose the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and the administration’s increasingly reckless and violent mass deportation campaign.

In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly suggested that the midterm elections should not take place and has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and impose martial law. He has also suggested that he and his administration are not bound by the U.S. Constitution and continues to recast the Jan. 6 insurrection — and the broader effort to overturn the 2020 election — as peaceful, patriotic protest.

On the international stage, Trump claims to be following the “Donroe Doctrine,” his version of James Monroe’s declaration that the U.S. controls the Western Hemisphere and will use military force and other forms of coercive power to “protect its interests.” As seen in the recent abduction of Venezuela’s president and Trump’s threats against Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Greenland and the European Union, U.S. foreign policy now resembles an extortion racket.

At Davos, Trump also signed the charter of his inaugural “Board of Peace,” a nebulous body which may be intended as a rival to the United Nations. This organization’s ostensible goal is to “promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.” 

As critics have observed, Trump can maintain de facto control of this entity indefinitely and can pass along his chairmanship to a designated successor. As chairman, he reportedly has the power to veto most decisions made by a majority of member states. In effect, Trump is trying to establish a new international organization under his complete control.

Donald Trump is not an ideologue, and possesses no coherent political philosophy. He is an expert, however, at getting power and keeping it. Trump correctly senses that many people in America and around the world either explicitly want an authoritarian leader or are so dissatisfied with democracy and globalization that they are willing to vote for an autocratic or authoritarian in order to “shake up the system.” This was true in 2016 when Trump was first elected president, and it remains true 10 years later.

Research from the Public Religion Research Institute and other experts shows that a large plurality — in some surveys, a substantial majority — of White American Christians exhibit authoritarian personality traits and reject pluralism and multiracial democracy. This is true of Trump MAGA voters, and of Republicans and conservatives more broadly.

America’s democracy crisis is global. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance’s World Values Survey shows a troubling trend. In 2021 (the most recent year of data collection), fewer than half of all respondents across 77 countries said that democracy was important to them. That marked a notable decrease from a majority of 52.4 percent in 2017. In addition, more than 50 percent of respondents reported that they wanted an authoritarian leader. In 2009, that percentage was just 38 percent.

A 2025 report from the Pew Research Center offers further clarification: Many people express unhappiness with the state of their own democratic governments, but not necessarily with the concept of democracy itself.

Across that set of countries — Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States — a median of 64% of adults say they are dissatisfied with the way their democracy is working, while a median of 35% are satisfied…. Our research has shown that people around the globe think representative democracy is a good system of government. At the same time, many are frustrated with political elites or feel their views are not truly represented in government.

Public opinion polls consistently show that Trump’s overall approval rating has reached historic lows for a president at this point in his second term. A majority of voters are also deeply concerned about his authoritarian behavior, his right-wing extremism and the obvious danger he poses to democracy. That said, Trump continues to have very high levels of support among MAGA and Republican voters. And while a noticeable proportion of Republican voters are troubled by Trump’s authoritarian behavior and extremism, very few have stopped supporting him entirely.

One of the main factors driving support for Trump in 2024 was precisely this desire among many voters for a leader who would break the rules and ignore norms to get things done on behalf of “people like them.”

Research by political scientists Michael Albertus and Guy Grossman shows that a significant percentage of the American public — as much as 35 percent — is willing to support antidemocratic behavior by a president, such as purging career civil servants and subverting the rule of law by packing the courts. They also found that people are not likely to support impeaching political leaders who violate democratic norms. Most prefer elections as a way of removing such leaders. Autocrats around the world have greatly exploited this vulnerability.

The grave dangers now facing democracy, however, almost certainly go beyond Donald Trump or any other individual leader.

Political scientist Shawn Rosenberg argues that a not-insignificant percentage of the public does not possess the emotional and cognitive tools to be responsible stewards of their democracy.

In a 2020 essay, Rosenberg warns: “Considering the current conditions and trajectory of democratic politics, the conclusion is evident. Even, or perhaps particularly, in well-established democracies like the United States, democratic governance will continue its inexorable decline and will eventually fail.

“The alternative that will supersede liberal democracy, right wing populism, is also clear. It offers the understandings the people can readily comprehend, the values they can readily appreciate, and the direction of speech and action they can readily follow.”

At this point in the 21st century, “democracy” has become an abstract concept for many Americans. They are more concerned, understandably enough, with the state of the economy and their personal financial struggles. As the Democrats learned in 2024, a leader who speaks to those anxieties and fears, even if he offers no real solutions, can be more persuasive than someone who talks in abstract terms about the merits of “democracy” and “the rule of law.”

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As usual, the mainstream media has mostly moved on from Trump’s Davos comments about being a dictator. Many elite journalists likely rationalize this as another matter of “Trump being Trump” and saying outrageous things we’ve all heard before. Such rationalizations continue to normalize a grossly abnormal situation and minimize an existential threat to American democracy and freedom.

In a new Foreign Affairs article entitled “The Price of American Authoritarianism,” political scientists Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt and Lucan A. Way suggest that “Americans must sustain a kind of double vision, recognizing that their country is confronting authoritarianism while not forgetting that avenues for democratic contestation remain open. Losing sight of either truth invites defeat: complacency if the danger is underestimated, fatalism if it is overestimated.”

The Washington Post reported this week that ICE leaders have told their officers and agents that they have the authority to enter private homes without a judicial warrant. This is a clear violation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, recalling the disputes that led to the Revolutionary War.

In a 1774 petition to King George III, the newly formed Continental Congress cited the fact that “Officers of the Customs are empowered to break open and enter houses, without the authority of any Civil Magistrate, founded on legal information” as one of their principal grievances. King George rejected that petition, whose main points were repeated to years later in the Declaration of Independence.

As is often said, history does not repeat itself, but it frequently rhymes. In the Age of Trump, that rhyme sounds more like a curse.

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