Are We On A Downward Drift Toward Authoritarianism?

Are We On A Downward Drift Toward Authoritarianism?

By

Leonard Zwelling

I am a little sick of the liberals blaming Donald Trump for the nation’s drift toward a government with a single branch–his. This drift toward an imperial presidency has been in the works for years.

Since I am old, but still mentally intact,  I decided to try to search my memory banks and assess where we started to go wrong. Let me define what I mean by “going wrong.” I mean when the people of the United States could no longer trust its government to tell them the truth and for that government to do the right thing. There is also the matter of following the Constitution rather than having a unitary presidency with a compliant and politicized Supreme Court and a passive, leaderless Congress. Mr. Trump wants to extend presidential control to all independent federal agencies, too (see NY Times DEC 8 by Kate Shaw; https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/opinion/trump-supreme-court-agencies.html?searchResultPosition=1).

I am going to go back to Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. It was at that moment that it was clear that the government (back as far as John F. Kennedy) was lying to the people whose sons were dying in Vietnam about the war in Southeast Asia.

Then came Watergate and the understanding by the American people that the President of the United States was lying about everything. Indeed, despite his protestations, “he was a crook.” With the newest Supreme Court decisions about presidential power, however, Nixon would not have had to resign today.

The Iran hostage crisis was the beginning of the United States not being able to protect or save its own citizens in foreign countries.

Iran Contra was about more presidential deceit. So was Monica.

The 2000 election undermined faith in the election system regardless of who was declared the winner and it was the most prominent matifestation of a corrupt, politicized Supreme Court. Nine people were deciding election result for all of us. That is not the way it is supposed to work.

Not only could we not protect our citizens in foreign countries, on 9/11 we learned how flawed our intelligence services were as a buttress protecting us at home. And, instead of declaring 9/11 the biggest criminal murder in history, President Bush 43 declared it an act of war, (by what country by the way?) and invaded first Afghanistan and then Iraq. It seems we never learn.

Mr. Obama was the feel good, do nothing president who won a Nobel peace prize for making the people in Norway feel hopeful. Hope is not a strategy. The world ‘s problems got worse under Hope and Change.

In 2016, the country decided it had had enough of lying executives and chose a man they thought was a straight-shooter. He was not. Mr. Biden turned out to be a place holder when he was supposed to turn us away from authoritarianism. Instead, his infirmity drove us further in the direction of a unitary presidency by paving the way for a return of Donald Trump.

Lying for Mr. Trump is a way of life. Pointing out what he says that is true and what is not would take all day. You would have to follow him around with a bull shit meter to sort out the garbage from the facts. Of course, in his world, he and his aides have “alternative facts.”

Inexorably, the United States as I knew it, not so much in its various geographic features and landmarks, but in its faith in the government, has vanished not to return. It has been taken over now by a game show host whose claim to fame is as a building constructor who fails to pay his bills and a TV personality who fired people. Now he is the President of the United States and doing everything in his power to consolidate the entire the federal government into one branch—his.

Congress cannot legislate. It has no leadership. It has no vision. And, believe me when I say this because I met quite a few Senators in 2009. These are not our best and brightest, but the ones I knew then were way better than the current crop. And those that are competent among the currently serving are held in check by the rest of the ninnies.

The lower federal court system seems to be working, but the Supreme Court is totally groveling to Trump and overturns many good lower court decisions.

Finally, as I have recently noted, the press is no longer protecting our right to know. It cannot report on a real story, like the loss of the people’s power to decide through gerrymandering and voter suppression. Instead, we get floods, car chases, and racoons in liquor stores. NBC News looks like TikTok.

It saddens me greatly that in my final years on this planet, my home, the United States, feels less and less like my home. I feel like a foreigner sometimes as a Jew in the U.S. I think I will finish my life here and I hope my kids can. My grandchildren may need Israeli passports.

Unless…