From TNR, a series on Fear in the Age of Trump by Corey Robin. Pentagon journal explores what could happen if a president called for Muslim internment camps. What will you do when terrorists attack, or U.S. friction with some foreign power turns into a military confrontation? Get ready for the inevitable presidential power grab. Dylan Matthews asked 8 experts if we’re in a constitutional crisis — here’s what they said. Ed Kilgore on Trump and the right-wing populist tradition of judge-bashing. Martha Minow and Robert Post on standing up for “so-called” law: Without the rule of law, we may have a “so-called” president who has in fact become a tyrant. Is Trump an authoritarian at heart? It matters less than you think.
Containing Trump: He may well try to govern as an authoritarian — whether he succeeds depends less on what he does than on how civil society responds. “We have at most a year to defend American democracy, perhaps less”: Matthias Kolb interviews Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. How much do the early days of the Trump administration look like the Third Reich? Historian Richard Evans weighs in.
From the Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt, Peter Baehr (Lingnan): The Theory of Totalitarian Leadership. Political philosophy suggests that Trump will either double down on his behavior or eventually give in to institutional opposition: “Rereading Hannah Arendt and Stephen Skowronek may provide some clues in deciphering Donald Trump”.
