Chronicling and analyzing resistance to the threat that autocracy
poses to American liberal democracy, this book provides the definitive
account of both Trump’s efforts to erode democracy’s essential
elements and opposition to those efforts. This book is about the
threat of autocracy, which antedated Donald Trump and will persist
after he leaves the stage. Autocrats blur or breach the separation of
powers, use executive orders to bypass the legislature, pack the
courts, replace career prosecutors with political appointees, abuse
the pardon power, and claim immunity from the law. They seek to hobble
opposition from civil society by curtailing speech and assembly,
tolerating and even encouraging vigilante violence, and attacking the
media. As this book demonstrates, Trump followed the autocrat’s
playbook in many ways. He was a huckster of hate, aiming his vitriol
at women and racial minorities and making attacks on immigrants the
focus of his 2016 campaign, as well as his first years in office.
Nevertheless, his rhetoric and policies encountered widespread
opposition—from religious leaders, business executives, lawyers and
bar associations, and civil servants. His executive orders (on which
he relied) were almost all struck down by courts: including the first
two “Muslim bans,” the detention of children and their separation
from parents, the diversion of military funds to build the border
wall, the insertion of a citizenship question in the census, and the
limits on asylum. Just as Trump sought to weaponize the criminal
justice system against his political opponents, so he manipulated it
to defend his cronies, derailing some of their prosecutions. Trump
also intervened in courts martial and criminal prosecutions of those
convicted of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and those accused of
desertion and terrorism. Again, however, there was resistance, as some
career prosecutors withdrew from cases or resigned when subjected to
political pressure and federal courts convicted all of Trump’s
allies—even though the president went on to use his unreviewable
pardon power. This book, then, documents the abuses that are
characteristic of autocracy and assesses the various forms of
resistance to them. This definitive account and analysis of Trumpism
in action, as well as the resistance to it, will appeal to scholars,
students, and others with interests in politics, populism, and the
rule of law and, more specifically, to those concerned with resisting
the threat that autocracy poses to liberal democracy.
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Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781003834465
Publisert
2023
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter