Autocracy Tightens its Grip in America

After Joe Biden’s election to the presidency in 2020, I believed our nation’s flirtation with autocracy and tyranny had ended.

Not so.

Following the unprecedented consolidation of power by the executive branch during the past eight weeks in the United States, I understand more clearly than ever why and how autocratic rulers rise to power.

In 2023, I produced The Broken Promise, a documentary film that explores the re-emergent patterns of genocide, and the political and institutional failures that enable perpetrators of crimes against humanity. The film has aired on 80 public television stations and received the “Humanitarian Award Grand Prize” in an industry Best Shorts Competition which noted the film is “a cautionary tale for our times.”

The film’s message is incredibly germane to what’s happening in our country today.

Featuring insights from genocide survivors and their children, members of Congress, legal scholars, and human rights activists, The Broken Promise shines a light on the warning signs of authoritarianism. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of The Strongman, From Mussolini to the Present, commended it, stating, “Through moving testimonies spanning the globe and history, The Broken Promise shows us the warning signs that societies are moving to genocidal policies. A beautiful and timely film.”

 History demonstrates that genocide is preceded by autocracy—where absolute power rests with a single ruler. As a Jewish woman, who since childhood has been aware of the Holocaust, I was drawn to anti-genocide activism during the Darfur crisis two decades ago. Despite a global movement, the genocide in Sudan persisted. This failure led me to explore why such atrocities occur and how they can be prevented.

While not all autocrats commit genocide, experts recognize key warning signs. Today Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not only enacting the autocrat’s playbook but, according to historical scholars, such as Ruth Ben-Ghiat, they are expanding that playbook in unprecedented ways. The president has handed Musk, Trump’s biggest donor, the power of a non-elected “co-president.”

We are witnessing, in real time, an immoral autocrat, who is a convicted felon, and his enablers seizing power. We are seeing their complicity with big money, oligarchs and other global dictators. They are using the tools of fear, threats, hate, and dehumanization of minorities. We’re watching their ability to coerce others to follow them—even major institutions such as the mainstream media and corporations. We are seeing the most significant enablers, Congressional Republicans, spinelessly bend the knee and give the power of the purse to Trump/Musk. Republicans and others supporting this upheaval are abandoning our country’s values, as did the Germans who went along with Hitler during his takeover of Germany.

In mere weeks, they have destabilized and plundered our healthy economy. As historian Heather Cox Richardson said, “It is an astonishing thing to watch a single man hamstring the United States economy.” They are dismantling government institutions—even properties—to privatize and offer them to billionaires—mirroring tactics used by Vladimir Putin in Russia and Victor Orbán in Hungry. We now can see how they use democratic freedoms to rise to power and erode democracy itself.

They are hollowing out the institutions that serve the public—education, environment, public health, national security, air safety and more. They are using the justice department, not to administer justice, but to persecute and harass their political enemies while freeing their convicted and violent criminal friends. `

In a stunning reversal of course, our country is abandoning democratic Ukraine and jeopardizing an 80-year NATO alliance. We are aligning with Russia, a nation that has brutally and aggressively committed horrendous war crimes against the brave people of Ukraine. Chillingly, Trump not only ended funding of a program for tracking the over 300 thousand children that Russia abducted from Ukraine, but ordered all the findings from that program deleted.

Trump/Musk are assaulting the ideals and principles on which our nation was founded.

I truly hope we’re able to save our damaged democracy and avoid the worst. No one will save us. It is up to us.

I never imagined The Broken Promise would be so relevant. It is a dire warning for my own country. Yet, here we stand.

–The Broken Promise is available for streaming for PBS Passport members on PBS.org