For someone to run for president of the United States while attacking the pillars of his democracy — the peaceful transfer of power and the rule of law — can be confusing as well as offensive and outrageous. But is it an effective political strategy? It could be Donald Trump’s anti-democracy tactics be a conscious attempt to destabilize things enough to return to power?

Whether intentional or not, his actions are verifiably consistent with a historical pattern that has played out before, although this may be hard to see in light of how breaking the rules and without precedent the actions of the former president seem

trump card he refused to accept 86 court rulings rejecting his claim that the 2020 elections were illegitimate. He insults US allies and affirm their confidence in the Russian leader, which he said he trusted more than American intelligence. He got the US out of the treaty that prohibits Russia from targeting our Western European allies. He withheld military assistance to Ukraine as fought the Russian invasion. He challenged the integrity of the US armed services by demanding execution of Gen. Mark Milley, his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As the death toll from the pandemic rose in the US, Trump they attacked the National Institutes of Health and suggested bizarre, dangerous, disreputable treatments. His challenges to the peaceful transfer of power and the integrity of our justice system provide confidence in the dollar, which is essential to our financial stability as a whole. at risk.

There is a pattern to these seemingly inexplicable, self-defeating, disqualifying moves, deftly explained in a new book, “Sowing Hate and Chaos: How Propaganda is Used to Destroy Democracies.” It details the psychological propaganda tactics that have been used before to undermine democracy, freedom, equality and human rights. They create division, institutional mistrust and chaos. They foster political and cultural changes that condone and normalize violence. Societal divisions that should be resolved through peaceful debate, compromise and law are inflamed to the point where democracy collapses and autocracy moves in.

This was the pattern of authoritarian takeovers in Germany, Indonesia, Myanmar and Rwanda. Now, whether by deliberate intent or a dark zeitgeist, the same patterns are visible in the US

The specific psychological propaganda techniques should sound eerily familiar to anyone after the 2024 election. The indoctrination and recruitment tactics create a sense of unity among followers through the leader’s expressions of empathy for their plight, giving them a voice. frustrations and dissatisfactions. They repeat obvious lies – that the election was stolenor that foreigners are “blood poisoning” of the nation—to elicit moral outrage. They they taunt and taunt opponentsmeeting any policy arguments they could make ad hominem attacks. The debate itself it is degraded. Anyone who disagrees is considered disrespectful, deceitful – even treacherous. Scapegoats are identified and marked as “other.”

On-call institutions such as a free press and the the justice system they are attacked and dismissed as corrupt. Slogans, meetings and symbolseither his braces ball capsthey are used to strengthen unity—all the more so emotional and primitive the better. The meaning of the words themselves is distorted and subsumed by the primal feelings they can evoke. The language becomes aggressively dehumanizing. The rhetoric shifts from fighting with foreigners to fighting with “enemy within”. Opponents are spoken of in racialized terms, as are others, ca parasite, pollution of the genetic backgroundthreatening with “replace us.” Patriotism is invoked, political violence becomes acceptableeven nobleto clear the threat.

That’s how it was in Nazi Germany, when Jews were killed for being that way said to be destructive the German nation and culture; in Indonesia where over 500,000 citizens were purged at “save the nation”; and in Myanmar, where Buddhist mobs burned Rohingya villages and ruled organized mass murder in the name of protecting their nation and religion.

In each case, the killings were preceded by the emergence of well-organized militias, armed and trained to carry them out. When a triggering event occurred that could be blamed on “the others,” either by accident or by design, violence was unleashed, sowing chaos, overthrowing democratic government, and ushering in autocracy. The instruments of the state were full of loyalists. Those who did not obey were branded as traitors and subjected to violence.

Trump is reconstructing more and more aspects of these historical patterns. He he instructs his followers not to believe what they see, hear or read in the mainstream media, but to believe it myself. Recently he went so far as to branded Democratic Party leaders “enemies within,” and said we should use domestic military force and to judge his political opponents.

Milley had the temerity to argue against the use of military force against American citizens and to say “We do not take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. … We swear an oath to the Constitution … and we are willing to die to protect it.” If Trump can order the execution of a prominent person like Milley, think what he could do — or what he could urge his supporters to do — to ordinary Americans.

Whether he does it on purpose or just doomed to repeat history out of ignorance, Trump denigrates and degrades democracy and pushes us down the same road to authoritarianism that other countries have followed. The best antidote is to recognize and expose the historical pattern and reject where it leads.

As Nobel Laureate and President of East Timor José Ramos Horta wrote, “As many in other parts of the world can attest, we can support freedom and democracy now, or we can die for it later.”

Jonathan Granoff is President of the Global Security Institute and Senior Advisor and United Nations Representative to the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates. These are his own opinions.

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