We Should Have Seen It Coming: The Unraveling of American Democracy (Part I)

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would only be a “dictator” on Day 1 of his presidency. “We love this guy,” Trump said about Hannity. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.” Most Americans did not take Trump’s cryptic remarks seriously, However, new polling since Trump’s inauguration indicates that a majority of Americans now view him as a “dangerous dictator.”

In a recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) at the 100-day mark of Trump’s second term as President, over 5,000 Americans were asked to respond to the following statement: “President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” Overall, 52 percent of those surveyed agree with the statement. (By party, 87 percent Democrats, 56 percent Independents, and 17 percent Republicans agree.)[1]

In a discussion with Axios, PRRI CEO Melissa Dackman stated: “Most Americans view Trump in dictatorial terms, and I think most Americans are concerned that American democracy is on the line . . . It’s been only 100 days into the Trump administration, yet we’ve seen a pushback among most Americans to the Trump agenda.”[2] There may be “buyer’s remorse” on the part of some who voted for Trump. Yet, in the same poll, a sizeable minority of respondents—44 percent, including 81 percent who identify as Republicans—still believe that “Trump is a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.”[3] 

There are those former Republicans who deeply lament what they see as a betrayal of traditional conservatism by Trumpism and Trump’s “takeover” of the Republican Party. In a recent article entitled I Should Have Seen This Coming the well-known conservative columnist David Brooks expresses regret for not recognizing sooner the dangers posed by Trumpism:

The strongman understanding of power is on the march. Power is like money: the more the better. Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the rest of the authoritarians are forming an axis of ruthlessness before our eyes. Trumpism has become a form of nihilism that is devouring everything in its path. The pathetic thing is that I didn’t see this coming. . . . [4]

As a deeply conservative thinker and writer and professing Christian, Brooks does not disregard the excesses on the left, which created a stifling orthodoxy that stamped down dissent and expelled evangelical Christians from the public square. “If you tell half the country that their voices don’t matter, then the voiceless are going to flip over the table,” he writes. [5] 

But Brooks is also highly critical of evangelical Christians who have swallowed hook line and sinker the Trumpian cocktail—a toxic mixture of narcissism and nihilism that has eaten away at the Christian faith. Jesus explicitly renounced worldly power. “But if Trumpism has a central tenet, it is untrammeled lust for worldly power.” Trump’s MAGA followers have crosses on their chest but Nietzsche in their heart, asserts Brooks.[6]  

He points out that two decades ago, Michael Gerson, a graduate of Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical institution, helped President George W. Bush start the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) which saved 25 million lives in Africa and elsewhere. “It was a proud moment to be an American.” By contrast, Trump’s budget director Russell Vought, also a Wheaton graduate, championed the evisceration of PEPFAR as part of DOGE cuts set in motion by Trump’s executive order, effectively sentencing thousands to death. Vought was a principal architect of Project 25, which helped lay the groundwork for the dismantling of USAID, thereby gutting a program which has supplied medical aid and emergency food for starving children. “Twenty years is a short time in which to have traveled the long moral distance from Gerson to Vought.”[7] 

Brooks asks the following questions: “How does this end? Will anyone on the right finally stand up to the Trumpian onslaught? Will our institutions withstand the nihilist assault? Is America on the verge of ruin?”[8] He is hopeful that American democracy will survive. I would suggest that it depends on the following factors:

• The nature of the current threat to democracy.

• The willingness of American citizens (including Christians) to resist authoritarianism and defend democracy.

• The adoption by Christians (especially evangelicals) of a social ethic of advocacy which is informed by a biblical theology of power.[9]

• An ability of Americans to identify and resist the negative influence of the social media on our democracy.

• A comprehension of the deep historical and cultural roots of the present crisis.

• Our ability to work together to do the hard work necessary to achieve true civic and political renewal.

  
  

As with any physical or mental illness, healing the current political malaise involves: 1) accurately diagnosing or identifying the nature of the problem; and 2) taking the appropriate and necessary steps to address the problem. Granted, this can be a depressingly arduous project. But without an accurate diagnosis, we are merely treating symptoms rather than the actual disease.

Nature of the Threat: Totalitarian Democracy

Political theorists have long drawn a clear distinction between democratic and totalitarian states. “Traditionally,” says political scientist Bo Rothstein,” democracy has been understood as fundamentally different from totalitarianism, whether in the form of fascism, absolutism, or dictatorship.”[10] But the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism on both the left and the right calls into question this traditional dichotomy:

The rise of Donald Trump and a wave of similarly inclined political populists worldwide raises the question of whether the traditional dichotomy between democratic and totalitarian regimes still holds. Trump and his counterparts represent, as I see it, a new ideological model best described as totalitarian democracy. Unlike outright authoritarianism, this model does not completely eliminate representative democracy, but it fundamentally reinterprets the meaning of an electoral mandate. It asserts that winning a majority of votes grants the elected leadership an unchecked right to impose its will across all areas of public life, with little regard for constitutional limits or long-established norms of democratic governance. The notion of fair play in politics—once a guiding principle in many democracies is disregarded in favor of an aggressive majoritarianism.[11] 

One of the most characteristic features of a totalitarian democracy according to Rothstein is the systematic erosion of meritocracy in government and public administration. Given that the party which is in power—and especially the president—demand absolute loyalty from civil servants as well as the members of the Cabinet, unquestioning fealty increasingly supersedes expertise. Independent expert bodies, long tasked with providing objective advice on issues such as healthcare, foreign policy, the environment, etc., are either sidelined or dismantled entirely. “In short, the epistemic dimension of democracy is abandoned in this totalitarian conception of democracy.”[12]

Even universities and schools are expected to comply with politically enforced conceptions of “correctness” that align with the administration’s definition of reality. Those educational institutions that refuse to comply face the likelihood of some form of reprisal, such as the loss of government funding for much needed scientific research.

The systematic erosion of meritocracy is supported by a large segment of the electorate which already has a deep skepticism and disdain toward intellectual elites and “experts.” Furthermore, within a totalitarian democracy, an authoritarian populist leader enjoys virtually unquestioned loyalty—or what some refer to as the “totality of allegiance”—from his base of supporters.[13]

The assault on independent expertise and academic research insulated from political interference undermines freedom and the rule of law. It can also lead to uninformed policies that are socially harmful and to disastrous miscalculations, particularly in foreign policy and military strategy. Research clearly indicates that political regimes which lack impartial professional merit-based expertise are significantly more prone to corruption and less effective in serving the public welfare. “When citizens assess the legitimacy of their governments, factors such as corruption control, rule of law and government effectiveness weigh more heavily than democratic rights alone,” says Rothstein.[14]  Of course, both policymakers and experts have inherent limitations and blind-spots. “Good governance arises not from the dominance of one over the other but from a productive interaction between them.”[15] 

Rothstein concludes: “The emergence of totalitarian democracy presents a profound challenge to democratic governance. The erosion of institutional checks, the politicization of administration and the rejection of expertise in favor of loyalty threaten the foundations of effective government.”[16] 

David Brooks argues, on the other hand, that in the long run totalitarian demagogues like Trump don’t survive because of their inherent incompetence and stupidity:

Yes, we have reached a point of traumatic rupture. A demagogue has come to power and is ripping everything down. But what’s likely to happen is that the demagogue will start making mistakes, because incompetence is built into the nihilism project. Nihilists can only destroy, not build . . . They are pathologically self-destructive. When you create an administration in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his voracious ego, stupidity results. [17]

Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that the seductive lure of authoritarianism is a global phenomenon. Around the world, there are many versions of the one-party state, from Putin’s Russia to Viktor Orbin’s Hungary.[18] 

Totalitarian democracy is not inherently a phenomenon of either the “left” or the “right.” Thus, while the most immediate threat to democracy might come from President Trump and the Republican party as the above analysis suggests, there are authoritarian impulses within the Democratic party as well.

Defending Democracy from Its Enemies

How should Christians (including church leaders) respond to political authoritarianism in its various forms? As the above survey indicates, most evangelical Christians who form Trump’s political base regard him not as a “dictator” but as a “strong leader” who should be given the power to “make America great again.” As I discuss further below, unfortunately, many evangelicals have been taken captive by a partisan political agenda and ideology of Christian nationalism which combines nationalism with a form of religious authoritarianism.

On the other hand, many Christians who are rightly concerned that the church has become “too political” tend to avoid politics like the plague. Churches as spiritual communities concerned with the care of souls ought to avoid anything chat resembles partisan political activity—be it a protest, signing a petition, or discussing hot button issues in small groups.[19] Church leaders in this camp are reluctant to speak truth to power, even when the current administration promotes policies (such as the dismantling of USAID and mass deportations) which are clearly unjust and have resulted in the needless suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent people in the U.S. and overseas. Some authors who are heavily critical of Trumpism nevertheless believe that emphasis should be placed on the spiritual well-being of the church and the proclamation of the gospel and not on the survival of our democracy.[20]

In my view, both approaches create a false dichotomy that prevents the church from embodying holistic mission and developing disciples who are committed to Jesus and his kingdom.[21] In Jesus and the Powers: Christian Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies, N.T. Wright and Michael Bird offer a compelling exploration of how Christians should engage with political power. Their book challenges simplistic views of political engagement, advocating for a balanced approach that confronts empires while also contributing to free and democratic societies. Christians should pursue active involvement in ways that encourage and sustain liberal democratic systems while opposing both totalitarianism and nationalism.

These authors remind Christians that “in an age of ascending autocracies, in a time of fear and fragmentation, amid carnage and crisis, Jesus is king, and Jesus’ kingdom remains the object of the Church’s witness and work.”[22] They rightly state: “The Church carries a gospel which is not reducible to this worldly political activism, nor so heavenly minded as to live aloof from the trials and terrors of our times.”[23]

Democracy is not uniquely Christian; nor is it perfect, infallible, or beyond criticism. Nonetheless, in the view of these authors it is a form of government that gives the church the best opportunity to promote kingdom witness, love God and neighbor, advocate for the poor and the powerless, and pursue the things that make for peace and the common good.[24]  Moreover, human rights and religious freedom and pluralism “have their deepest roots in countries formed by missional Protestantism.” They conclude that liberal democracy is “one of the most noble achievements of human civilization, an achievement that would not have happened, and is not even conceivable, apart from the Christian heritage of the West.”[25] 

The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

Wright and Bird acknowledge that the issue of when and how to resist injustice, oppression, and tyranny is hotly contested and a moral minefield. On the one hand, the Church cannot be reduced to a social action network; nor can it align itself too closely with one political faction. On the other hand, “our convictions about God putting the world to rights are only as strong as the evils we tolerate.”[26] Further complicating matters is the fact that Western democracies (including American democracy) are under greater threat from elected leaders than from military coups or other violent seizures of power. Democracies die more often from the ballot box than at gunpoint.[27] Thus, we cannot assume just because people are able to vote on a regular basis that this means our democracy is secure or free from the threat of tyranny.

The seductive nature of authoritarianism is clearly illustrated by the rise of Fascism in Germany and elsewhere in the first half of the twentieth century.  Historian Heather Cox Richardson notes that viewing grainy news footage from World War II showing row upon row of Nazi soldiers goose-stepping in military parades has conditioned generations of Americans into thinking that the Adolf Hitler’s of the world arrive at the head of giant armies. “So long as we didn’t see tanks in our streets, we imagined that democracy was secure.”[28] But in fact, Hitler’s rise to absolute power began with his stunning performance in the 1932 election when he won 36.8 of the popular vote. He was able to parlay his rising political influence into a deal to become German chancellor. His absolute dictatorship came later. Wright and Bird state:

We like to imagine that, if we had lived in Germany in the 1930s we would not have followed the masses in either enthusiasm for or complicity with the Nazi regime. But would we have been so allergic to it or actively opposed to it? Nazism was seductive precisely because it promised an immediate fix to parliamentary gridlock, and end to economic chaos, and a refusal to bow to the crushing indemnities and humiliating conditions imposed upon Germany by the Western powers after the First World War. Nazism was not an alien political doctrine that appeared out of nowhere. Nazism succeeded because it embodied what people either believed or wanted to believe.[29] 

Furthermore, it is worth noting that, for all their differences, both Fascism and Communism hinge on placing absolute power into the hands of the State and its supreme leader.  As Timothy Snyder has argued, these two forms of totalitarianism should be understood as part of one phenomenon which ravaged Eastern Europe—authoritarian dictatorship.[30] 

Christian Nationalism and Civic Totalism

Currently, Wright and Bird warn, there are two authoritarian ideologies which threaten both the Church and democracy—Christian nationalism and civic totalism (or what Bird elsewhere calls “progressive authoritarianism”[31]). Christian nationalism is a syncretistic fusion between Christianity, ethnicity, and nationalism that tries to enforce a Christian hegemony over civil society.[32] America is viewed as a “Christian nation.” Christian nationalism currently takes the form of an unholy alliance between the religious right and Donald Trump who is often characterized by his supporters as a messianic figure raised up by God to “save America,” or “make America great again.” When political leaders are given such religious adulation, “the result inevitably is that any critique of them, no matter how valid, is treated as either treason or blasphemy.” Furthermore, “the messianising of leaders to prop up an imagined ‘Christian empire’ can have dire consequences for social freedoms as well as proving injurious to the integrity of the Church’s own witness when it allies itself too closely with an earthly power.”[33] Scripturally, the characterization of any political leader in messianic terms verges on idolatry. For Christ alone is the messianic King, Lord and Savior.  In short, these authors argue, Christian nationalism is impoverished as it seeks a kingdom without a cross and it gives a Christian façade to nakedly political, ethnocentric, and impious ventures.[34]

Civic totalism (progressive authoritarianism) is a form of “soft authoritarianism” that emerges under the guise of being “progressive.” This happens when the state “seeks to regulate as much of the individual’s beliefs, convictions, conscience, and religion as possible,” particularly within the public domain.[35] Progressive authoritarianism is a form of statism whereby government becomes increasingly heavy-handed in its attempts to impress upon its citizens a state-sanctioned system of values, even if it means running roughshod over religious convictions. The state sanctions or embodies a militant form of secularism which intends either to censor religion or central aspects of religion by means of incentives and punishments.[36] Within this form of authoritarianism, religion (particularly Christianity) "is regarded as dangerous, since religion ascribes notions of ultimacy to something other than the State and the State’s vision for the public good. . . . For civic totalists, the danger of religion is that it creates a competing social vision and an alternative morality, which divides the loyalty of citizens away from the State’s objectives for human conduct, rendering certain forms of religion as hostile to the State’s ambitions.”[37] In a godless age, there are still gods, but the people’s worshipping proclivities are translated into the political arena. The State in effect has ultimate power with jurisdiction over every fact of life, “to achieve a comprehensive renovation of society in accordance with the State’s progressive vision.”[38] Progressive authoritarianism often gives preference to absolutist notions of “equality” above accommodation of religious beliefs and values. It also tends to define social reality in terms of binary slots of either the “oppressor” or the “oppressed.”

In the current culture war, Christian nationalists and civic totalists each claim to embody the true “soul of America” while accusing the other side of undermining democracy. Neither side in this conflict has any desire or incentive to accommodate the other. Both protagonists want total victory for their side and complete destruction of the other side.[39] Given the authoritarian tendencies of both ideologies Christians must actively oppose them.  As Wright and Bird remind us, “the greatest evils are not done by people who believe that what they do is wicked, but by those who believe that what they do is righteous!”[40]  

Jesus and the Powers gives us a much-needed perspective on our fragmented and dysfunctional democracies as well as the Church’s response to the autocracies of our day. Wright and Bird correctly argue that Christians have a biblical call to confront the social and political structures of this world that are "corrupted by the poisonous pursuit of power and contaminated by the human attachment to idols of every kind." [41] In part two. I show how the story of the tower of Babel in the Old Testament gives a theological critique of "empire building" and also illustrates how the technological hubris as manifested in the modern tower of social media has resulted in the social fragmentation which threatens our democracy.

[1] Contreras, “Most Americans See Trump as ‘Dangerous Dictator,’ Poll Says.” See PRRI, “Trump’s First 100 Days Survey.”

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Brooks, “I Should Have Seen This Coming,”

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] See Offult Et al., Advocating for Justice: An Evangelical Vision for Transforming Systems and Structures.

[10] Rothstein, “Totalitarian Democracy: How Populist Leaders Are Undermining Democracy.”

[11] Ibid..

[12] Ibid..

[13] See Ruddle and Agle, The Totality of Allegiance, 26-27.

[14] Rothstein, “Totalitarian Democracy: How Populist Leaders Are Undermining Democracy,” 2.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Brooks, “I Should Have Seen This Coming.”

[18] See Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy, 26.

[19] See Norris and Speers, Kingdom Politics, 5.

[20] Looper, Another Gospel, 106.

[21] Norris and Speers, Kingdom Politics, 3-7.

[22] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers, xiii.

[23] Ibid., xvi.

[24] Ibid., 162-70; 178.

[25] Ibid., 157, 167. In their book Advocating for Justice, Stephen Offutt and his co-authors similarly argue for a Christian social ethic of “transformational advocacy” which they define as “intentional acts of witness by the body of Christ that hold people and institutions accountable for creating, implementing, and sustaining just and good policies and practices geared toward the flourishing of society. Transformational advocacy challenges injustice and obstacles to human flourishing at whatever level it is practiced by humbly engaging with people who can address the wrong, trusting God’s Spirit to change all those involved as well as the structures themselves.” These authors also point out that historically liberal democracies are more likely to appear in parts of the world where missionaries combined evangelism with transformational advocacy.  (11-12; 40)

[26] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers., 147.

[27] Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 5.  See also Richardson, Democracy Awakening, xi.

[28] Ibid.

[29]Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers., 123.  

[30] Ibid., 124. See Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.

[31] Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age, 85.

[32] Ibid., 80.

[33] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers, 131.

[34] Ibid., 136.

[35] Ibid., 136-37.

[36] Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age, 86.

[37] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers, 140.

[38] Ibid., 137. According to Todd Huizinga, the goal of the European Union is to create a “soft utopia”—a “political construct that seeks humankind’s ultimate purpose in a better than possible world created by politics.” (The New Totalitarian Temptation: Global Governance and the Crisis of Democracy in Europe, viii,)

[39] Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age, 79.

[40] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers, 148.

[41] Ibid., 176.  See also Offult, Et al., Advocating for Justice.