Merriam-Webster Definitions:
Authoritarian
1:  of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2:  of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>

Dictator
1a :  a person granted absolute emergency power; especially :  one appointed by the senate of ancient Rome
b :  one holding complete autocratic control
c :  one ruling absolutely and often oppressively

The thing that scares me most about Donald Trump (other than his bigotry, racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and general disdain for and lack of respect towards anyone who isn’t him) is his similarity to authoritarian “leaders.” It seems as though Donald Trump is not in fact running to be President of the United States of America, but rather he is running to become Dictator of the Divided States of America. Please do everything you can (most importantly voting) to prevent him from even getting close to his goal. However, in the event that he is elected, we have to trust that our Democracy and our Constitution can protect us from the vast dangers of Donald Trump.

In doing research for this post, I learned that authoritarianism is on the rise in America and the Western World. There are two things fueling an American acceptance of authoritarianism. The first is the increasing fear of people who don’t look like oneself. The second is that America is becoming younger and more liberal, so the older, more conservative people feel more desperate than ever to protect their traditional values. So, upon learning that, I realized I needed to talk about authoritarianism and why it is scary and bad and why we should not be increasingly accepting it. Encyclopedia Britannica starts its description of Authoritarianism by describing it as “blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action.” Authoritarian governments concentrate all the power in the hands of one or a very small number of people. Those in power are not responsible to their people and they usually exercise their power arbitrarily. Anyone who tries to defy the authoritarian government and/or create an opposing party or form of government is usually “taken care of.” They may be arrested and given an unfair trial, arrested without trial, or they may even be killed. Now that we know the definition of authoritarianism and how it is applied, let’s look at Donald.

It has been widely accepted that torture is ineffective for numerous reasons. This seems obvious to me, but apparently it isn’t obvious to everyone. So, let’s examine why torture is ineffective. In doing this, let’s overlook the obvious and excruciating inhumanity of it for a second. Google torture (or read the linked article) for graphic descriptions and I’m sure you’ll get through about one paragraph before you can’t read anymore without puking.  Many detainees who are tortured have no information at all, so we torture these people for prolonged periods of time and get no information. Not because they can withstand torture – despite what the movies tell you, very few people can withstand torture (hence the creation of cyanide pills) – no, we get no information because they have none to give. Now, the other problem with torture is false confessions and false information. Let’s imagine a scenario. You’re being waterboarded or otherwise abused (many times to near death) and finally a CIA agent says to you, “Tell me where the next attack is going to be and we’ll stop.” You don’t know of any planned attack, after all you are a very lowly guy on the al Qaeda totem pole (or you are completely innocent), and yet you blurt out, “Boston! We’re going to attack Boston!” The CIA agent, who just told you he’d stop torturing you, then tortures you again and says, “When? Tell me more.” So you say, “Five guys with suicide bombs will be attacking various locations in Boston. That’s all I know! I swear!” Now, because of your made up confession, the CIA is wasting their time looking for five suicide bombers in Boston. It may be their own fault, but it’s a waste of resources nonetheless.

Now let’s get back to the topic at hand: Donald. Donald says of torture, “Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that. It works. And if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us.” Let’s break down this statement. Despite overwhelming evidence that waterboarding does not work, Donald says it does? Why? Because when you are an authoritarian leader you get to make up the facts. Science and research go out the window. Next he acknowledges that, okay, maybe waterboarding doesn’t work, but he thinks “they” deserve it anyway. I remind you that the article above says that numerous innocent people were wrongly detained and tortured, so when Donald says “they deserve it anyway,” he means, “Muslims and other people who don’t look like me, who may or may not be guilty, deserve to be gruesomely tortured without a fair trial because they don’t look like me and I don’t like them.” The Sixth amendment of the United States Constitution gives people the right to a fair and speedy trial by jury. This is a principle that this country was founded on. Yet torture is essentially convicting people before they have gone to trial. But Donald sees no problem with convicting someone without giving them a trial.

In fact, he feels so strongly about it that he wants to jail his political opponent, despite the fact that the FBI and numerous congressional committees have found that she committed no crime. He also at one point told the gun-toting Americans to “take care of her.” In an attempt to save himself, he tried to claim that he wasn’t telling them to kill her, but what does that sound like to you? You know who else wants to jail and kill their political opponents? Dictators.

Authoritarian leaders have absolute power. In America, we have three branches of government to create checks and balances on each other. No one branch of government can get out of hand because the other two are there to check them. Donald doesn’t want checks and balances; he wants absolute power to do whatever he pleases. For example, he wants to kill the families of ISIS members. Countless ISIS members and other extremists have mothers who denounce their involvement with these terrorist organizations. But Donald wants to kill them anyway. So now, not only is he convicting people without trial, he also wants to convict and execute people’s families without trial. People, this is out of control.

Lastly, Donald ignores the Constitution of the United States of America. You know, that pesky document that constitutes (See what i did there?) the foundation of our government and our country. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution is freedom of religion, speech, and press. Let’s take a look at Donald’s views on each of these.

Freedom of Religion: Donald wants to institute surveillance on mosques, make all Muslim-Americans register their religion with the government, and ban all Muslims from entering the country. That doesn’t sound like freedom of religion to me. Oh, what’s that you say? He thinks freedom of religion means freedom to be Christian? Oooh. Well, he is wrong.

Freedom of Speech: John McCain, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. These are the names of some presidential and vice presidential candidates who went on SNL to laugh at themselves after having been made fun of by SNL. Tina Fey did an uncanny impersonation of Sarah Palin, so Sarah decided she wanted to get in on the fun. Amy Poehler played a caricature of Hillary Clinton, so Hillary Clinton went on the show for a good laugh. This year Alec Baldwin played a caricature of Donald Trump on SNL and Donald then called for SNL to be shut down… very mature. In 2015 when Donald went on SNL he tweeted “Amazing Evening at Saturday Night Live!” But as soon as SNL made fun of him in 2016 he tweeted “Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me.Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!” Would now be a good time to mention that thin skin of his again?

Freedom of Press: For much of 2015 and 2016 Donald had a ban on several legitimate news organizations. The banned organizations included the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, Politico, BuzzFeed, and The Washington Post, among others and they were not allowed press credentials for his news conferences or campaign events. Donald only lifted the ban in September of 2016 because banning The Washington Post, one of the country’s most prestigious and fair newspapers, caused significant backlash with voters. Christian Johann Heinrich Heine summed up authoritarian states perfectly when he said, “Where they burn books, they will also burn people.” Calling to shut down SNL and taking away news organizations’ credentials are modern versions of book burning.

Another Constitutional Amendment that Donald just doesn’t care for is the Fourth. You know, the amendment that prohibits unreasonable search and seizure and requires search warrants based on probable cause. Donald supports the practice of Stop and Frisk, a practice by which law enforcement stops whoever they want (minorities) with no just cause and no warrant and searches them. It’s a practice that was ruled unconstitutional (Thanks, Fourth Amedment!) but Donald doesn’t care. He wants to reinstate it. How does this relate to his authoritarianism? First, he wants to negate personal freedoms and commit a police act that has been deemed unconstitutional. Second, he doesn’t understand that once something has been deemed unconstitutional by the court, the President can’t just go reinstate that policy. In fact, he doesn’t understand the Democratic principles this country was founded on at all.

Donald thought the system was rigged against him… until he started doing better in the polls. Well, isn’t that convenient? And Donald has not said that he will accept the results of the election if he loses. In this country, we vote for our leaders. We peacefully transition power to the candidate the people elect and the candidate who does not win respectfully concedes. Donald does not want that to be the case. He wants to take the power even if he loses and he wants to abuse the power. Fellow Americans, please do not elect a man who doesn’t understand and wants to topple the very principles this country was founded on.

Now, I have to sign off from writing this post to go canvass for Hillary Clinton and Maggie Hassan!

~Lianna