Harris voters fear Trump is an autocrat in the making; Trump supporters aren’t worried

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Kevin Ford cast his ballot at the New Bedford Free Public Library a couple weeks before Election Day, dreading that he could soon be living under an authoritarian regime. His fellow city resident, John Raposo, voting there earlier that day, was not worried about that at all.

Former President Donald Trump’s behavior and rhetoric during his presidency and since has been “terrifying,” said Ford, and a main concern for him in this election. 

Illegal immigration is really what ails this country, said Raposo, adding that he wished Trump, the Republican nominee for president, “could run three or four times more.”

In her closing campaign arguments, Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, stresses that Trump’s actions and statements show he’s an autocrat in the making and cannot be trusted again in office. Many prominent Republicans and former Trump administration officials agree, including two former military generals, John Kelly and Mark Milley, who have said their old boss fits the profile of a “fascist.”

At their one debate in September, Trump shot back on this claim: “They talk about democracy: I’m a threat to democracy. They’re the threat to democracy — with the fake Russia Russia Russia investigation that went nowhere.”

At early voting places in New Bedford and Dartmouth, Harris supporters expressed alarm about Trump’s authoritarian potential; Trump supporters cited what they considered more urgent problems.

“In my 67 years of life the country has never been this divided, with polar opposite ways of looking at the same thing,” said Naomi Rappaport of South Dartmouth, who was stopping at Town Hall for early voting on Oct. 25. “I see an orange, you see an apple.”

Rappaport sees Trump as trouble with a capital T. She said her main concern in this election is the menace of re-electing the former president, whom she calls “a danger to society; he’s a threat to everybody.”

Autilio Baptista of South Dartmouth cast his ballot minutes later, voting for Harris, and for the same reason.

“I grew up in Cape Verde when Salazar was in power, so I know what it’s like,” said Baptista, referring to Portugal’s former Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, who led an authoritarian regime from 1932 to 1968. Baptista said he remembers “the fear that there might be secret police” watching you.

“If nothing else, just look at Jan. 6,” Baptista said, referring to the attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 by Trump supporters provoked by the former president’s claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election. “Put everything else aside. That’s the scary part.”

Trump voters in New Bedford on Oct. 23 said they were focused on illegal immigration and the high cost of living. They dismissed the “threat to democracy” talk as partisan humbug. 

“I really don’t believe that. I think that’s a lot of propaganda,” said Sue Buckley, of New Bedford. To her, the real threat is illegal immigrants “coming into this country by the millions.”

Paul, a Dartmouth voter who declined to give his full name, was at the library in New Bedford to accompany his mother to early voting. Paul said he would be voting in Dartmouth for Trump. He acknowledged that Trump is “not my cup of tea,” but he does not consider Harris an acceptable alternative.

A hospital emergency room technician, Paul said his workplace is overwhelmed with migrants and short of translators for people speaking many different languages. He’s worried about high prices, and is willing to put up with Trump’s abrasive, transgressive style in hopes of seeing change.

“Sometimes to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs,” he said.

Steve Miller of New Bedford sized up the “threat to democracy” claims against Trump simply: “That’s bulls—,” he said. 

Asked why retired Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, and retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would say Trump fits the description of a “fascist,” Miller said, “They’ll say anything. … Democrat is the party of liars, cheaters and creeps.”

Cindy Cordeiro of New Bedford agrees with those who say Trump is dangerous.

“I’m scared that Trump wants to be a dictator,” Cordeiro said. She said she was frightened by the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, noting that Trump called it a “day of love” at a Univision town hall event this month in Miami. 

“He said it was a ‘peaceful loving day’ they had,” Cordeiro said. “Are you crazy?”

Four hours of early voting in New Bedford and Dartmouth. Exchanges with 16 voters, not all quoted here: nine for Harris, seven for Trump, seeing apples and oranges.

Following “an authoritarian playbook”?

So, what would a “threat to democracy” look like?

Legal scholars and historians argue that it would involve attacking the independence of government entities, including courts and regulatory agencies, so that the president could use them to pursue personal and political interests.

The key word there is “independence” — that is, those officials and agencies whose chief loyalty is not to the president personally, but to the law, or to an agency’s mission. 

As former Vice President Mike Pence said during his brief presidential run last year, referring to Trump’s demand that he reject the election results on Jan. 6, 2021: “I had no right to overturn the election. … The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution, but I kept my oath and always will.”

A threat to democratic norms could include intimidating political adversaries using threats of violence or threats of civil and criminal proceedings.

In the worst case, a president breaking the system this way would use official power to punish political adversaries and protect loyalists, silence opposition, disrupt free elections, control news media — all without fearing legal consequences. 

Critics argue that Trump’s actions as president and statements of the last nine years are consistent with someone who means to do these things. 

This month, Trump has repeatedly referred to political opponents as an “enemy from within.” He told Fox News that the military could be used to respond to “radical left lunatics” who constitute an “enemy from within” and could possibly interfere with the 2024 election.

In a separate interview with Fox, Trump referred to both U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the “enemy within,” but he did not refer to using the military against them. 

At rallies in South Carolina and Pennsylvania in the last two months, Trump said shoplifting could be curbed by unleashing police for “one rough hour.” On several occasions, he has said he would pardon those convicted of crimes in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

In the spring, after he was convicted of 34 felony counts of fraud in a New York case, Trump in an interview with Fox News threatened to prosecute his political adversaries in a second term.

It’s not just talk. Using published reports and other documentation, the Just Security blog last month compiled a chronology of 12 instances from May 2017 to January 2021 in which Trump as president urged, instigated, or threatened investigations of people he considered political adversaries. The targets included Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

As Trump was indicted in four criminal cases last year, he accused President Joe Biden, without evidence, of orchestrating the prosecutions. Two cases were brought by state prosecutors in New York and Georgia, two by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice and operates independently of the White House.

Trump told the Hugh Hewitt Show this month that if he’s elected, he will fire Smith “within two seconds.”

Trump supporters argue that the outcry about “saving democracy” in this election is overblown. After all, they say, the worst did not happen in Trump’s first administration. He did not turn into another Salazar, Benito Mussolini, or Adolf Hitler.  

Those who worry about this argue that Trump did take steps in that direction, and would have gone further had certain members of his administration not restrained him. 

Trump the disrupter appeals to many of his supporters, who see him shaking up a system they regard as corrupt and unresponsive to their concerns. His critics see him disrupting centuries of practice that have sustained a democratic republic. 

In an interview with The Light, Michael Klarman, professor of American legal history at Harvard Law School, said Trump has been following “an authoritarian playbook.” 

Warnings from across the political spectrum

Klarman was among the first voices raising alarms about what he considered Trump’s anti-democratic tendencies. Days before Trump was elected in 2016, Klarman delivered a talk on campus sponsored by Harvard Law Democrats, called, “Can American Democracy Survive a President Trump?”

The early voices have since grown into a chorus. 

People who study law, history, and politics have published commentaries and given interviews and public talks warning about Trump. They’ve been joined in speaking out recently by prominent Republicans, including former Trump administration officials. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, have both said Trump is not fit for office, and that they will vote for Harris.

In late October, 13 former Trump administration officials issued a letter supporting retired Lt. Gen. John Kelly’s characterization of Trump as a “fascist.” In September, more than 100 former national security and foreign policy officials from former Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress signed a letter endorsing Harris, claiming Trump ignores basic principles of governance.

This month, The New York Times published a story based on a survey of 50 former officials of the Department of Justice, the White House Counsel and the judiciary, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. 

Of the 50 former officials, 42 “said it was very likely or likely that a second Trump term would pose a significant threat to the norm of keeping criminal enforcement free of White House influence.”

The story included a quote that was striking, not least for the source: Peter Keisler, a founder of the conservative Federalist Society. The organization, established during the Ronald Reagan years, has played a key role in the rightward turn of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court.

Keisler, who served as an assistant attorney general and acting attorney general under President George W. Bush, said, “There is every reason to believe that Donald Trump would seek to use criminal enforcement and the FBI as leverage for his personal and political ends in a second term. … We don’t know what will happen, but the risk is more concrete, with a higher probability, than in any election in my lifetime.”

In his first talk in October 2016, Klarman noted Trump’s disregard for independent courts, for free press and for the independence of the criminal justice system.

Specifically, Trump claimed a federal judge in a civil fraud case against the now defunct Trump University would be biased against him because of his Mexican heritage, as Trump had made disparaging remarks about Mexican migrants during the 2016 campaign. Trump advocated for libel law reform to make it easier to sue news outlets, and for jailing his then-opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Klarman also said that Trump, more than any presidential candidate before him, was casting “doubt on the legitimacy of an election before it happens.”

Alarm and assurance on Trump 2.0

Klarman expanded on the bill of particulars in a blog post in December 2019, and in a talk on campus just last month. 

The update is more bad news, he said. 

The safeguards that checked Trump in his first administration are gone, Klarman said. The Republican Party, including its members in Congress, are less inclined to challenge Trump, Klarman said. The federal judiciary is more Trump-friendly, and the Supreme Court “is almost entirely in his pocket.”

One possible check on presidential excesses — the potential for criminal prosecution after they leave office — is weaker now than it was during Trump’s first term. The Supreme Court in July ruled that former presidents cannot be “prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly,” as ScotusBlog reported.

It’s not yet clear how this could affect pending criminal cases against Trump, or what acts will be covered by the decision. 

A number of writers have noted that Trump knows more now about how government works, and is more likely to appoint cabinet members and other key positions who won’t challenge him. 

Then there’s Project 2025, a plan for overhauling the federal government next year, published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. According to published reports, critics call the project a threat to rule of law and the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers. 

Trump has said he has nothing to do with the report and does not endorse it. CNN reported that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration contributed to the plan, which runs more than 900 pages.

Project 2025 is meant to concentrate power in the presidency, according to a number of published reports by the PBS NewsHour, Associated Press, Politico, and the New York Times. It includes reclassifying thousands of civil service employees as political appointees. 

That could potentially give the president “full control” over the federal bureaucracy, said Massachusetts state Sen. Marc Pacheco, who will be retiring early next year after 36 years in the Legislature. 

The attack of Jan. 6 shook him, Pacheco said. He’s been taking seriously the statements of the man he considers responsible. 

A Democrat from Taunton who turns 72 this month, Pacheco said he’s seen no election like this one.

Until now, he said. “I’ve never been worried, where our country could be heading, in the foundations of democracy.”

Chuck Rosenberg, former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration during the Trump administration, said the dire warnings about a “threat to democracy” are exaggerated, the New York Times reported this month. While Rosenberg left the administration because, as the Times reported, he thought Trump disregarded legal guidelines, he said it’s “impossible” to force the FBI to act against its customary practices and values. 

“We’re going to be fine,” said Rosenberg, who was a U.S. Attorney during the George W. Bush administration and staff member for two FBI directors. As the Times reported, he said he was reassured by the several layers of checks on executive power. “The odds that all these terrible things will happen is low,” he said.

Niall Ferguson, a historian affiliated with the Hoover Institution and formerly with Harvard, in an interview with CNBC in September, also downplayed the potential hazards of a second Trump administration. 

“The system contained Trump’s impulses in 2020, 2021, successfully, and I think it would contain them again,” Ferguson said.

Klarman said those offering such assurances are “engaged in obvious self-delusion.”

“A businessman who wants to see results”

Donald Trump looks at you with a fierce expression in the framed image that hangs in the Massachusetts campaign field office, in the DeMello International Center, on Union Street in New Bedford. Dressed in tricorn hat and full American Revolution regalia, Trump in this painting is the patriot devoted to the founding principles, determined to do what it takes to forge a new nation.

For Trump’s Massachusetts campaign chairman, former Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson, the former president is all in for the American project. 

“President Trump, in my view, is someone who really understands his role is to support the Constitution and defend democracy,” said Hodgson, who has met Trump several times and claims to know his nature. He’s no dictator, Hodgson said.

“He’s a bottom-line guy,” said Hodgson, dismissing the “threat to democracy” talk as political rhetoric. “He’s a businessman who wants to see results.”

Besides, Hodgson said, if he wanted to be the next Mussolini, he would have done it in his first term. 

Hodgson said he’s not troubled by the array of statements critics cite to support their case against Trump. He dismissed several examples as something said in jest, or something said for effect, or just Trump being Trump.

“I know the man. That’s how he talks,” Hodgson said.

Asked about Trump’s response to the Jan. 6 attack, Hodgson said the former president did nothing wrong. 

According to witnesses who testified in 2022 before the House Jan. 6 Committee, Trump sat for hours watching the assault on TV, as his children and close advisers pleaded with him to do something to stop the violence.

Hodgson claimed that Trump was deferring to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Hodgson repeated Trump’s debunked claim that Pelosi had turned down Trump’s offer of thousands of National Guard troops days before. 

“Who would he call?” Hodgson asked, referring to the U.S. commander in chief. “It was not his place to call the National Guard. She made that decision.”

Trump has made this claim about the National Guard and Pelosi repeatedly, starting in February 2021. It has been debunked again and again.

The president, through the secretary of defense, is in charge of the National Guard in Washington, according to an executive order signed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. 

Hodgson said voters have more pressing matters at hand.

“To the average person,” he said, “the thing that supersedes all this is, what did Donald Trump do in his first term that helped me and my family?”

A party transformed, but a country?

The MAGA train rolls on, gaining supporters in this part of Massachusetts, leaving some Republicans behind. 

Jacob Ventura of New Bedford and Brock Cordeiro of Dartmouth, both lifelong Republicans, are watching from a distance. They would agree that Trump has remade their political party. But could he also transform the country in the scary ways that some say?

Ventura, a lawyer, former legislative aide and erstwhile contender for seats in the state Senate and the New Bedford City Council, had enough of Trump in 2016, after he belittled the military service of Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain. Ventura wrote in a candidate for that race. And the next one in 2020. 

Cordeiro, former Republican State Committee member, held on, voted for the party nominee in 2016 and again in 2020. In 2020 he stepped up, serving as vice chair of Trump’s Massachusetts campaign. But things were already turning.

Ventura said he’s not persuaded by the “threat to democracy” argument. He’s been logging long work days with a Boston law firm and has not had time to delve into the details on this the last few months. It seems mostly partisan campaign hyperbole, he said. 

Nor is Ventura buying into the MAGA movement, which he considers not consistent with his idea of Republican values. As for Jan. 6, Ventura said he doubted that Trump meant for those people to attack the Capitol. Either way, he does not see Trump or his supporters as harbingers of authoritarianism. 

The biggest threat to the country now, he said, is government spending run amok — by both parties. We’re lurching toward a fiscal cliff, he said. No one seems to care.

Cordeiro sees Trump through the lens of his time on the state committee from 2007 to this year, when he chose not to run again. He saw the Tea Party faction supplanted by the Trump faction. He heard members tilting to extremes, demonizing fellow members in more aggressive pursuit of ideological purity. He felt the mounting rage in the MAGA ranks.

Then came the Jan. 6 attack. Cordeiro was home that day in Dartmouth, watching it unfold on TV. It seemed a crescendo of a familiar song. 

“The January 6 insurrection was the grand stage for what I had seen locally for years,” said Cordeiro, who plans to write-in his presidential vote this year. 

A student of history, Cordeiro worries about the threat to democratic practice, but not necessarily from some calculated strategy such as Project 2025. He’s thinking about those angry crowds. Trump sure knows how to whip people up, he said, but then?

“I’m more concerned about the MAGA movement than the MAGA man,” he said. “He’s leading a movement he can’t control.”

Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.