Is Trump Giving Authoritarianism a Bad Name?

Lee Drutman wrote about his new Voter Study Guide research in the New York Times with Larry Diamond and Joe Goldman.

But a year into the Trump administration, Americans are rejecting authoritarian alternatives to democracy. In a new survey by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, we found that the percentage of Americans who expressed support for a “strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with elections or Congress” fell to levels not seen since the mid-1990s. In particular, young people overwhelmingly reject authoritarian rule, despite concerns about a rising generation retreating from democracy (raised most prominently by Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk).

Mr. Trump is almost certainly giving authoritarianism a bad name. Support for authoritarian rule declined most among Democrats and young people, while significantly increasing among Republicans.

So when it comes to American authoritarianism, perhaps the problem isn’t so much Mr. Trump as it is hyper-partisanship.

Support for authoritarian leadership is concentrating in the Republican Party, and its elites are doing little to push back. In our highly polarized two-party system, this poses the risk that future partisan conflict could become a battle over democracy itself.

Mr. Trump’s illiberal style of politics fits the authoritarian leanings of a significant portion of his electoral base. Support for a “strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections” is much higher among Trump primary voters (32 percent) than among voters for any other primary candidate, Republican or Democrat.

Even more authoritarian are the voters who switched from Barack Obama in 2012 to Mr. Trump in 2016. Forty-five percent of them support a “strong leader,” and 45 percent don’t agree that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government.”

The supporters of authoritarian leadership tend to be the least educated and the most culturally conservative. They’re much more likely to say that being of European heritage is very important to being an American, and that we should increase surveillance of mosques and single out Muslims for airport screenings.

To the extent that this mix of attitudes is a defining feature of Trumpism, and Trumpism is taking over the Republican Party, this presents a serious challenge to American democracy. Many Americans identify as Republicans, and most of the time, voters look to their party leaders to tell them what they should think about the issues.

Thanks to strong support from conservative media and explicit or implicit support from Republicans in Congress, Mr. Trump is redefining what it means to be a Republican. We don’t know yet how much his leadership will erode support for democracy among his loyal base, but without powerful conservative voices offering an alternative vision of what it means to be a Republican, it’s unlikely that most Trump voters will push back on his illiberal impulses on their own.