Republicans Are Helping Trump Attack Democratic Principles to 'Save The President’s Skin': Foreign Policy Expert
An international politics expert who studies authoritarian regimes said President Donald Trump was following the playbook of Turkish president Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan.
“I think the strongest parallels really are 2014 in Turkey when President ErdoÄŸan was facing a corruption investigation,” Klaas said. “He called it a witch hunt, he said he was a victim of the ‘deep state.’ He fired prosecutors and he purged the equivalent of the Department of Justice. This sounds really familiar, right?”
He said the changes came slowly, but left ErdoÄŸan with dictatorial powers after the transformation was complete.
“They chipped away at it slowly, day after day, and I think that’s what we’re in the midst of, democratic decay,” Klaas said. “We accept new normals that were previously unacceptable by Republicans and Democrats, and are now just daily life.”
The political scientist and author faulted Republicans for being complicit as Trump behaves like a despot.
“It’s the test of their political lives, and they’re failing,” Klaas said. “We have a situation in which the founding fathers anticipated a demagogue like Trump. They didn’t anticipate that Congress would complicit with him.”