Topic

Enabling Acts and Enablers

Authoritarianism often disguises itself as order, wielding the law as a weapon against democracy itself. In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, the Nazis did just that, exploiting existing laws and passing new ones—most notably the Enabling Act—to secure power and suppress dissent. Trump promises a repeat, to deploy the military against dissenters and to bypass our system of checks and balances. He failed to do so in his first term because he was restrained by those around him. Now he is poised to succeed, with loyalists by his side, a grant of immunity from the Supreme Court, the institutional support of Republicans, and the widespread failure to hold him accountable for anything.