| MAY 18TH 2024 |
 SUBSCRIBER ONLYCover StoryHow we chose this week’s image |
 Edward CarrDeputy editor |
| I come from a generation that witnessed the collapse of communism and the triumph of Western democracy. So it is hard to fathom how we could be posing the question that features on this week’s cover. And yet Americans have heard their own leaders denounce the integrity of their democracy. They have seen fellow citizens try to block the transfer of power from one administration to the next. Over the past quarter-century, feckless war-making, a financial crisis and institutional rot have let loose a ferocity in America’s politics that has given presidential contests seemingly existential stakes. |
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| The word “dictator” conjures up the 20th century’s worst despots. We could have played on that association, with a generalissimo’s peaked cap or a Nuremberg rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. However, politics in Washington has enough overheated rhetoric without our adding to it. True, Americans have good reason to wonder how much protection their system guarantees them against the authoritarian impulse rising around the world. And yet alarmism is also dangerous, because national emergencies, real or confected, are the strongman’s ally. We wanted to look at the safeguards against dictatorship without veering into either complacency or hysteria. |
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| That is why our briefing sets aside the unknowable—what Donald Trump truly intends and how far he is prepared to go—to look at the constraints on the presidency, whoever is in office. The answer begins with the constitution. And here we have the document itself behind glass, ready for action. The civics-class view of American government depicts the constitution as a far-sighted and masterful protection against tyranny. Yet even allowing for the founders’ foresight, our conclusion is different. The constitution has many virtues, including term limits and the separation of powers. But what ultimately sustains the American project, as with any democracy, is not black-letter laws but the values of citizens, judges and public servants. |
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| One possibility was an image depicting an imperilled republic, alighting upon a trap. This says that a dictator might suddenly seize hold of an unsuspecting America. And the first steps could indeed take place without a president flouting the letter of the constitution. As a young country, America was worried not only about a home-grown despot but also about powerful foes, having just defeated one. Congresses thus granted the president emergency powers to keep order in times of crisis. Under the Insurrection Act, a president can deploy the army or navy against a domestic uprising or when federal law is ignored. |
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| Another possibility was to avoid 20th-century allusions and return to the original dictator in ancient Rome. That was also the idea behind a collage that accompanied a powerful essay on the subject last year by Robert Kagan in the Washington Post. Here we have Caesar standing behind the president’s Resolute desk. This draft needs work—if only because it features Caesar Augustus instead of his Rubicon-crossing great-uncle. Yet it raises the most disturbing question of all. Among the biggest constitutional obstacles to dictatorship is the 22nd Amendment, which limits a president to two terms. But what would happen if an iron-willed Caesar on the Potomac stacked the Pentagon with lackeys and, with an army at his shoulder, refused to go? |
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| Here is the right Roman with a less moth-eaten flag. We had been thinking of a question as the cover line: How dictator-proof is America? The classical aesthetic hints at the civic virtue that informs our answer. Even the most determined, inventive and organised of would-be despots would struggle to overcome America’s soldiers, public servants and judges. The US army is filled with people mindful of their oaths to the constitution. The vast majority of police officers work for state and local officials, not the president. Some, possibly much, of the 3m-strong bureaucracy would dig in its heels. Any would-be Caesar who invoked emergency powers or the Insurrection Act would have to reckon with the fierce independence of the courts. |
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| The Oval Office furniture was a nice touch. But it has the unfortunate effect of putting Caesar so far away that you have to squint to make out his foxy, photoshopped leer. So we ditched the desk. And for our final cover, we brought the imperator closer. Mr Trump is surely unequal to the task of turning himself into a dictator, even if he wanted to. He is too easily distracted and anxious to evade responsibility. The greater danger is that his contempt for norms and institutions further diminishes Americans’ faith in their government. And that, remember, is what led to this crisis in the first place. |
| Cover image•View large image (“Is America dictator-proof?”) |
| Backing stories→ Is America dictator-proof? (Leader)→ Why America is vulnerable to a despot (Briefing)→ Five novels that imagine dictatorship in America (Economist Reads) |
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