Donald Trump’s second presidential term has made visible what scholars of democracy have long pointed out: systems do not collapse spectacularly overnight. They first begin to weaken in those areas that relied less on legislation and more on people’s self-restraint and shared rules of the game.
In the 1800s, U.S. President Andrew Jackson built a mass movement against the elite and used presidential power in ways not seen before. Richard Nixon often viewed the media and his opponents as enemies against whom any means were justified. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for his part, expanded the role of executive power in the name of crisis.
Where earlier U.S. presidents recognized that not everything the law technically allows is wise to use, Trump has chosen a different path—and has done so as publicly as possible. Trump combines Jackson’s populism, Nixon’s polarization, and Roosevelt’s appetite for power. What is missing is any balancing respect for institutions.
In the Trump administration, executive power is used aggressively, and Congress is bypassed whenever it is convenient. In appointments, loyalty to the president weighs more than competence or independence. Professionals are replaced with politically loyal actors who may not have the necessary expertise. Bit by bit, this changes the nature of the system: civil servants cease to be professionals serving the state and become intermediaries serving the ruler.
But rhetoric is what towers above everything else. The United States now has a president who labels his opponents in demeaning ways, attacks the media aggressively, questions the courts, and issues White House statements that sound more like campaign speeches than official communication. This is no longer a sideshow—it is at the core of America’s new politics. As public speech changes, so does the sense of what is acceptable. The erosion of norms often begins with language.
History has seen this story before. Authoritarian systems do not suddenly arise from violence; they begin with words and the quiet crumbling of democratic structures. In Weimar Germany, in civil-war-torn Spain, and in Hungary in the 2010s, the pattern was similar: all criticism is defined as hostile or unpatriotic, independent institutions are seen as obstacles or enemies, loyalty to the leader replaces professionalism, and the public is gradually accustomed to language that once would have been unthinkable. The United States is not yet in the same situation as these examples, but the direction of movement is familiar from history—and that is precisely why it is worrying.
Alongside all this, however, there are still counterforces in the United States. The courts, the autonomy of the states, the media, and civil society continue to function, and often they are the ones putting the brakes on excessive concentration of power. Democracy can endure hard-fought politics, conflict, clashes of values, and even very strong leaders. What it cannot long withstand is the weakening of independent institutions, the constant creation of enemies, and a rhetoric that dehumanizes opponents and turns citizens against each other. Divide and rule—an age-old lesson.
The limits of democracy are being tested. The Trump administration is seeking to use the National Guard and federal security agencies in domestic situations in ways that have drawn broad criticism and raised concern about the direction of events. Appeals are made to security and maintaining order, but at the same time there is growing fear that state power will be used to amplify a political message. For democracy, what matters is not always what the law says, but how the boundaries of power gradually get reshaped in practice.
The same applies to foreign policy. Trump has already shaken international structures and agreements and crossed earlier boundaries of propriety with his statements on Gaza, Venezuela, and even Greenland. This reflects a desire to see international relations primarily as a power game in which traditional diplomatic subtleties matter little.
Trump has also renamed places after himself, gilded the White House with lavish ornamentation, is building a large ballroom, dreams of a triumphal arch, and of a class of battleships named in his honor. These symbols of power are not harmless props. When a ruler seeks to attach his own name to public buildings, monuments, or institutions and hints at honors for himself, it is not just vanity. It is an exercise of power in which the state and its leader begin to merge into a single brand.
In many authoritarian systems, this has been the turning point: national identity slowly begins to form around a cult of personality. Trump’s effort to build his personal name through public power is therefore more than just an isolated political gesture—it is a message about who, in his view, is the United States.
In the end, the question is not only about Trump. It is about when Americans began to accept that the president of the United States could act and speak this way. When breaking norms became ordinary. And why so many chose not to react. When future historians look back at this era, they will hardly limit themselves to listing individual laws, renamed institutions, or presidential orders. They will want to understand the cultural shift that made all of this possible.
Ultimately, it is citizens’ attitudes that determine whether the United States remains a strong democracy or gradually gets used to the idea that norms and laws no longer apply to its highest leader. History tells us that norms break quietly at first, and only later do we realize their importance. Now would be the right time to look very closely at what is happening.