We tend to think about authoritarians as the familiar distant figures from history books — Infamous dictators like Hitler or Mussolini. In the Western World, we assume authoritarianism only happens elsewhere.
But in 2025, that illusion is collapsing. Modern authoritarian rule doesn’t arrive with tanks in the street or a sudden military coup like we see in Hollywood movies. It doesn’t arrive by knocking loudly at the door.
Today, it comes quietly. At first, it is barely noticed. Ironically, it often rises by manipulating the very democratic institutions designed to protect us and prevent it – free elections, courts, constitutions, and the rule of law itself.
As leading scholars on Authoritarianism have repeatedly warned, these modern strongmen like Trump use democratic tools to subvert democracy itself – exploring legal loopholes, politicizing institutions, and hollowing out civil rights.
Authoritarians rise to power behind a facade of “free elections” – wins that may or may not be legitimate. Then, once in power, they manipulate the very legal systems and political institutions originally designed to prevent Authoritarian rule. Put simply, it is a concentration of power (politically and legally), erosion of freedoms (civil and social), and suppression of dissent (any opposition).
And sadly, authoritarianism is not a relic of the past. As people, we haven’t collectively learned from the atrocities of history. Most don’t pay attention to the lessons it gives us or reflect deeply enough to recognize the danger, especially in powerful Countries like America, where many arrogantly assume “It couldn’t happen here.”
But authoritarians don’t care about constitutions, traditions, or democratic norms. The rule of law, elections, and checks on power are obstacles that they will change, dismantle, or destroy.
Authoritarianism has been reshaped for the twenty-first century. And we are living through one of its most dangerous evolutions right now. The very tools of democracy — free speech, elections, courts, the rule of law, and even constitutions — are being weaponized to dismantle democracy from within. All while turning supposedly non-partisan institutions like the military and law enforcement into political weapons, just as past dictators have done.
This isn’t theory. We can see it happening across the world — and alarmingly, inside the United States itself right now.
Understanding How Authoritarianism Starts
To understand authoritarianism, just look at how Germany ended up with Hitler. It didn’t begin with concentration gas chambers and mass murder, or war. It didn’t happen overnight. It started with scapegoating, normalized hatred, and silencing opposition. Small steps that people dismissed. Each one felt tolerable until the unthinkable became reality. Horrors that we still try and comprehend today.
By the time the Germans realized how far it had gone, the cost of human lives and damage to the country was extreme. It required two world wars and millions of lives to stop him.
The longer authoritarianism is tolerated, the harder, bloodier, and more costly it becomes to stop it later.
I use Germany as an example because there are parallels between Hitler’s rise to power and Trump’s, as well as the tactics used, which in many ways are mirrored.
So authoritarianism rarely starts with mass killings. It isn’t always dramatic at first. It doesn’t usually arrive through tanks in the street or armed coups like you’d see in the movies.
It starts quietly, and usually slowly, just like it did in Germany. It’s done through the legal channels, with gradual cultural shifts, and relentless normalization of things that should not be normalized. Each step on its own feels tolerable. Each small thing that happens is dismissed or forgotten about as “not that serious,”. But over time, it stacks up, and before you realize it, the unthinkable has become normal…until suddenly it’s too late.
And once you reach that point when an authoritarian regime is now established and entrenched, removing an authoritarian takes unspeakable violence, war, and often a global intervention.
Waiting or hoping it won’t get that bad only guarantees that it will cost far more lives later.
Timothy Snyder, a political scientist, is an expert on authoritarians. He, like other experts on this topic, has recently left the United States. In his book On Tyranny, he warns that democracy dies not with a bang, but with a shrug. He says that authoritarians “use the instruments of democracy to undermine it.”
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the authors of How Democracies Die, outline the four clear warning signs of a Democratic Country backsliding into Authoritarianism:
- Rejection of democratic rules
- Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents
- Tolerance or encouragement of political violence
- Willingness to curtail civil liberties
America’s democratic backsliding into a authoritarian regime
is not theoretical anymore — it mirrors other real-world regimes.
Past & Present Authoritarian Regimes
Putin’s Russia
For most of us, Russia is the most familiar example of an Authoritarian Government. We’ve all heard about Political purges, people going missing, media capture – State Media, and the rebranded autocracy. Russia is one of America’s biggest threats, yet Trump has been very pro-Russia for decades.
Orbán’s Hungary
Trump has openly admired Orban many times. Electoral manipulation and the erosion of judicial independence are the two key things you may have heard about when you think about Hungary’s Authoritarian regime.
Kim Jong Un’s North Korea
The Authoritarian regime in North Korea features a totalitarian loyalty culture, information control, and dynastic leadership.
Hitler’s Germany
If we look at Nazi Germany – putting aside the concentration camps and invasions of other Countries – it featured a legal rise to power, loyalty oaths, control of media and education, and the use of fear and violence.
Mussolini’s Italy
We can’t talk about Authoritarian regimes without Mussolini because he was both a dictator and the founder of fascism. He was 20th-century Europe’s first fascist dictator. It was also Mussolini who inspired the international spread of fascism.
Mussolini’s rise to power gradually dismantled the institutions of democratic government and, in 1925, made himself dictator, taking the title ‘Il Duce.
Modern Authoritarianism: Two Varieties
In recent years, experts in authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and democracies have identified that two forms of authoritarianism have emerged globally. There is now a new type of autocratic rule, which is less hardcore, for want of a better word, than the authoritarians (dictators) that we are more familiar with. This is being referred to as “Soft Authoritarianism”.
The Authoritarianism – the dictators – that some of us learned about in school rule with “Hard Authoritarianism”.
“Post-truth is pre-fascism.”
Timothy Snyder, expert in authoritarianism
Soft Authoritarianism: The Stage of Democratic Backsliding
Soft authoritarianism — sometimes called democratic backsliding, illiberal democracy, hybrid democracy, or competitive authoritarianism — describes how democratic systems erode from within.
It starts with legitimate elections. But once in power, these regimes slowly dismantle independent institutions – courts, press, education, civil rights – while claiming to “restore democracy” on behalf of the so-called forgotten groups.
Political scientists, including Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (How Democracies Die) and Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Strongmen), describe these patterns as dangerously predictable.
So you can think of it as the middle ground between a healthy democracy and full-blown autocracy (sometimes called hard authoritarianism or totalitarianism). It’s a stepping stone — a political bridge between the two polar opposite forms of Government.
Countries like Poland and Hungary are clear examples. And frankly, the United States is now one too. Because soft authoritarianism is what often precedes full autocracy: it begins with a democratically elected government, which then gradually erodes the very institutions that make a democracy function.
How Soft Authoritarian Regimes Erode Democracy
These regimes often come to power through “free elections”. Once elected, they then use the same democratic structures that they used to get elected to strategically consolidate power, manipulate the electorate, and hollow out liberal democratic norms. They will do all of these things while claiming to their voters, the Press, and the rest of the Country that they are “restoring democracy” or “saving the Country” on behalf of the so-called “forgotten” or “excluded.”
False Promises, Scapegoats, and Targeting Vulnerable Groups
For example, in the United States, the so-called “forgotten” is White men and Christian Nationalists who feel threatened by the progress made in Society.
It’s just like Civil Wars in that it’s driven by specific groups feeling like they are in decline or wronged, and usually a group who used to be the majority or had a lot more power in the past, with a Charismatic, power-hungry leader.
We see this with neon lights in the States with all the MAGA who want to go back to the good old days of the Confederacy, alongside and including the Christian Nationalists who want to go backwards to pre-Civil Rights and Women’s Rights milestones.
Propaganada & Rhetoric To Push A False Narratives
They will loudly champion elections that they win. They will paint themselves as the protectors of the people and the Country, especially focusing on those allegedly ignored by “out-of-touch elites.”
Alternative realities, and enemy narratives are central to soft authoritarianism – designed to brainwash, divide, and rile up citizens. At the same time, they will attack core democratic values like judicial independence, military independence, press freedom, and academic integrity.
Generally, they do it very slowly and methodically — in ways that don’t seem radical unless you’re paying attention. Incremental steps towards their ultimate goals that individually are not seen as a big deal by the majority or the opposition.
Worst of all, every action that creeps the Country towards Autocratic rule gets normalized very quickly. Or multiple changes will happen at once, but they are all pretty subtle, so they may fall under the radar.
“Democracies do not fall because they are destroyed from the outside. They fall when the people inside them decide that
the institutions are no longer worth defending.”
Anne Applebaum, Author of “Twilight of Democracy”
That’s what makes soft authoritarianism so dangerous.
Because the shift is happening in small steps over a long period. Nothing appears overtly extreme at first because generally, all the small things are looked at in isolation. But those seemingly minor changes have far-reaching consequences, especially when the end goal is to dismantle democracy from the inside.
Once a country tips from soft authoritarianism into hard authoritarianism,
it rarely returns to democracy without a fight.
Hard Authoritarianism: When Democracy Fully Collapses
Hard authoritarianism—sometimes called autocracy or totalitarianism is just the final stage. It happens when democratic backsliding, or soft authoritarianism, completes its descent. In this form, power is no longer concentrated but absolute. The head of state (or ruling group) operates without checks, balances, or meaningful opposition.
In hard authoritarian governments, the regime has already succeeded in capturing them. Courts are no longer independent. Elections become pure theater. The media is fully state-controlled. Dissent becomes criminalized. Protestors and political opponents are treated as enemies of the state, and the military or security forces often play an active role in domestic enforcement.
Loyalty to the Leader Replaces Loyalty to Law
Power is no longer simply concentrated — it becomes personal. The law serves the leader, not the people. Loyalty to the leader becomes more important than loyalty to the Country. Propaganda replaces truth. History is rewritten. Civil liberties — from voting rights to freedom of speech — are systematically stripped away. The public may still be allowed to participate in rituals of democracy, like voting or attending town halls, but those events no longer carry any real power. The outcome is already decided.
The Authoritarian Playbook: Step-by-Step Tactics
Hard authoritarianism often follows the same script:
- Blame a scapegoated minority or a foreign threat
- The claim is that national unity or survival depends on extraordinary control
- Declaring opposition is “enemies of the state”
- Dismantle democratic institutions in the name of “order.”
- Rewrite laws and constitutions to ensure permanent rule.
It’s a playbook we’ve seen before — and not just in the history books.
Modern-Day Example: North Korea’s Total Control
North Korea is a present-day example of hard authoritarianism in its most extreme form. The Kim regime maintains strict control over every facet of public and private life. The media is entirely state-run. Citizens are forced to show loyalty through rituals and surveillance. Independent thought is treated as a crime. Education, religion, and even family structures are regulated to support the cult of personality around the regime.
And yet — it didn’t start that way. Like all authoritarian systems, it evolved. Bit by bit. Law by law. Until there was no way back.
“Authoritarians rely on constant crisis,
constant enemy narratives,
and a steady erosion of facts.
Over time, this turns even educated citizens
into passive observers.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Author of “Strongmen”
Authoritarianism In America: The 2025 Reality
Take the United States as a real-world case study. The World is watching a rapid descent into autocracy.
America’s descent toward authoritarianism is following the same global playbook scholars have studied for decades — using democratic tools to destroy democracy itself.
Tools including a congressional majority, a right-wing Supreme Court, and the Constitution itself — to pass laws and set precedents that directly undermine the country’s foundational values.
Institutional Capture and Legal Manipulation
- Using election outcomes not to protect democracy, but to destroy it.
- Purging the Justice Department (DOJ, CIA, FBI)
- Pushing “Fraud, waste, and abuse” to dismantle Government Institutions from the inside
- Using Executive Orders to Circumvent Democracy
- Trying to legally restrict voting rights for millions of Americans.
- Attempting to quietly strip away contempt of court penalties by burying it deep in the so-called “big beautiful bill.”
- Attempting to use the Insurrection Act to justify military crackdowns on protestors.
“The United States is closer to civil strife than at any time since 1861. The Trump movement is not a conventional political movement;
It is an authoritarian threat that will not disappear on its own.”
Robert Kagan, Washington Post, 2021
Trump’s Rapid Power Consolidation
They have been moving at an extreme speed – the speed of dismantling and consolidating power that you’d see in a Coup – since he got back into the White House. But this has been building for years.
There have been numerous milestones over the years that have taken America to this cliff of full-blown authoritarianism, with a President entrenched and elections just for show.
The Long List of Red Flags Americans Ignored
- All the times he incited violence against the opposition since he started his first Presidential Campaign.
- His dubious connections to Russia and admiration for dictators were largely ignored.
- His rhetoric, often matching that of Hitler, was not taken seriously by most.
- His first election win was aided by Russia, but no consequences.
- His first impeachment was for a serious offence, but there were no consequences.
- Refused to leave the White House – and was permitted to run again when it was clear that if he got back in the White House, he would be much harder to remove because it always is.
- Lost the election because he didn’t rig it well enough (I will die on this hill), so his backup plan was to get his cult followers to storm the Capitol – and he got away with all of it.
- Filled Courts, including the Supreme Court, with very far-right Federalist Society Judges who would do what he wanted.
- Granted immunity by the Supreme Court, giving him free rein to do anything.
…and that’s not even going into all the making money, corruption, and conflicts of interests, or his actions about Wars, the economy, or his increasing control of the GOP.
Trump’s America is what it looks like when the rule of law is weaponized to corrode the rule of law.
The Authoritarian Threat Is Growing More Extreme
What was once dismissed as extreme rhetoric is now active government policy. What was once unimaginable — like a sitting president declaring himself immune from prosecution — has become a daily reality. Authoritarianism rarely starts dramatically, but it always escalates toward violence, persecution, and permanent power consolidation if left unchecked.
Authoritarianism doesn’t feel dangerous at the start. It doesn’t arrive overnight. At first, it just slides in step by step until one day the system no longer resembles a democracy at all, freedom of speech is gone, and no one is safe anymore.
The Point Where Democracy Disappears
Because when loyalty to a leader replaces loyalty to law and Country, when lies and propaganda become mainstream journalism, when democratic norms start to erode, when violence is normalized, when hate-filled rhetoric becomes laws, and the wording of the constitution is manipulated for one man, these are not just partisan shifts. They are existential threats not just to democracy but to the people.
America Is Now Following the Global Authoritarian Playbook
And the United States is on a disturbingly familiar path — one we’ve seen in Germany, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and many other nations that slid from freedom into permanent strongman rule that only brings death and destruction.
It always grows.
The longer it’s tolerated, the more deeply it embeds itself into every institution. And the more entrenched these leaders become,
the more ruthless they are willing to be to hold power.
The Authoritarian Movement Behind Trump & GOP’s Regime
This is not simply about one man, of course. Donald Trump is never alone in this. It’s also about two billionaires with evil dystopian agendas, who, with Curtis Yarvin, installed JD Vance as Vice President. The GOP, which is fully under his control and has resembled a domestic terrorist organization for some time. Christian Nationalists, including The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, MAGA loyalists, and many more billionaires. All of whom have created the Project 2025 authoritarian project, which has grown into a full movement.
This has been years in the making – they were all ready to go before they set foot in the White House, so they’ve moved at a speed that more closely resembles a Coup. The Democratic institutions and systems that keep everyone safe have been deliberately broken and hollowed out, while Court orders are seen as optional.
What was once seen as extreme is now normalized…
What was once dismissed as rhetoric is now codified into law. And what was once unimaginable — like a sitting president declaring himself immune from the law — has become reality.
“The signs are all there.
Whether or not Americans act on them
will be what defines them”
Political Violence, Arrests, and Vengeance
It’s only been 6 months. They’ve been very busy. They’ve also stopped hiding who they are – American Nazi’s. Already, there have been several political arrests, political assassinations with hit lists in his name, escalating unhinged threats about going after blue States and getting rid of Democrats, open calls for vengeance in Trump fashion.
Using Executive Orders to Circumvent Democracy
In fully entrenched authoritarian regimes, executive orders are weaponized to bypass legislative debate, public accountability, or judicial oversight. These leaders use the appearance of legality to push through radical changes that would never survive normal democratic processes.
In the United States, Trump’s regime has increasingly relied on sweeping executive orders to impose major policy shifts — from stripping voting rights to dismantling federal agencies — often hiding extreme provisions deep within complex orders that few lawmakers even fully review.
Conflicts with Blue States, Military Bases, and ICE Tactics
Even more alarming is the scale at which immigrants – and citizens are going missing, put in detention centres or shipped off to foreign lands after violent encounters with ICE Agents. ICE Agents that appear to be contracted Bounty Hunters and Militia. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, there are Marines and National Guard on the streets of LA because it’s a Blue State, he hates Newsom, and they dared to peacefully protest.
The quota that Stephen Miller has set for arrests has recently jumped from 1000 a day to 3000 a day. Tactics have changed to achieve a new daily arrest quota of 3,000, up from 1,000 a day. That is tens of thousands of people, and inevitably, a lot of legal citizens. In America, the poem begins with “First it was Immigrant criminals, then it was illegal immigrants, then it was legal immigrants, then it was non-white citizens and criminals…”.
The Dangerous Road Ahead: Why Waiting Makes It Worse
So we know that more people are being harmed every day. All the actions and rhetoric about future elections and getting rid of anyone who wouldn’t vote for him are to be taken extremely seriously. He is going to do anything and everything possible to stop midterm elections completely, or just rig them.
And every year that this regime remains in power, it will consolidate further. The courts will become more loyal. Law enforcement will be more politicized than it already is. The military will be tested with orders to shoot protestors and dissenters, while the legal system is rewritten to protect those in power and punish those who dissent.
The reality is stark:
The longer America waits to confront this en-mass,
the more violent, destructive, and irreversible it will become.
After all, we are already seeing the escalations. If all of this continues, the outcome is no longer unthinkable — it’s the very same dictator model we’ve seen before. The path that once led to Hitler does not belong solely to the history books.
Stopping authoritarianism now will be extremely uncomfortable, and yes, it will spark some dangerous unrest. But waiting guarantees that the price will be exponentially higher.
History has shown us exactly how this story ends when no one acts soon enough.
The question is whether anyone can and will do whatever it takes to stop it before the final lines are crossed.
The stakes could not be higher. But it is not yet too late — if enough people act now.
Resisting Authoritarianism: What Ordinary People Can Do
Do not finish reading this blog post feeling hopeless or scared that an ending like Hitler’s Germany is inevitable. It’s not. America is not doomed – It hasn’t gone over the cliff yet – and he has so much opposition, in America and globally. But the uncomfortable truth is that it usually takes the people, rather than Courts, Politicians, and the Military, to stop authoritarians. So it means that all of us have to participate in the resistance in ways that feel right for us to stop this regime, whether we live in America or not.
Now Is Not The Time To Be Passive Or Give Up.
The American people still have the Judiciary, mainstream media like MSNBC speaking out, they can still protest in the streets, and have local elections which have been going the right way – to Democrats. There are also strong Governors like Newsom, so many active advocacy groups, a military that just did a silent protest, and speaking up about being “political pawns”, heavy resistance to ICE, and a GOP and Cult following that have been starting to fracture, with Trump supporters becoming disillussioned and quietly leaving MAGA.
The No Kings protest was a huge success with 2300 protests nationwide, including deep red areas. An estimated 10-13 million Americans took part. The biggest protest in American History. The “Führer’s” insane tweets on Truth Social and lies at the G7 are because those protests, and the millions and millions of Americans who do not want a King, are a threat to his plans.
So, I will end this post with a quote from one of my favourite independent political media voices, Bryan Tyler Cohen.
“Now is the time to fight. Now is the time to show up.
No one is coming to save us.
When you all look back 5, 10, 20. 30 years from now,
and your kids and your grandkids ask you what you did.
Make sure that you tell them that you fought back
to ensure that we keep this Country
that we love so much intact.
The way that we do that is by ensuring
that we have no King in the United States of America ”
Brian Tyler Cohen, June 14, No Kings Rally in LA
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Gemma Lawrence is the creator of This Brits Life. Born and raised in England, she has been living in British Columbia, Canada as a permanent resident since 2016. A solo traveler for the past 9 years, she hopes to inspire and help others to enjoy solo adventures too. As someone who has always struggled with her self-confidence and mental health, she also shares tips and inspirational stories relating to self-love, self-care, and mental health.
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