An autocracy running within a democracy — but one short on the cadre, the discipline, and the goon-captains that made the twentieth century’s tyrannies stick. The country is still a republic; the Republican Party is a personalist autocracy. Vance as Sejanus, Miller drawing up the self-coup, Trump checked out at the center of it:
Bret Devereaux frames the current White House as an autocratic court operating inside a still-functioning democracy.
His most memorable line is that Trump holds two different offices with respect to two different polities:
Trump is President of the United States and King-Archbishop Lord Protector of Republicans…
For he makes the core distinction:
My read, for what it is worth, is the United States, as a country, remains a democracy, but the Republican Party is now a personalist autocracy and brings that nature with it when it is voted into power…
CROSSPOST: BRET DEVEREAUX: At the Autocratic Court of the Chaos-Monkey Trump

Bret Devereaux
August 19, 2026
I do not like the fact that this White House very clearly has the structural issues you find in an autocratic court - it is profoundly strange and deeply concerning to basically watch an autocracy running *within* a democracy. My read, for what it is worth, is the United States, as a country, remains a democracy, but the *republican party* is now a personalist autocracy and brings that nature with it when it is voted into power.
Trump is President of the United States and King-Archbishop Lord Protector of Republicans. That said, precisely because the imperial court is so deeply, violently dysfunctional, I remain pretty confident that this authoritarian attempt is going to fail and probably fail quite badly. Trump-as-Hoover remains, I think, my modal outcome, though other much, much worse options are possible.
Surely as an historian you appreciate watching how it unfolds from the same damn script every time?
The consistencies are remarkable. I wonder who Sejanus will be (it’s Vance, very obviously Vance)….
To the degree there is a strategy (emotive as it may be) it seems to be focused on keeping control of the GOP and its base, rather than the country.
What worries me is that this is consistent with a gamble that one party, however emaciated, might be enough to hold the country by force.
Also I simply don’t think they have that dog in them, because the main thing that separates modern fascism with the fascism of the previous century is its sheer laziness and a general unwillingness to sacrifice anything for the cause.
And also not having a core cadre who fought in WWI and so already had normalized personal, physical, lethal violence as a behavior pattern. They do not have enough goons and increasingly also seem short on goon-captains.
I think “Trump as Hoover” is increasingly my modal outcome here….
I think there’s a difference here between Stephen Miller, who I absolutely think is probably planning some sort of self-coup and Trump himself who is checked out on most of this and the thing is they can’t actually do the self-coup without the orange man.
That said, it is also consistent with a strategy which is entirely grift focused and recognizes that even if the GOP spends years as a rump minority party, if it is *consolidated* begin MAGA, the opportunities to grift what remains will be extremely lucrative.
That said, Trump’s approval *among republicans* has gone from regularly being in the 90s to the 80s and now the 70s and even in some cases the 60s, which may suggest that Trump’s hold over the GOP is not wholly unshakeable if things get wretched enough.
Brad DeLong here: Time to refer back to my Cicero on the last hours of the Roman Republic!