WC’s fellow lawyer and former associate Jeff Magid posted a nice screed on Facebook recently. Jeff was kind enough to allow WC to use it for a guest post.
If you’re a President who urges his chief legal officer to arrest his chief political opponent you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who brags to adoring supporters that he sent US marshals to kill a suspect rather than arrest him you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who not only seeks to direct within the confines of his constitutional power but actively seeks to expand his power beyond what the constitution gives him through executive mandates you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who says Article 2 of his country’s constitution gives him unlimited power you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who represses dissent and citizen efforts to hold the government accountable you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who condemns the media protected by the First Amendment as the enemy of the people you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who preaches total nationalism and isolation from the rest of the world in order to make your country great you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who holds nationalism as an ideal more important than free trade and immigration into the melting pot that is your country then you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who regularly provides misinformation to the media and even to your allies to control information within your government completely you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who attempts to cripple but not destroy opposing parties by using pure scare tactics and by demonizing and attempting to humiliate everybody who thinks differently than you you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who advocates and practices covert and overt election manipulation practices such as hampering media access, gerrymandering, changing election and voter eligibility rules, and packing the electoral college with allies, you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who uses the international stage to lord over other countries based on your version of your country’s economic prowess you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who twists democratic structures and principles into tools of oppression in order to enhance state control, you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who puts people in charge of your administrative agencies who are opposed to the work and sometimes to the very existence of the agencies they were appointed to lead you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who denigrates your own intelligence services, rages against your own justice department, and issues humiliating tweets about your own officials in your own administration you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who says things like, “we’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon” you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who wields his power vengefully and with hate against anything the government has done before you became its leader regardless of the cost so that your name and your name alone is on every single policy, you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who signed his name to relief checks thinking that the citizenry will think you are God for causing them to have money from your own pocket you might be an autocrat.
In fact, if you’re a president who acts as if the money in the United States treasury belongs to you personally you might be an autocrat.
If you are a president who demonstrates disdain for your own government and contempt for expertise within your government replacing competent people with sycophants or denigrating them for not agreeing with you you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who exists in a perpetual state of paranoia that everybody around you is opposing you and threatens your power you may be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who attacks perceived enemies and attempts to create scapegoats for your country’s problems you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who uses your country to advance your personal interests and earns hundreds of millions of dollars renting your hotel rooms to your own government you might be an autocrat.
 If you’re a president who advocates and brags about using force against your own people you might be an autocrat.
 If you’re a president who promotes conspiracy theories and lies in order to incite violence and inspire people to commit violent acts on your behalf you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who, in the middle of a world pandemic, attacks both the international and domestic agencies responsible for keeping people safe, then you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who attempts to hide your personal finances from the public and benefit from private business while in office and enrich your children through your government you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who is so bold as to admit to the media that you actively manipulate the media so that nobody will believe bad stories about you, you might be an autocrat.
If you start your own media company and tear down all the other media companies so that you will always look good you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who politicizes the civil service, military, National Guard, and domestic security agencies acting as if these people swore an oath to you rather than to the constitution, you may be an autocrat.
It you’re a president who enforces the law for only your political party and demonizes citizens who live in states and cities controlled by your opponents you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who wants military parades to honor you because you think that the Fourth of July is a celebration of you rather than your countries independence from tyranny you might be an autocrat.
If you’re a president who sits next to Vladimir Putin and makes fun of your country’s media calling it fake news then you might be an autocrat.
If you are a president who goes out of your way to embrace leaders who are also autocrats such as Putin, Kim, XI Jinping, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Recep Erdogan, and that guy that kills people in the Philippines, you might be an autocrat. 
If you take Vladimir Putin‘s word over your own intelligence agencies about whether he’s directing interference in your country’s election process you might be an autocrat.
Now even though you might be an autocrat, that doesn’t mean you have consolidated power yet.
Your citizens can keep you from getting that power. If they have the will. 
WC would only add to Jeff’s impressive philippic that the way to solve the problem of the possible autocrat is to
VOTE!
Jeffrey Magid is a retired lawyer and former Cold War submarine sailor living in Iwakuni, Japan, where his wife teaches Kindergarten on a United State Marine Corps Air Station. Now that he has time, he likes to read science fiction, watch documentaries, and play Brazilian jazz and metal music on the bass guitar. He’s a big fan of governments who incorporate recommendations from public health officials and scientists during a pandemic.
Wickersham's Conscience 
You must be logged in to post a comment.