Back in 2016, mainstream Republicans like Marco Rubio could still clearly diagnose the symptoms of authoritarian populism: the dangerous cult of personality, the promise of a 'strongman' who claims he alone can fix it, and the erosion of democratic norms.
They saw the playbook for what it was—reminiscent of the third-world demagogues they usually decried.
Yet, the most tragic irony of our time is watching these exact same politicians swallow every warning they gave, fall in line behind Trump, and watch their European far-right ideological counterparts embrace that very same brand of grievance politics.
Here is Marco Rubio in 2016, perfectly describing the monster his party decided to create, normalise, and ultimately surrender to.
Reporter:
“You compared Donald Trump to a third-world dictator yesterday in an interview with the New York Times, how so?”
Rubio: “Well, I don't know about a dictator, I said a third-world strong man. You know, he's running for president, so no matter what he won't be a dictator unless our republic completely crumbles which I don't anticipate it will.
But yeah, here's what happens in many countries around the world. You have a leader that emerges and basically says forget don't put your faith in yourselves, don't put your faith in society, put your faith in me, I'm a strong leader and I'm going to make things better by all by myself. That's very typical. You see it in the third world, you see it a lot in Latin America for decades. It's basically the argument he's making that he single-handedly is going to turn the country around. We've never been that kind of country. We have a president. The president is an American citizen who serves for a period of time, constrained by the constitutions and the powers vested in that office. The president works for the people, not the people for the president. And if you listen to the way he describes himself and what he's going to do, he's going to single-handedly do this and do that without regard for whether it's legal. or not.
Look, I I think people are going to have to make up their mind. I can tell you this. No matter what happens in this election, for years to come, there are many people on the right, in the media, and voters at large that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump. Because this is not going to end well one way or the other.”