Is this the moment when America tips into authoritarianism? – NPR

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Is this the moment when America tips into authoritarianism?

August 30, 20255:16 PM ET, Heard on All Things Considered

By Jeffrey Pierre, Scott Detrow, and Patrick Jarenwattananon

9-Minute Listen Transcript

“Today is different than before,” says historian Garrett Graff, who discusses his analysis that the United States has “now tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism.”

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Today is different than before. That’s the subhead of a new essay written by historian Garrett Graff. Graff has written bestselling books about key moments in U.S. history, everything from 9/11 to D-Day to Watergate. And earlier this month, he was on NPR’s Weekend Edition talking about his oral history of the creation of the atomic bomb.

But we have asked him back to discuss his analysis that the United States has, quote, “now tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism.” Garrett Graff joins me now to talk about it. Welcome to the show.

GARRETT GRAFF: Thanks for having me, Scott.

DETROW: You say that a line was clearly crossed in the past month. Walk me through how you came to that conclusion.

GRAFF: Yeah. I think Americans have sort of wrongly thought that there would be a light-switch moment where sort of everything before that is democracy and everything after that is authoritarianism. And I think what we have seen over the course of the month of August is the way that authoritarianism really will actually arrive, and I argue has arrived, in America, which is this ever-escalating federal takeover of Washington, D.C., the arrival of armed military units in the capital, the search of John Bolton’s home as the president is weaponizing federal law enforcement to go after political opponents.

You know, we’ve seen the president go after our history with the Smithsonian, our arts with the Kennedy Center. Even sports heroes. You know, remember he was trying to pressure this month the Major League Baseball to go and induct Roger Clemens into the Hall of Fame. And I think, to me, this represents the arrival of something in American life that is fundamentally different than anything we have experienced before.

DETROW: I live in Washington, D.C. I’ve seen the National Guard around me. The other day, I saw masked federal agents questioning somebody within a block of my kids’ school. I mean, to you, is what’s happening in D.C. with the deployment and with these federal agents – and I’m going to point out yet again that they’re often masked because that feels important to this conversation – is that the biggest warning sign?

GRAFF: I think it is, and it’s the behavior that we’re seeing from these federal agents, the idea that they are operating in masks, operating without normal law enforcement identification and credentials, operating with unmarked vehicles – things that we would recognize normally as abuses of civil rights and civil liberties.

And it’s also, I think, something that you can see in the way that D.C. is reacting to it, which is you can tell that this is something that is being done to the city and not to aid the city because you have residents sort of refusing to go out. You know, restaurant reservations are down. Tourism is down. This is a statement from the people who are being policed.

9-Minute Listen Transcript

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