Kasparov

“Doesn’t Putin realize how bad this looks?” became the experts’ refrain after he crossed line after uncrossable line. As if he cared how things looked. Why should he? Dictators don’t ask “Why?” They only ask, “Why not?” They don’t stop unless someone stops them. No one stopped Putin.

For years, my colleagues and I in the Russian democracy movement warned that Putin was building a dictatorship. Even when it was crystal-clear that Russian democracy and civil society had been gutted, the free world fiercely resisted acknowledging that truth.

Putin laid bare the huge disconnect between autocrats and normal people — the autocrats’ ability to do things that simply don’t occur to people with a sense of decency and a respect for norms and traditions. Autocrats are aware of the consequences they might face for the damage they do, but they believe they can avoid those consequences by staying in power, forever if necessary. Trump might have been indicted several times over were he not protected by his office, and a sense of impunity tends to make one sloppy.

Trump no doubt believes that he has more to lose by leaving office than by fighting — lawlessly or not — to stay. The oligarchs and thugs he so admires surely agree. They won’t easily let go of such a lucrative investment — one of their own kind in the Oval Office.

Putin and Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, to name two, have surely reaped many benefits from Trump, beyond political ones. It will take years to untangle the web of his financial dealings and how the treasure and might of the United States was exploited to serve the President’s personal interests and those of his cronies. If defeated, Trump will likely spend his last months in a flurry of self-dealing, tossing out pardons and trying to discredit his opponents and the system itself.

But what if he wins? Even the dire scenarios I just outlined are predicated on avoiding the worst outcome of all. Let’s say Trump stays in office, either by a shocking electoral upset or by his hand-picked Supreme Court justices doing what he chose them to do.

Rolling your eyes again? Do you really think Trump cares about limiting abortion rights or Constitutional originalism or anything else he cannot fit into his pockets? Or that Mitch McConnell and the GOP rushed Amy Barrett’s appointment for any reason other than having her seated before the election? She and Brett Kavanaugh were political appointments to achieve political ends, which is always how autocrats view the judiciary.

A Trump victory would legitimize his politics and policies the way his election in 2016 normalized his rhetoric. Then, after four more years of Trumpism, the only question would likely be: Who is the next Trump in line? The autocrat’s heirs could be expected to carry on the assault on the remaining pillars of American democracy. When one side fights for power at all costs against those defending the rule of law, time is not on the side of the law.

Defeating Trump overwhelmingly at the polls is the most important step, but it’s only the first step. Americans who want to see the rule of law restored and strengthened must be ready to fight for it — in the courts and in the streets if necessary, peacefully but persistently –because there is little doubt that Trump and his supporters will not go quietly.

Trump has spent five years dehumanizing his opponents and painting them as America’s mortal enemies while conditioning his followers to see things as he does. They will not leave the field easily, but leave they must, or American democracy will not outlast them.