Trump drive to pursue critics puts US on path to dictatorship, Democrats warn [View all]
Source: The Guardian
Sun 21 Sep 2025 15.23 EDT
Last modified on Sun 21 Sep 2025 23.19 EDT
Top Democratic leaders on Sunday warned that Donald Trump’s drive to go after his political opponents is putting the US on a path to becoming a dictatorship and a “banana republic” just eight months into his second presidency.
The warnings came a day after Trump’s public call for the justice department to take action against perceived enemies – and after ABC yanked its late-night talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel off the air in the wake of a threat from regulators at the Federal Communications Commission who are loyal to the president. Such behaviors, along with others since his return to the Oval Office in January, has prompted many who are not fiercely aligned with him to describe him as an authoritarian.
Turning the justice department “into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not … is the path to a dictatorship,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on CNN. “That’s what dictatorships do.”
Schumer’s fellow Democratic senator Chris Murphy, meanwhile, suggested the US was already becoming a “banana republic”. “The president of the United States is now employing the full power of the federal government, the FCC the department of justice, in order to punish, lock up, take down off the air all of his political enemies,” Murphy said on ABC.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/21/trump-democrats-dictatorship
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