The system is blinking red
Trump’s threats against Liz Cheney are a harbinger of dictatorship
After the September 11th attacks, CIA Director George Tenet admitted to the bipartisan commission of inquiry that U.S. intelligence agencies should have anticipated from the information available by the summer of 2001 that a massive al-Qaeda attack against the American homeland was in the works. “The system was blinking red,” Tenet explained.
The same analogy was invoked again after another of the worst policy failures in our lifetimes.
In late March of 2020, an anonymous official revealed to the press that U.S. intelligence agencies had been sounding the alarm about the looming pandemic since January without a competent response from the president:
“Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” this official said. “The system was blinking red.”
As a former senior staffer for the January 6th Select Committee, I’m here to tell you that the system is blinking red again. This time, the hazard is homegrown authoritarianism.
Former President Trump’s newest threat against Thursday former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who served as the Select Committee’s Vice Chair, should be seen as the equivalent of a five-alarm fire. It was more than a threat. It was a warning about how he would govern if he wins on Tuesday — or if he successfully steals the presidency from Vice President Harris after losing the election to her.
And as if to reinforce the nature of this risk, Trump seemed to welcome violent threats against the free press, remarking on Sunday that “to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don't mind that so much.”
Official death threats are poisonous to free society
Speaking on-stage Thursday to the Holocaust apologist Tucker Carlson, Trump called Cheney “a very dumb individual” and “a radical war hawk,” adding a chilling proposal:
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? And let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Yet again on Friday afternoon, Trump returned to speaking about Cheney, envisioning “guns pointing at her.”
Leaders on both sides of the aisle must condemn this kind of threatening language whenever it occurs, making clear there is no legitimate place in our political system for such rhetoric or the violence it could trigger. Indeed, there is no reason that criticizing someone’s positions should ever involve gleefully depicting guns shooting at their face.
In her reply on social media, former Congresswoman Cheney warned that “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death.” Having worked at the State Department to combat authoritarianism as part of President George W. Bush’s second-term Freedom Agenda, she knows what she’s talking about.
Threatening dissidents with death or imprisonment is textbook authoritarian conduct. Think Vladimir Putin or Bashar al-Assad; Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Un, or Augusto Pinochet. And it’s not the first time Trump has suggested doing so, either against Cheney or others.
A pattern of conduct
When former President Trump pointed an armed mob at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, he also told them “we got to get rid of” what he called “the Liz Cheneys of the world.” And this June, he reposted a message that falsely proclaimed “ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON” so “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS”.
Since 2022, Trump has threatened more than 100 times to investigate, prosecute, imprison, or otherwise punish his critics. He’s encouraged “PUBLIC MILITARY TRIBUNALS” against former President Obama and suggested jailing President Biden, Vice President Harris, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He’s called for jailing the prosecutors and judges who seek to hold him accountable, advocated jailing the heroic police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol, and even said his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff deserves to be executed.
Trump has also suggested that the government should jail every other member of the bipartisan January 6th Select Committee, as well as senior Congressional leaders such as Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Mitch McConnell.
It would be folly to dismiss Trump’s comments as cheap talk or wishful thinking.
Why we should take these threats seriously
His former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham warns that “I absolutely think he will follow up on those threats” and “once he’s in office with no guardrails, no reason to worry about reelection, and only the most fervent, loyal people surrounding him” then “he will absolutely make sure his enemies pay for what he perceives to be their crimes.” His former Chief of Staff John Kelly recently said Trump fits a dictionary definition of a fascist, including aspiring to “dictatorial” leadership and “forcible suppression of opposition.”
Trump also knows that his most intense supporters interpret his hostile rhetoric as cues to act. His former White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin told investigators:
When he attacks me, I do get death threats. I’ve gotten quite a few. Very specific, very violent. I’ve reported them all… his words matter. And he doesn’t care… the statements that he puts out against people like me, people like Congresswoman Cheney, he knows it results in these kind of things and he just does not care.
This year, my colleagues published a report: The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 - How An Authoritarian President Will Dismantle Our Democracy and What We Can Do to Protect It.
It examined five areas where Trump has made explicit promises to govern in an authoritarian manner and where his allies have articulated plans for doing so. These areas included:
Abusing pardons to encourage lawbreaking by his allies.
Directing prosecutions to weaken his rivals and insulate himself from accountability.
Corruptly abusing federal regulatory powers.
Weaponizing law enforcement to crush peaceful protests.
Using the military against domestic critics.
However, that report also included a crucial qualifier about its circumscribed scope. It warned that the text: “does not cover dangers posed by a second Trump term… that fall outside of federal government operations, but that may pose even graver risks, such as the degree to which he uses the threat and reality of violence to achieve political ends.”
That is exactly where Trump’s inexcusable threats against Liz Cheney and others factor in.
Ms. Cheney’s tenacious commitment to defending the U.S. Constitution is simply unshakeable. I know with certainty that she will not back down from any such threats.
But Trump’s threats against her serve other purposes, too. They give a wink and a nod to extremists who would menace his critics. They dissuade other politicians from speaking truth to power, and they foster a culture of fear where everyday citizens might shy away from exercising their First Amendment rights to hold our government accountable.
If we want America to stay a democracy, then such conduct can never be rewarded. Because if it is, then we have plenty of evidence what the consequences would be.
The system is blinking red.
 | A guest post by
|