This week, Republicans reminded us of the alternatives to republics, hosting a convention that showed how the American one could be brought down. They summoned up three variants of collapse: tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy.
A tyrant emerges through a system that he breaks. Long before the assassination attempt on him last weekend, Donald Trump had transformed the Republican party into a cult of personality. As a convicted criminal running for office, he undoes the expectation of any rule of law. He has challenged the principle of succession in the US by encouraging the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He claims to be winner of all elections, regardless of the vote, and that he should be allowed to remain president indefinitely. His vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, endorses his defiance of vote counts, past and present. Trump promises mass deportations, detention camps and military tribunals, actions that would change the American regime type.
Yet the tyrant might be less important than the oligarchs behind him. Whereas Trump can slip through the gaps of the legal system, his backers waltz through the cellophane barrier between money and politics. The right metric for predicting Trump’s vice-presidential pick was simple: what do these supporters want?