Here I focus on how the Trump-Musk administration is innovating the global authoritarian playbook, starting with the structure and use of executive authority. Trump has a novel power-sharing arrangement with an unelected private citizen who is essentially executing a hostile takeover of the U.S. government to capture data, neutralize investigations into his private companies, and use our country as a laboratory for a new form of authoritarian techno-governance that requires the wrecking of democracy.

The Trump administration’s actions since Jan. 20 echo traditional authoritarian assaults on democratic institutions. There is the expansion of the executive branch, which politicizes and domesticates the judiciary, the civil service, and other institutions. There is also a multi-pronged attempt to curb and discredit the financial and political authority of Congress by making massive use of executive orders as instruments of governance.