Trump is a threat to democracy and has even expressed admiration for authoritarianism

Yesterday, former President Donald Trump told a group of supporters that they won’t have to vote again if they elect him to the presidency. “You won’t have to do it anymore,” Trump said at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit in Florida. “It’ll be fixed; it’ll be fine; you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”

Trump’s remarks represent an extraordinary departure from democratic norms in the United States—rarely, if ever, has a major party’s presidential candidate directly stated his aim to make elections meaningless, a notorious hallmark of autocracy.

There are at least two ways of interpreting this statement. First, Trump could be implying that there won’t be any future elections if he comes to power. He may imagine himself as an American Xi Jinping, the Chinese dictator he routinely praises, a leader who’s declared himself “president for life.” As he often does, however, Trump left just enough room in what he said for plausible deniability. A second and slightly more charitable interpretation of his remarks is that Trump believes his presidency will entrench so many pro-Christian policies into the United States government that no future election could realistically undo his transformation of the country. Both interpretations lead to the same conclusion: that Trump is telegraphing his authoritarian intentions in plain sight, hoping to sever the link between voters and government policy.

Trump’s remarks last night are just the latest in his long record of expressing authoritarian ideas and admiration for strongmen in several undemocratic regimes—including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.