Every level of the body politic will resist Trump’s authoritarianism.

Cities, Mayors, Governors another major hurdle that will slow down Trump’s path toward dictatorship is the emergence of cities as liberal strongholds, with younger Democratic governors and mayors as opposition leaders. Democracies that have experienced an illiberal transformation have all seen big cities emerge as strongholds for dissent and liberal values, with charismatic mayors often becoming the public face of opposition. Trump is America’s rural candidate. Both in 2016 and 2020, he did better in small towns than in metropolitan areas. That isn’t all that different from what happened in Hungary, Turkey and Poland. In 2019, Erdogan lost all major Turkish cities in local elections, with Istanbul’s opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, effectively turning into his political rival. In 2020, the charismatic mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, ran as a presidential candidate and while he lost by a thin margin, he played an important role in the opposition’s victory in 2023. In Hungary, despite his immense hold on political power, Orban lost the capital, Budapest, to the opposition candidate Gergely Szilveszter Karácsony in 2019 — making the mayor a prominent opposition voice. Trump should remember the massive anti-government protests in Hong Kong, Warsaw, Istanbul and Budapest and worry about the power of cities and the rise of younger and more energetic politicians, both mayors and governors, some of whom could galvanize the Democratic Party’s base and urban elites, turning New York, San Francisco, Chicago, or Washington, D.C., into strongholds of civil disobedience. Of course, no one should relax thinking “Dictatorship doesn’t work in America as long as we have New York!” Cities and urban centers — where professionals, young people and educated elites gravitate — will resist an illiberal takeover for as long as they can. This tension already played out during Trump’s first term on issues like pandemic response, immigration and abortion and will only grow in a second Trump administration. Bringing cities and blue states to heel takes a long time — and demands a real social and institutional consensus, which Trump, in a second term, will not have. Trump’s problem during the Jan. 6 insurrection was that while his MAGA base wanted him to retain power, he had not built an institutional consensus within the U.S. bureaucracy or the GOP that supported his allegations of election denial — and he was therefore unable to galvanize Republicans or bureaucrats. During the four years of a possible second term, Trump will work hard to build the type of social consensus that would allow him to remain in power for a third term, but the example of other countries, even those with less robust democracies, suggests that four more years is not enough time for him to do that. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying there’s nothing to worry about. No country should take democracy for granted and there is plenty to fear in a second Trump term. Even if Trump doesn’t turn himself into a full-on dictator, he can do a lot of damage to American society and democracy if he wants to. Still, four years pass quickly and even in another four years as president, Trump will not gain the organizational capacity, popular mandate, or institutional consensus to build a dictatorship or prolong his tenure past a second term. What I have seen in Turkey, Poland and Hungary suggests there is a turbulent time between the election of an illiberal leader and the establishment of a dictatorship when resistance will flourish. Any attempt at state capture by Trump will face a pushback from media, bureaucracy, major cities and the judiciary. That resistance is necessary and will emerge at every level of civic life. It will also damage and tear up America in ways that are unimaginable today. It is easier to stop Trump now than to wait until after he becomes president again, when polarization and the push-and-pull between Trump and his opposition will consume the nation’s energy and cripple state resources. It will drain every bit of energy this country has. So my message to America is, do not panic — but organize. The most successful method of fighting creeping authoritarianism is alliance building and effective opposition — preferably before the election. After the election, it will be more costly to stop it. Even in an imperfect democracy like Turkey, it took more than a decade to dismantle the rule of law. Donald Trump might try, but he will find that it takes a long time to become dictator.