The following is an opinion piece by columnist Andrew Coyne originally published in The Globe and Mail on August 29, 2025. Given Donald Trump’s behaviour and the unwillingness or inability of those around him, including Congress, to exert some control over him, the issues and questions that Coyne raises in this article are particularly germane, especially in light of Trump’s continued threats against our sovereignty and our right to exist as a country.

Donald Trump is on the brink of becoming a dictator. Can he be stopped?

~ by Andrew Coyne

By now it should be clear that the subjection of the United States to the dictatorship of Donald Trump is no longer a theoretical possibility or even a distant probability. It is an imminent reality.

It is not here, quite – critics of the President remain at large, the courts are still attempting to enforce the rule of law, the results of the 2026 and 2028 elections have not yet been determined – but the pieces are being put in place at astonishing speed.

To call what is happening a “slide” into authoritarianism, as if it were something anarchic and uncontrolled, would not be apt. It is more like a cementing. Having slipped back into power by the narrowest of margins, Mr. Trump and his acolytes have been steadily expanding from that beachhead, each new power serving as the means to acquire still more.

Often these powers have been acquired illegally, in brazen defiance of the Constitution. But so long as no one holds them to account for it, and so long as the administration refuses to be held to account, they become ratified by convention, or practice, or sheer nerve, the de facto rapidly congealing into the de jure.

At some point, American democracy will find it is caught, immovably, a colossus in quicksand. The question is whether it has reached that point, or, if it has not reached it yet, whether it can still avoid doing so.

The examples pile up by the day. In recent days, weeks and months, Mr. Trump and his officials have:

• Installed National Guard troops and other military forces in the centre of major American cities, first Los Angeles, then Washington, and soon (if Mr. Trump’s threats are to be believed) Chicago, Baltimore and New York, under the guise of fighting crime. Some of the guardsmen are armed; some have been conducting arrests, for which they have neither training nor authority. The D.C. police force was likewise taken under federal control.
  • Seized thousands of suspected illegal immigrants off the streets, the snatchings carried out by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents without badges, their victims bundled into cars without markings, to be sent in some cases to barbaric foreign prison camps, in some cases to their domestic counterparts, without trial, without even charges. ICE is increasingly seen as Mr. Trump’s personal police force.
  • Initiated criminal investigations into various of Mr. Trump’s antagonists, from Letitia James, the Attorney-General of New York who prosecuted him for fraud, to Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted him for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and for his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, to John Bolton, his own former national security adviser who has since become one of his severest critics, to Adam Schiff, the Democratic Senator and lead manager on his first impeachment, to Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor who stands in the way of his desired takeover of the U.S. central bank.
  • Fired or demoted police officers and prosecutors responsible for bringing the Jan. 6 rioters to justice, having earlier issued a blanket pardon for the rioters themselves.
  • Threatened television networks whose programs or performers irritated him with suspension of their licences, or adverse regulatory rulings.
  • Extorted massive settlements from the same networks, or law firms who had acted for his antagonists, or universities he deemed too liberal, or even corporations, like Intel, he fancied a piece of.
  • Demanded Texas, Florida, Indiana and other states redraw their electoral maps, in a transparent attempt to gerrymander more Republican districts into being in time for the midterm elections; at the same time, Mr. Trump talks openly of banning mail-in ballots, while issuing executive orders demanding “proof of citizenship” for voting and requiring federal review of state electoral rolls.
  • Fired the head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics for issuing unemployment numbers that displeased him; fired the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency for issuing after-action reports on the U.S. bombing of Iran that likewise disagreed with Trumpian dogma.
  • Defied court orders with regard to various of the above.
  • Defied Congress with regard to the spending of money for the purposes for which it was appropriated by Congress, while imposing tariffs that must constitutionally be approved by Congress.
  • Issued a series of executive orders for which he has likewise no constitutional authority.
  As if to give visible signs of his intent, Mr. Trump has been furnishing himself with various of the accoutrements of a dictator, from the giant portraits that now hang on government buildings, to the gold-encrusted palace that was once the White House, to the military parade on his birthday, to the endless public displays of sycophancy he requires of his cabinet members. Indeed, he has taken in recent days to musing about dictatorship as a possibility – “a lot of people are saying ‘Maybe we need a dictator’” – as if he were not just trying out the description with the public, but habituating them to it.

Indeed, the portents are ominous. Commit violence on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and he will see that you suffer no penalty. Attempt to stop or prevent it, and he will have you fired or prosecuted. Criticize him, or represent his critics in court, and he will lean on the organization that employs you.

Think the courts will save you? He has stacked many of them, intimidated others, and will have no hesitation in ignoring those that remain. You can see him lining up a test case for the ultimate act of revolutionary disobedience, defying a Supreme Court ruling – maybe over tariffs, or illegal immigrants – and with it finally dispatching with the rule of law altogether.

Certainly he need have no worry about his own personal legal liability: the Court has already found that he is immune from prosecution, at least for acts committed in his “official capacity.” But who would even attempt to bring him to justice? The senior levels of the Department of Justice are filled with political allies or his personal lawyers.
The Congress? But both houses are controlled, narrowly, by the Republicans, and while Congresses in the past have been willing to face down a President of their own party, the current GOP is made up of individuals who either share his dictatorial world view or are too frightened of him, and even more of his followers, to stand up to him. That is only likely to grow in line with his powers.

Ah, but there are next year’s midterm elections. Mr. Trump’s approval rating is mired in the high-30s. The Senate may be out of reach, but surely the Democrats can retake the House. Then the process of reeling in Mr. Trump can begin.

But you haven’t been paying attention. What do you think all that gerrymandering is about? Why do you think Trump is ranting about mail-in ballots? What else do you suppose is being arranged at the state level, out of reach of the national media? The chances of a free and fair election in 2026 must be rated at 50-50 at best.

Suppose the Democrats do retake the House. How do they enforce their will on a President who does not recognize the legitimate authority of Congress? By appealing to the Supreme Court? But we know Mr. Trump’s view of the rule of law. How many divisions does the Supreme Court have?

And as you ponder all this, remember: It’s only going to get worse. We are still in the very early days of this presidency. Mr. Trump’s behaviour has grown steadily more outlandish throughout, trashing norms and stepping over boundaries previously considered inviolable even by him. How much more outlandish is it likely to get between now and January, 2029, when Mr. Trump’s term is supposed to end?

Emphasis on: supposed to. As others have observed, Mr. Trump has not been carrying on like someone who expects to leave office in three-and-a-bit years. (That US$200-million ballroom he is building off the White House – or perhaps the White House is off it – is a clue.) He seems entirely unconcerned by the political opposition his actions have aroused, except to revel in the possibilities for repression they open up.

So 2028 rolls around. Maybe Mr. Trump runs again, as he sometimes muses, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe the election is free and fair, or maybe it isn’t. Maybe he just stays on, indefinitely. But whatever happens, how exactly is Mr. Trump to be removed from the White House? I mean physically.

By that time he will have replaced the entire command structure of the military with his loyalists. And of the intelligence agencies. And of the FBI. D.C. will have been under martial law for three years. Who, or what, is going to arrest him?

If this sounds over the top, then again you have not been paying attention. Everything Mr. Trump does defies belief, let alone precedent. Mr. Trump’s dash for dictatorship is rapidly approaching the point of no return. So the question that has always hovered in the air is now the urgent question of the hour: How can he be stopped – before it is too late?

That Mr. Trump is bent on making himself dictator is no longer in doubt. That he is well on his way to doing so should not be. If democracy in America is to be saved, its defenders must pour all their thought and energy into devising creative ways to frustrate his ambitions. Because they are running out of options, and out of time.