Prof. Alan Rozenshtein Interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald About the Potential of Dictatorship if Trump is Elected

Professor Alan Rozenshtein was interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald about what could happen if Donald Trump is elected president and the implications of his use of executive powers. Some experts interviewed said it is possible to construct a hypothetical path in which the United States descends into dictatorship, similarly to other countries where the leader manipulates an unstable political environment and laws are dismantled to provide them with absolute power. Prof. Rozenshtein is described in the article as being more optimistic saying that U.S. institutions are stronger than in countries that have typically proved vulnerable to authoritarianism in recent history. “While the president has a lot of powers, at the end of the day, it’s just one person who’s issuing commands to lots of other people who issue commands to lots of other people. It’s a complicated system, and America is quite decentralized,” he said. “Turning an extremely well-established democracy into a dictatorship, especially one with such decentralized governing institutions, is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier with three oars; you can do it, but it’ll take a long time.”