Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has been one of the sharpest conservative critics of the president, remaining so throughout Donald Trump’s campaign, election, and now presidency. In the piece, he lays out a playbook for how America could potentially swing from democratic to autocratic under Trump’s watch, pointing to parallels in countries like Hungary, Venezuela, and the Philippines—and threatened now in France and Poland.

Frum writes: “Civil unrest will not be a problem for the Trump presidency. It will be a resource. Trump will likely want not to repress it, but to publicize it—and the conservative entertainment-outrage complex will eagerly assist him. Immigration protesters marching with Mexican flags; Black Lives Matter demonstrators bearing anti-police slogans—these are the images of the opposition that Trump will wish his supporters to see. The more offensively the protesters behave, the more pleased Trump will be. Calculated outrage is an old political trick, but nobody in the history of American politics has deployed it as aggressively, as repeatedly, or with such success as Donald Trump.”

And the shift to autocracy, in many instances, won’t be that obvious: elections will still be held, just not quite as fairly; the press will remain free, but its standing will be undermined; life will go on as normal for most, but the economy and culture will slowly bend toward corruption.

Frum predicts that “Trump will try hard during his presidency to create an atmosphere of munificence ... in which graft does not matter because rules and institutions do not matter. He’ll want to associate economic benefit with personal favor … That, over time, is what truly subverts institutions of democracy and the rule of law.”

The Atlantic’s March issue will be online and on newsstands in its entirety next week. Additional features online now include Alex Wagner on the “ Hollywood List Everyone Wants to Be On ;”and Graeme Wood’s report on the “ American Climbing the Ranks of ISIS .”

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