Democrats seem to think that they’ve got a sure-fire argument to use in the 2024 campaign, viz., Trump and the Republicans are out to destroy democracy. The Democrats assume that the American people have an abiding and deep-seated commitment to democracy. They will claim that Trump and his party have no such commitment and, in fact, are openly planning to install an autocratic government.

The Democrats can make a good case for their claim. In 2020, Trump may not have said, in so many words, “I don’t care about the vote, I deserve to be president for another term just because I’m the better man” — though he probably thought that — but he did, ultimately, use violence in an effort to retain his presidency, which is a direct attack upon the democratic system. Moreover, despite being one of the world’s most prolific liars, he has revealed his inner feelings more than most presidents do, and it could hardly be said that his commitment to democracy is wholehearted.

We found, in Trump, a president who boasted of what he termed a “love-letter” from Kim Jong-Un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea. He publicly expressed his envy at the control Kim had over his country. Trump admires the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and continues to defend him, even after Putin began waging a war with Ukraine in which the U.S. supports his enemy. He admires the power Putin wields, and the degree to which Putin’s word is law in the country that he rules.

It appears that Trump, as the sole owner of a private company, assumed that being president of the country entitled him to the same degree of control that he had over his company. His fetish for absolute loyalty from his underlings is an open declaration that he believes his authority is, and should be, absolute. Most conspicuously, he and the Republican party recently presented a plan on how they will, if Trump becomes president again, dissolve the system of checks and balances that limits the president’s authority so that he would enjoy just the sort of absolute control that those admired foreign dictators possess.

There’s also ample evidence that Trump’s political party has, for some time, actively sought to subvert democracy at the state level. It’s fondness for gerrymandering; for voting regulations designed to reduce the probability that liberals will vote; its efforts to make voter initiatives more difficult to bring to the ballot; its attempts to restrict primary election participation to the most right-wing party members in order to guarantee that party doctrine will not reflect more moderate viewpoints, all testify to that intent.

In other words, Trump has made it clear that he wishes to rule as an autocrat, and his party is making it clear that it has no qualms about subverting democratic principles in order to win elections.

Democrats, of course, point to these developments and grimly predict that if Trump were to become president again, democracy would be eradicated. America would become a strongman government and the will of the majority would be permanently abrogated. They hope that voters will recognize this probable outcome, take it to heart and refuse to allow the enemies of democracy to triumph in 2024.

I suspect that most Democrats will answer this call to arms in 2024, but I’m not so sure that there aren’t a great many Americans who, though they may pay lip service to democratic principles, actually don’t care that much about democracy and are quite willing to shift to another, more authoritarian form of government. They are willing to do so for the simple reason that traditional democracy isn’t working for them.

Think, for a moment, what it would be like to be an average MAGA devotee. You believe that Trump’s vision of the country is the same as yours. He speaks of a time when the U.S. was great, and you, too, remember those times with nostalgia — the times when America was populated by the people who settled it, the white Christians who migrated here from Europe for religious freedom and then tamed, populated and made productive this vast land that was inhabited only by primitive savages. You believe that America grew by leaps and bounds because it rewarded hard work, independence and initiative. You cherish the memory of government that didn’t interfere with people’s lives — it just did what needed to be done: keep the peace, protect the borders.

In those days — when America was still great — there was an agreed-upon code of behavior; there were sensible roles for men and women that coincided with Christian teaching, and society had levels of social authority that corresponded to real and rational differences in the status and importance of its citizens. While some people deviated from acceptable moral standards, they understood that their abnormal desires and practices were shameful and had to be concealed.

It might be that you, a MAGA follower, live in a red state where you have some real influence over your local and state government — of course it’s in red states that anti-democratic tactics are being used to sustain the MAGA vision. But at the national level, you belong to a political/cultural minority — and it could well be a permanent minority. After all, immigration continues, big-city populations keep growing, and the younger generations show no inclination to support the kind of America that MAGA envisions. It is probable that, in the long run, you’ve got little chance of enjoying a federal government that shares your vision of what America should be. American majority-rule democracy may protect the rights of minorities, but it serves the interests of the majority. Your only hope is that you can get Trump re-elected and he can seize enough power to suppress democracy and rule as an oligarch, on your behalf.

It’s one of the virtues of democracy that it’s a system of governance that enables a society to change its mind about things — and do so peacefully. But, in a time of extreme political polarization, like that in which we find ourselves at present, that virtue is seriously tested. We have a political minority of the citizenry that has declared itself bitterly and irrevocably opposed to several changes in the viewpoint of the majority. Religious convictions make compromise difficult. It’s hardly surprising that the minority has turned against the system that blocks its success. Trump’s re-election might well overturn that system. Let’s hope democracy weathers the storm.

Leonard Hitchcock of Pocatello is an alumnus of the University of Iowa and did graduate work at Claremont Graduate University and the University of California, San Diego. He taught philosophy in California and Arizona for 15 years. In 1985, after earning a library degree, he was hired by Idaho State University. He retired from ISU’s Oboler Library in 2006.