With Trump’s victory in Iowa, we’re inching toward autocracy

Iowans voted this week in the Republican primary race, which shouldn’t mean very much. Iowa’s population is 3.2 million, about 1 percent of the total United States. There are 2,083,000 registered voters there, with 718,000 registered Republican. Only 110,298 voted in the caucus, and 56,260 voted for former President Trump — about 2.7 percent of Iowa’s registered voters.

But Iowa represents a tremendous psychological victory for Trump. Not a ho-hum, but a harbinger of things to come.

Mainers like to brag that “as Maine goes, so goes the nation,” but Iowa hardly enjoys the same bellwether status. Winners of the GOP Iowa caucuses have included Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, whose candidacies went nowhere. Yet there is the bandwagon effect leading people I respect to tell us not to be in denial, predicting that Trump will be the Republican nominee.

CNN entrance polls helped explain the worldview of Iowa voters who braved subzero temperatures to go to the polls:

• Do you think Biden legitimately won in 2020? Yes: 30 percent, No: 65 percent
• Is Trump fit for presidency if convicted of a crime? Yes: 64 percent, No: 31 percent
• Are immigrants “poisoning the blood of the country”? Yes: 81 percent

It boggles the mind that any thinking citizen would support Trump, whose principal plank is chaos. Trump is not running for anything; he is running against. He is running against politics. He is running against democracy. He is running against politicians. He is running against policy. He is running against a functioning Congress. He is running against the government, the justice system and the rule of law. He wants to terminate the Constitution.

Trump proudly accepted the endorsement of “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, a notorious mobster who knows how to whack Trump’s enemies if the Navy SEALs are busy that day. He holds open the possibility of executing a general who might stand in his way. He is seeking to be a “dictator.” And what is unbelievable is that’s what his biggest fans like about him.

History was made in Iowa. The GOP choice in the Hawkeye State is a man indicted in four different jurisdictions on 91 felony charges, who may very well be sentenced to prison, who has already been impeached twice. He is an election denier (unless he wins), a liar, a proven sexual predator, a conman. There is a serious possibility that he may be constitutionally disqualified because of the ineluctable language of Section Three of the 14th Amendment. We are in for a helluva ride.

If Trump wins back the White House, you can bet the country that Ukraine falls to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will run amok in Gaza; and China will make a move on Taiwan, as Trump oozes fawning admiration for dictators around the world whom we should be containing, not lionizing.

Muslim Americans who don’t like Biden because of Gaza will find an end or at least a curtailment of Muslim immigration to the United States. Children born in the U.S. of undocumented immigrants will be deported, despite what the Constitution says.

Trump will fill vacancies in the judiciary not on merit but on the basis of loyalty to the leader and adherence to the party line. I wrote a book in 2016 called “Supremely Partisan” about the Supreme Court’s drift into partisanship; but, if Trump gets in, one thing we can be sure of, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Trump has a messianic vision of himself. He claims to be above the law. He says he can stay in office beyond his term, can ride roughshod over the Constitution — and no one can stop him.

If it takes acts of political violence to tame his critics, there are no shortages of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to work Trump’s wicked will. If the facts are against him, it is “fake news,” for after all the press is the enemy of the people. And, at least in Iowa, 50 percent of Republicans support him.

If he is elected, all guardrails are dismantled. He has promised to arrogate to himself the right to hire and fire the federal civil service, reversing an institution protected since 1883 under the Pendleton Act, providing that federal government jobs be awarded on the basis of merit and that government employees be selected through competitive exams. That act also made it unlawful to fire or demote for political reasons employees who were covered by the law. It won’t stop Trump.

The rule of law under Trump will be severely compromised. The Jan. 6 rioters he claims are “hostages” will be pardoned. The federal criminal cases pending against him will be discontinued — as will the state cases, which cannot be allowed to linger against a sitting president.

Even if the Supreme Court allows him to run, Trump will find himself more in the courtroom than on the stump over the next six to eight months. After claiming victory in Iowa, he flew to New York to attend the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial. If things go against him in Washington in the Jan. 6 case, he could end up like Eugene V. Debs in 1920, running for president from prison.

But what is most alarming is his grip on the national psyche. As The Atlantic’s David Frum sagely put it: “Maybe the issue on the ballot in 2024 is not a choice at all, but a much more open-ended question. We know who Biden is. We know who Trump is. Who are we?”

James D. Zirin, author and legal analyst, is a former federal prosecutor in New York’s Southern District. He is also the host of the public television talk show and podcast “Conversations with Jim Zirin.“