Is America headed toward dictatorship?

Public media is no longer federally funded, but the NPR network remains yours in service to and powered by you. Keep public media public with a donation today at donate.npr.org and thank you. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Robert Kagan used to describe

Donald Trump as anti-liberal. Then he opted to authoritarian, and now Kagan says that Trump is getting close to becoming a dictator. Kagan writes, President Trump has managed in just one year to destroy the American order that was and has weakened America's ability to protect its interests in the world that will be. Americans thought defending the liberal world order was too expensive. Wait until they start paying for what comes next.

We're going to talk about that and Trump's domestic violations of norms, laws, and the Constitution, including the ICE immigration crackdowns in cities like Minneapolis. Kagan says some of the Trump administration policies are rooted in the history of Christian white supremacy. Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a former longtime Washington Post columnist, a former Republican, and the author of many books. The paperback edition of his latest book is titled Rebellion Donald Trump and the Anti Liberal Tradition in America. We recorded our interview yesterday.

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