‘The Tyrant Test’

“For as long as I’ve been alive, American presidents have defined tyrants by their willingness to use military force against their own people in reprisal for political opposition,” writes Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer. He’s a prize-winning journalist and author of the book “The Cruelty is the Point.”

“You could call this the ‘tyrant test,’ and Trump is already failing it,” Serwer says.

He explores how Republicans went from condemning leaders who threaten their own citizens to “becoming sycophants for one.” 

“In the 1950s, the terms First World, Second World, and Third World emerged as a means to describe Western-aligned nations, Soviet-aligned governments, and emerging nations not allied with either faction, respectively. Third World soon came to be used as a pejorative term for poor, nonwhite countries — full of human beings who could be considered disposable,” Serwer says.

He refers to President Trump saying last week that “illegal aliens” were turning America into a “Third World Nation” declaring, “I am reversing the invasion. It’s called remigration.” Serwer says remigration is a European far-right term for ethnic cleansing of nonwhite immigrants from European countries, regardless of status or citizenship.

Serwer says: “Both inside and outside the administration, the consensus of prominent Trumpists is that if you are not white, you are a threat to Western civilization. This is how they rationalize Trump failing the tyrant test — the threat of military force is being made against people the administration and its propagandists want you to see as not truly American.

“This is how a tyrant thinks. Every dictator who has ever cracked down on political opposition has done so by rendering them internal foreigners in rhetoric and deed.”