Trump is rapidly advancing toward a very dark place for democracy. Over the past month, he has radicalized his positions. On the international front, he has escalated his actions and, for now, managed to avoid becoming a direct actor in a war with unpredictable consequences in the Middle East. In Latin America, his vow to punish Brazil over Jair Bolsonaro’s legal troubles is a clear case of meddling in domestic affairs while also defending the legitimacy of his own past coup-like behavior—embodied in his Brazilian imitator. It’s yet another attack on judicial independence and the democratic system with obvious global implications.

To this, one must add the erratic nature of his economic policy—particularly his tariff war rooted in a brand of mercantilism devoid of intellectual substance; his falsehoods about unemployment numbers; and the “beautiful” Trump law, passed at record speed, which foretells even greater economic inequality and a massive deficit.

There’s also the record budget increase for ICE and its detention capacity—$170 billion—whose agents, masked and armed like elite soldiers, have arrested not only undocumented immigrants but also citizens at schools, workplaces and courthouses.

This is compounded by blurred lines between the public and private realms, directly benefiting Trump’s family fortune. Compared to corruption scandals in Latin America, the figures are staggering. In just the first three months of his presidency, Trump increased his personal fortune by $3 billion through dubious sales of “Trump” cryptocurrencies and investments in the family business by state funds from the Middle East.

In most other countries, if a president earned even less than a billion dollars a month, the word “corruption” would be part of everyday analysis. Yet Trump has openly promoted these dealings and many accept the official line: he does it in his “free time,” and profiting from his position in the White House is not, according to his defenders, a problem.

All these developments—the glorification of violence and war, the corruption, the collapse of economic predictability—are interconnected, especially with Trump’s latest battlefield: the domestic front. Here, we are witnessing an even faster escalation against the pillars of democracy.

Of all these crises, what makes Trump such an anomaly among U.S. presidents is not only his personal enrichment or the institutional breakdown, but his monarchic or autocratic will, which is one that directly contradicts the very essence of constitutional norms as historically understood.

To put it more plainly: many analysts of American politics increasingly view Trump as deepening his fascist tendencies. As a historian of fascism, I share this assessment. In recent times, Trump has further intensified the fascist practice of militarizing politics, merging warfare and governance.

We’ve also seen a repressive escalation in California, along with an ideological glorification of violence against the opposition. Consider the Speaker of the House, who expressed a wish to publicly disgrace Governor Gavin Newsom through a form of mob justice more akin to the mythic Wild West than to a serious nation. He literally suggested “tarring and feathering” him.

The inauguration of a migrant prison in the swamps of Florida—dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”—is another example of the extralegal glorification of violence in a society seemingly abandoning its modern values. According to Trump himself, the idea is that the animals would eat escapees.

The so-called “Trump parade” must also be seen in the context of a broader crisis—and possible collapse—of democracy in the United States. It was a textbook example of authoritarian leader-worship. In a climate of extreme polarization and demonization of opponents, politically motivated lone-wolf assassinations have occurred—like the recent cases in Michigan. We still know little about the killer’s motives, but the MAGA movement’s responses are deeply troubling.

In a democratic country, a birthday parade disguised as a military celebration should never have taken place. Given the severity of the situation, the event should have been canceled altogether. Although it was a failure in terms of attendance, Trump used it to reinforce the conflation of his persona with the state—especially with the military. In response, there were massive peaceful “anti-monarchist” protests, which made clear that his actions run counter to the country’s core democratic values.

Historians aren’t fortune tellers, but based on the record of past and present fascisms, I believe we’re going to see an even greater escalation across all the typical fronts of authoritarianism: more violence and militarization, deeper demonization and repression, intensified propaganda, attacks on the free press, erosion of judicial independence and the dismantling of republican institutions. Let’s hope we also witness a growing peaceful resistance to these efforts to dismantle American democracy.

_{*Machine translation proofread by Ricardo Aceves.}