Trump’s war on woke ‘puts US on path to dictatorship’

Donald Trump plans to wield the power of the federal government to reform teaching, healthcare and policing, alarming critics with his plans.

Donald Trump speaks at a commit to caucus campaign event in Ankeny, Iowa. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Donald Trump plans to declare war on “woke” culture if he wins back the White House, wielding the power of the federal government to reform teaching, healthcare and policing.

The former president, who holds a commanding lead over his rivals for the Republican nomination, has alarmed critics with his plans for a second term.

Trump wants the federal government to take a greater role in American life. Amid a conservative backlash to progressive ideas being taught in schools, he has said he plans to influence what teachers can share with students. Outlining his re-election platform while on the campaign trail, he said he would open a government-backed “anti-woke” university called the American Academy. He has also suggested that he could use the FBI and Department of Justice to target his enemies, alleging that President Biden has done the same to him.

Trump, 77, has also pledged to punish doctors and hospitals that provide transgender surgery to children.

His critics have accused him of wanting to take on dictatorial powers. Robert Kagan, a long-time conservative commentator, wrote in The Washington Post: “Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: there is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day.”

Trump himself, however, alleges that it is Biden who is threatening American democracy. At a rally in Iowa over the weekend Trump cited the four criminal indictments he is facing as proof that the White House is targeting a political opponent. “He’s been weaponising government against his political opponents like a Third World political tyrant,” Trump told a crowd in Cedar Rapids. “Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy; Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.”

A spokesman for Biden’s campaign pointed to Trump’s policy platform for 2025 and said it was clear which of the candidates had an authoritarian bent. Ammar Moussa said: “Donald Trump’s America in 2025 is one where the government is his personal weapon to lock up his political enemies. You don’t have to take our word for it, Trump has admitted it himself.”

Repeated dire warnings that Trump imperils American democracy do not seem, however, to be having too much of an effect. The RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls places Trump narrowly ahead of Biden, 81.

A victory next year would allow him to implement his agenda. He has discussed plans for a body to certify teachers “who embrace patriotic values and support the American way of life”.

He has also criticised what he deems soft-on-crime policies in Democrat-controlled cities including Los Angeles and San Francisco and said that any law enforcement agency that received grants from the Department of Justice had to implement tougher policies.

Many of Trump’s policies would hand power to the central government instead of local agencies, a sharp departure from the prevailing view of the Republican Party of recent decades.

The Times