This historian has a theory about Donald Trump and America and it's terrifying

In January the US was downgraded to a ‘Flawed Democracy’ by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit.

The step down from a ‘Full’ Democracy followed Donald Trump’s election and the advent of unfounded ‘fake news’ allegations against the media.

Historian Timothy Snyder however, has taken things one step further; he theorises that the real goal of President Donald Trump is simple: A regime change in the US.

The Yale historian originally laid out his theory during an interview with Radio Open Source.

Our problem is that we are exceptionalists… We all think we live beyond history because we assume our reality is unchangeable… We have someone in office who has never said anything about how he supports democracy – on the contrary he said if it doesn’t go his way he wouldn’t respect its results – we have a president who has never said anything about how he respects the rule of law – on the contrary his entire career is challenging the law.

Snyder, whose research also looked at the formulation of Nazi Germany, gives America a year, which is “standard” for a regime change.

He said :

It took Hitler one year in 1933, that’s how long it took the Poles in the current world to get rid of their supreme court… Hungary took two years.

In February, Snyder published On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, an instruction manual of sorts on how to resist a regime.

The book listing on Amazon was hacked allegedly by Russian individuals, who created a fake book parodying the manual with Pro-Putin slogans on the blurb.

He also says that Donald Trump's unfounded accusations of fake news towards the New York Times and CNN are markers of an authoritarian – not democratic regime.

In an interview withLiterary Hub, he makes damning parallels between Russia and the US.

I think if we’re going to be serious on the left, we have to recognise that Russia represents the things we don’t like. It has greater wealth inequality than we do. It has greater surveillance than we do. Not only do they surveil people but they actually publish the things that people say, which is one step worse.

Russia is a possible negative future for the United States. That’s the cognitive value of Russia.

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