Fascism expert: Trump has used all ‘four threats’ that can topple a democracy

On Tuesday, speaking with Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on the podcast The New Abnormal, Johns Hopkins political science professor Robert Lieberman warned that President Donald Trump poses all of the fundamental "four threats" that he argues can erode democracies in his book with Suzanne Mettler.

Specifically, the four threats are political polarization, racism, economic inequality, and overly broad executive power — all of which, according to Lieberman, Trump has encouraged and worsened.

“The American democratic system is supposed to keep one person or one small group from gaining all the levers of power at the same time. And that's where things have kind of fallen down,” said Lieberman. He added that although all of these threats have occurred at various points in history, it's the confluence of them that is worrisome at this moment.

“Trump seems to have an unerring instinct to make just about every situation, worse," said Lieberman. "He is a product of this confluence of threats. He is a product of the time.”

Listen to the whole podcast here.