WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) joined U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on the floor of the U.S. Senate to speak out against President Trump’s ongoing attacks on our democracy. Murphy offered a question during Merkley’s marathon overnight floor speech, lauding his efforts to speak candidly with the American people about the serious crisis our democracy is facing due to Trump’s militarization of our cities, weaponization of the executive branch to prosecute political enemies, and relentless rigging of legal rules in order to help Republicans and disadvantage Democrats. Murphy amplified Merkley’s remarks, arguing that Trump’s ultimate takeover of our democracy will not happen overnight but involves a comprehensive, long-term plan to capture various institutions of American democracy and cut off the opposition from accessing them.

Murphy emphasized the end of American democracy will not happen all at once: “I understand many of my colleagues say, ‘Well, this still looks like a democracy, maybe different than it was a few months ago, but it's not authoritarianism.’ And I guess what concerns me is that there's not going to be this day when democracy turns off… There are a lot of Americans out there who believe that our democracy is still alive until the day when it dies. But we're not going to know that day — there is just going to be a moment at which the President has successfully rigged the rules, punished dissent, seized so much power that the minority party doesn't have the ability to win a national election.”

Murphy highlighted how illiberal autocrats can maintain the appearance of a democracy, while making it functionally impossible for opposition parties to challenge their power: “There's not likely going to be a cancellation of elections, because President Trump is following a playbook — a playbook that many other would-be autocrats have used successfully to transform democracies into either autocracies or deeply illiberal democracies in which the opposition party never wins… That's what happens in a place like Hungary or a place like Turkey, they still have elections. There are still critics of the regime. In fact, the opposition party can still win a mayoral race or a local election, but the rules are rigged such that the opposition party never has enough oxygen, never has enough support, never has enough ability to air their case that they ever win at the national level… We'll still exist as a Democratic Party, but just like the opposition parties in Hungary and Serbia and Turkey, we won't be in a position to engage in a way that gives voters an actual choice.”

Murphy laid out each component of Trump’s long-term plan to transition our democracy to authoritarianism: “As you have articulated overnight in this heroic effort, you can see this very detailed plan to constrict the space that the opposition, which is from an organizational standpoint, the Democratic Party, has to operate… Whether it be the seizure of spending power, the use of the military, the manipulation of federal regulatory and law enforcement powers to quash political dissent, or the rigging of the rules to make it much harder for Democrats to be able to win in elections, it’s a comprehensive plan.”

Detailing how Trump has put his plan into effect, Murphy continued: “It's first and foremost about punishing dissent, targeting individuals who have been critics, and using government power, whether that be the Department of Justice or the FCC, to silence those critics. It's about commandeering the spending power of the federal government to say if you criticize me you are not going to get federal spending. Just a few weeks ago, the President canceled all energy projects in Democratic states. Just in Democratic states. A clear signal and sign that if you speak up against me, you are not going to get federal funding. It's about using the military to try to disincentivize protests and mobilization, especially in places like American cities where there are a lot of folks that oppose the president. And then it's about rigging the rules. The president has been openly targeting ActBlue, which is the primary way that Democrats raise political contributions. It seems as if he may try to shut down the vehicle by which people make contributions to Democrats. He is instructing Republican states to do something exceptional, which is to change congressional boundary rules outside of the normal schedule, so that even if he's deeply unpopular, even if Democratic Congressional candidates get the majority of votes nationwide, that his party will still control Congress, because they have rigged the rules of how these boundaries are set.”

Murphy also connected Trump’s deployment of troops into Oregon to his broader plan of intimidating dissent into silence: “Our Founding Fathers, I think, would be watching the deployment, or the planned deployment of the US military into the streets of this country with the same kind of alarm that you are bringing to this speech overnight, because this doesn't have to do anything with public safety. This is a means to try to intimidate people into not speaking out … An American citizen who has never engaged in political speech or political protest but thinks this moment is extraordinary and wants to raise their voice would think twice before going out onto the streets if they were potentially facing the barrel of a gun from a member of the US military.”

Murphy’s full remarks are available below.

Thank you, Senator Merkley, having done this before, I know that the language is important. So you and I have had a number of conversations over the past six months about the importance of being straight with people about what is happening in this country.

I'm sure that a lot of our Republican colleagues on this floor look at what you have been doing overnight, look at some of the similar speeches that I and others have given on the floor, and think that we are engaged in pretty remarkable hyperbole, right? This is the United States of America. Our democracy is going to survive forever. This is not authoritarianism. This is just a different version of democracy. But I think it's important to talk for a moment, and this will be the foundation of my question, as to how you know when you've lost your democracy, how you know when you are on the wrong side of a transition to authoritarianism? There are a lot of folks who will say, well, listen, we're still going to have elections in a couple weeks. We're probably still going to have elections in November of next year, while there are troops in Washington, DC right now. They aren't inside the Capitol building. We are still operating while many of Trump's critics have been taken down off the air, like Jimmy Kimmel temporarily and Stephen Colbert, soon to be permanently. There are still plenty of people who oppose the President's policies, who are on television and are talking openly about their disdain for his policies online.

And so I understand many of my colleagues say, Well, this still looks like a democracy, maybe different than it was a few months ago, but it's not authoritarianism. And I guess what concerns me is that there's not going to be this day when democracy turns off. There's not likely going to be a cancelation of elections, because President Trump is following a playbook — a playbook that many other would-be autocrats have used successfully to transform democracies into either autocracies or deeply illiberal democracies in which the opposition party never wins. That's what happens in a place like Hungary or a place like Turkey, they still have elections. There are still critics of the regime. In fact, the opposition party can still win a mayoral race or a local election, but the rules are rigged such that the opposition party never has enough oxygen, never has enough support, never has enough ability to air their case that they ever win at the national level.

And you can see, as you have articulated overnight in this heroic effort, you can see this very detailed plan to constrict the space that the opposition, which is from an organizational standpoint, the Democratic Party, has to operate. And it is a plan that Donald Trump didn't create himself. It is a plan that has been midwifed in other nations that he is copying. It's first and foremost about punishing dissent, targeting individuals who have been critics, and using government power, whether that be the Department of Justice or the FCC, to silence those critics. It's about commandeering the spending power of the federal government to say if you criticize me you are not going to get federal spending. Just a few weeks ago, the President canceled all energy projects in Democratic states. Just in Democratic states. A clear signal and sign that if you speak up against me, you are not going to get federal funding. It's about using the military to try to disincentivize protests and mobilization, especially in places like American cities where there are a lot of folks that oppose the president. And then it's about rigging the rules. The president has been openly targeting ActBlue, which is the primary way that Democrats raise political contributions. It seems as if he may try to shut down the vehicle by which people make contributions to Democrats. He is instructing Republican states to do something exceptional, which is to change congressional boundary rules outside of the normal schedule, so that even if he's deeply unpopular, even if Democratic Congressional candidates get the majority of votes nationwide, that his party will still control Congress, because they have rigged the rules of how these boundaries are set. And so whether it be the seizure of spending power, the use of the military, the manipulation of federal regulatory and law enforcement powers to quash political dissent, or the rigging of the rules to make it much harder for Democrats to be able to win in elections, it’s a comprehensive plan.

And I guess my question to you, Senator Merkley is, is this: How do we know when we've lost our democracy? Do you agree with me that it is very likely that we are still going to have elections — they just aren't going to be free and fair elections. That not every single opponent of the President's will be thrown in jail — just enough so that it quells the interest of the public and of corporate leaders and of civic leaders to speak out. That not every critic of the President will be taken down off the air — but enough such that media companies will figure out that if they want their next merger approved, or if they want their license to broadcast continued, they better just tilt the coverage towards the president and just make sure that they don't have too much criticism on the air.

This is my worry that there are a lot of, frankly, our colleagues and there are a lot of Americans out there who believe that our democracy is still alive until the day when it dies. But we're not going to know that day — there is just going to be a moment at which the President has successfully rigged the rules, punished dissent, seized so much power that the minority party doesn't have the ability to win a national election. We'll still exist as a Democratic Party, but just like the opposition parties in Hungary and Serbia and Turkey, we won't be in a position to engage in a way that gives voters an actual choice. So my question to you is, do you share that view of how his campaign of repression of political speech is happening, and do you worry that people are just waiting around for that epiphany, that conflagration, where the democracy disappears, when that may not be how this plays out.

After a response from Senator Merkley, Murphy asked another question:

I wanted to ask you about — and I'm sure you've talked about this many times already — but what is happening? What has been happening in your city? What is happening in Chicago? I wrote a book a couple of years ago about the story of violence in America, and in it, I talked about the Founders’ worry about a standing army. And I did that because while I actually believe there's a common law right to private gun ownership in this country, I do think that's guaranteed in the United States of America, I know the real history of the construction of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment actually was written to make sure that this country could muster a militia, given the fact that our Founding Fathers were very specific about their desire for there not to be a standing army.

Now, of course, a lot has changed since the founding of this country. We now have the biggest standing army in the world. But you've spoken a lot about the conversation our Founders had, having watched the experience, having lived the experience of British monarchical rule, and they did not want a standing army specifically because they had seen how that army had been used against them and had been used throughout Europe to try to destroy the ability of people to dissent. That it was used sometimes in foreign action to defend the country and the nation or to conquer, but it was often used domestically to try to control speech and control political opposition.

And so our Founding Fathers, I think, would be watching the deployment, or the planned deployment of the US military into the streets of this country with the same kind of alarm that you are bringing to this speech overnight, because this doesn't have to do anything with public safety. This is a means to try to intimidate people into not speaking out. You've described scenes in Portland where you have the military essentially trying to provoke conflict. And they're trying to provoke conflict in part to just make it seem as if things are out of control in neighborhoods where things are not out of control, but they are also just trying to scare people into not coming out and protesting. Listen, it's absolutely understandable that an American citizen who has never engaged in political speech or political protest but thinks this moment is extraordinary and wants to raise their voice would think twice before going out onto the streets if they were potentially facing the barrel of a gun from a member of the US military. That's intimidating, and it's intended to be intimidating, and so as you've talked about our founders’ worries about how this country could fall into despotism, what do you think they would say about the use of the military today, 250 years later, to try to politically intimidate us citizens in our cities?