Historic Moment, Decisive Choice

One central theme of American history has been the struggle against coercive control and unequal political representation. The American Revolution was themed around resistance to an arbitrary king. The nation united against colonial status and for independence. Less than a century later, the nation was engulfed in the Civil War over whether or not some inhabitants of the nation could be free citizens while others were chattel slaves. In that moment too, we decided against coercive control and for equality. But as historians point out, these moments have legacies, and the legacy of the Civil War continues to haunt the nation. An equally portentous choice faces the nation now: whether political power should be broadly distributed through our social institutions or closely held by a small, national governing elite. Whatever choice is made now is likely to have a comparably far-reaching legacy.

High-Control Organization

One way that social scientists conceptualize centralized power is as a “high-control organization.” If we understand the federal government as simply a very large organization, one important question is to what degree the power it wields should be centralized or decentralized. Since the 2024 elections, President Donald Trump’s administration has openly pursued expansion and consolidation of executive authority. That is, to create a high-control organization.

There are numerous high-control organizations in American society that are accepted as legitimate where they are understood to serve an important public purpose, but they have stipulated boundaries and are subject to regulation. Prisons, custodial mental hospitals, and armed forces boot camps are regulated by the state.  Cloistered convents and monasteries, missionary groups, and many fundamentalist religious organizations operate under duly constituted religious authority. However, the challenges posed by high-control organizations are evident from the numerous cases where these organizations violate their boundaries: political oligarchies, monopolistic or criminogenic corporations, theocratic and cultic religions, dysfunctional and abusive families. One way that sociologists have described these latter high-control organizations is as “greedy institutions,” because they have expanded their power to become pressing social problems in their own right.

Constructing High-Control

Social science research on a broad range of high-control groups paints remarkably similar portraits of them. They are usually organized around a compelling leader and a small group of acolytes who undertake a predictable agenda. The ultimate objective is to eliminate any competing sources of authority and channel sole decision-making authority to the leadership circle.

They convert lower-ranking sectors within the organization into proxies that become simply extensions of leadership power. They appropriate the previously independent authority of external groups that could be sources of resistance. They progressively test boundaries as they accrue power. Successes in the monopolization of power serve to discourage opposition elsewhere and normalize wrongdoing.

The leaders’ life histories and accomplishments are burnished to create an aura of unparalleled ability and insight. Honorific rituals are constructed at which subordinates profess loyalty and pay homage to leadership. The leaders themselves engage in dominance performances, such as sweeping rhetorical proclamations, comparing themselves to other heroic figures in history, demanding ever-increasing personal loyalty, and summarily announcing radical changes in direction.

The trajectory of the Trump administration closely mirrors this profile. The President has openly pursued a program ofexpanded personal and presidential power. The independence of mainstream institutions, such as law firms, universities, museums, and local election boards has been compromised by civil suits, executive orders, and defunding decisions. Congressional oversight has been muted, and multiple federal agencies (FBI, IRS, CIA) have been reorganized to serve presidential priorities.

President Trump’s persona has been elevated by his allies as the ultimate dealmaker, a master of three-dimensional chess, the greatest president in American history, and even as a Jesus-like figure. Trump himself has increasingly engaged in dominance performance displays such as military incursions, expansive international trade tariffs, sweeping executive orders, and voting restriction initiatives. He creates a visible public presence by placing his name and image on buildings, currency, and passports. He headlines MAGA rallies, and cabinet meetings have become loyalty rituals. He has hinted at running for a constitutionally prohibited “fourth presidential term.” He has even mobilized what resembles a privately controlled military force to enforce his initiatives. This set of high-control organization characteristics exemplifies what is popularly referred to by the term “cult,” a less precise term that nonetheless captures a sense of danger.

America 2026 (and 2028?)

One vision of America commenced a half century ago when the nation began moving, albeit haltingly, toward restraining corporate power, reducing wealth inequality, creating basic safety net protections for all citizens, protecting “certain inalienable rights,” welcoming properly vetted immigrants as new citizens, and partnering in the emerging international community. Indeed, the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, in particular, were populated with a broad range of social movements (anti-war and anti-nuclear proliferation, women’s rights, minority rights, environmental protection, workers’ rights, and gay liberation). The result was that power and wealth were decentralized nationally and internationally.

The Trump administration has been rapidly building an alternative vision modeled after other high-control organizations. Its alternative vision is that the existing system of government has failed to deliver for America and Americans. The nation is in crisis; America’s greatness has been lost. What is needed urgently and immediately, then, is a dramatic course correction that confers on a uniquely qualified leadership the authority to determine what is best for the nation and its citizens. Only the leadership circle truly understands that what will Make America Great Again is liberating corporate leaders from excessive regulation, expanding individual choice by privatizing public services, freeing ordinary American families from government overreach, reasserting the rights of the predominantly white and Christian founders of the nation, and asserting national over international interests. The vision is to place power in the hands of those who are able and willing to assume the mandate to return America to its authentic roots. Some of the more extreme versions of this vision include elements of fascism.

As the 2026 (and 2028?) elections approach, the central question facing the electorate is which of the two very different directions to choose. Not since the Civil War has the prospect of government functioning as a high-control organization been as potentially imminent as it is now. The evidence from other nations that have been experimenting with high-control organizations is remarkably consistent. And it mirrors the American experience with unregulated high-control organizations. High-control organizations promise, and may deliver, stability, but they come at a price. Highly centralized power leads to deeper social divisions, disempowerment of the larger population, wealth inequality, and a definition of opposition as disloyalty. It is therefore important to pause and carefully consider future-shaping decisions based on pronouncements of crisis, for far-reaching consequences will surely follow. One major dimension of American history writ large has been a struggle with the question of in whose hands power should reside. The outcome of the choice now facing the nation will be the next chapter in that history.