To maintain power, the Venezuelan government uses a separate secret police, the DGCIM, specifically to police its own military. This unit monitors, tortures, and imprisons hundreds of military officers, revealing deep internal distrust and serving as a key mechanism to prevent any organized dissent from within the armed forces.

Kasparov argues the greatest danger isn't just high-level political cronies. The critical inflection point is when a "critical mass of the second and third tier of officers of the law and bureaucrats" become loyalists. This cements authoritarian control by taking over the permanent machinery of the state itself.

The public focus of ICE is immigration, but its aggressive tactics and fascist-style imagery are primarily designed to intimidate American citizens. The goal is to cow the broader population into submission and discourage them from standing up to state power, transforming the agency into a tool of domestic political control.

The Trump administration's strategy for control isn't writing new authoritarian laws, but aggressively using latent executive authority that past administrations ignored. This demonstrates how a democracy's own structures can be turned against it without passing a single new piece of legislation, as seen with the FCC.

Authoritarian leaders like Hugo Chavez systematically dismantle democracy from within after winning elections. They replace competent individuals in the military and government with those who are absolutely loyal, destroying meritocracy to ensure the state apparatus serves the regime, not the people.

The contemporary threat to democracy isn't a violent overthrow. It's a gradual erosion of neutral institutions like courts, media, and electoral commissions by leaders who were democratically elected, a model pioneered by Hungary's Viktor Orbán.

The Trump administration uses ICE not just for immigration enforcement, but to create a de facto national police force. By framing immigration as a ubiquitous issue, they justify a federal presence anywhere, effectively turning the entire country into a "border zone" where exceptional laws can apply.

The current deployment of agencies like ICE and CBP in domestic roles creates a new, quasi-military federal entity. This is distinct in American history and occupies a middle ground between traditional law enforcement and the uniformed military, altering civil-military relations.

The fundamental shift to autocracy occurs when the legal system is no longer a neutral arbiter. Instead, it becomes an instrument of power for the leader, where legal decisions are dictated by political expediency rather than established statutes.