It’s tough to pinpoint the very first person to call Donald Trump a dictator, as the label has been thrown around by various critics over time, often in heated political rhetoric. The idea gained traction during his 2016 campaign and presidency, fueled by his brash style, admiration for strongman leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, and statements that some interpreted as authoritarian. One of the earliest notable instances came from political opponents and commentators who seized on his campaign promises—like banning Muslims from entering the U.S. or attacking the press as "the enemy of the people"—as evidence of dictatorial tendencies.
A specific early voice was former Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who later became a vocal Trump critic. By December 2023, she warned on CBS that Trump’s actions and rhetoric posed a “very real threat” of dictatorship, though she wasn’t the first to use the term. Before that, during the 2016 campaign, some Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans—like those writing for outlets like Foreign Policy in 2020—flagged his “dictatorial proclivities” based on his disdain for norms and praise for autocrats.
The phrase got a major boost when Trump himself jokingly said in a December 2023 Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity that he’d be a dictator “only on Day One” to close the border and drill for oil. Critics like the Biden campaign latched onto it, with manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez saying that night, “He will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him.” But the sentiment predates that moment—think pieces and warnings from scholars like Timothy Snyder in On Tyranny (2017) had already framed Trump as a potential tyrant based on his behavior.
So, no single “first” person owns the claim—it’s more a chorus that grew louder over time, starting with his 2016 run and crystallizing with his own words in 2023. Who do you think might have sparked it in your circles?
