159: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Border Emergency

Democracy as Spectacle

The border is not just a line on a map. It's a screen. A projection. A ritual site where state power is performed, and democracy is hollowed out beneath the floodlights of cable news and drone surveillance.

The Trump regime’s so-called “border emergency” is not a response to a crisis. It is the crisis. Or more accurately, it is a performance of crisis—an engineered state of exception designed to normalize authoritarianism under the aesthetic of control.

As Sonja Wolf has shown in her work on El Salvador, authoritarian regimes that still hold elections—what scholars call electoral authoritarianism—thrive on theatre and spectacle. They use the form of democracy (elections, debates, courts) while gutting its substance (accountability, pluralism, rights). The U.S. is now on that path, and the southern border is where the mask slips.

The Border as a Political Laboratory

What we are seeing is the transformation of the U.S.-Mexico border into a zone of experimental governance, where constitutional norms are suspended, and surveillance capitalism merges with nationalist ideology.

In the name of “national security,” Trump has authorized sweeping AI-driven vetting of immigrants, visitors, and asylum seekers—scraping their social media accounts, private messages, digital footprints, and even biometric profiles. The Department of Homeland Security now runs predictive risk assessments on prospective entrants, assigning threat scores based on opaque algorithms that profile behavior, language, and networks.

This system is riddled with false positives. Posts taken out of context. Friends of friends flagged by association. Activists misclassified as extremists. But there is no recourse, no transparency, and no clear path to appeal. The border is where your rights disappear.

And it’s not just non-citizens. Americans with family abroad, dual citizens, or those who travel frequently are also being caught in this expanding dragnet. The border zone is becoming a perimeter of exception, where AI judges your politics, and intention is criminalized by inference.

This is not law enforcement. It’s a prototype for authoritarian rule, beta-tested on the most vulnerable.

The Symbolism of the Border

The border is less about protection than projection. It is a stage for the performance of control—a place where the state can appear decisive, even as it fails to solve real problems.

This is where Wolf’s insights are most prescient. In electoral authoritarian regimes, symbolic action substitutes for effective governance. The wall, the uniforms, the emergency declarations, the choreographed arrests—all of it is content. It feeds the outrage economy. It commands airtime. It floods social media with images of strength.

The point is not to stop migration. The point is to signal domination. To produce a steady stream of symbolic victories that reinforce the regime’s authority, regardless of reality.

The fentanyl crisis, though part of this script, is increasingly seen as a hollow justification—a thin veneer that collapses under scrutiny. What matters more is the imagery: drones scanning desert crossings, agents on horseback, high-tech monitoring towers, press conferences framed by razor wire.

This spectacle would not function without media complicity. Legacy outlets and cable news stations frame the crisis on the regime’s terms, treating border militarization as a legitimate policy debate rather than the erosion of civil liberties. Even critical coverage often accepts the framing of migration as a threat, reinforcing the logic of emergency.

Journalists report on AI surveillance tools as if they’re neutral innovations. They ask how well the technology works, not whether it should exist. The border becomes a content generator, not a human rights crisis.

The result is a narrative consensus: that migration is chaos, that the state must restore order, and that those who question this are naïve or dangerous. This is how electoral authoritarianism spreads—not through censorship, but through manufactured consent. Not by banning dissent, but by drowning it in drama.

Elections as Ritual, Not Remedy

Trump’s second presidency is not post-democratic. It’s hyper-democratic—awash in referenda, rallies, media debates, and polls. But these forms no longer serve to constrain power. They legitimize it.

Sonja Wolf warned that the greatest danger isn’t the collapse of elections—it’s their weaponization. When people vote out of fear, when policies are shaped by spectacle, and when the border becomes a symbol of civilization under siege, democracy becomes a set piece in an authoritarian play.

This is where we are. The border is the opening act. The judiciary leads Act two.