Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Anthony Anderson welcomed the left’s favorite election denier, Stacey Abrams, to ABC on Monday to promote her new book but also to spread a new election conspiracy theory that alleges President Trump is following the ten steps to autocracy that people like Vladimir Putin have also done to ultimately cancel elections. However, Abrams’s evidence was as nonsensical as it was outrageous.
Anderson put the ball on the tee, “Stop stupid or slow it down, brings me to my next question. Over the weekend you went viral for laying out ten steps to autocracy. Run us through those steps so we all know.”
Abrams began by trying to make analogies, “Okay, so this happens in every nation that has become an autocracy, having been a democracy. So whether we're talking about Brazil with Bolsonaro, or India, or Putin and Russia, the Philippines with Duterte, so start with winning an election. Usually the last one you're going to get to have for real.”
Bolsonaro was replaced by a left-wing socialist, while Duterte was replaced by a pro-American alternative, so their elections were not the last. Meanwhile, Abrams’s preferred Indian candidates losing does not mean democracy is over, and Putin murders his opponents, so he isn’t the best person to try to use as a comparison for Trump.
Nevertheless, Abrams continued, “Number two, you have an expansion of executive power. The president decides he wants more than he is supposed to have. Number three, you start to make the Congress complicit. So, you weaken them, and you neutralize or neuter the judiciary, like, oh, I don't know, the Supreme Court is giving you unfettered power and saying, ‘We don't have the ability to stop things.’"
Fact-check: The Supreme Court did not say that. They made a ruling on nationwide injunctions, but they still have the power to declare presidential acts unlawful.
Moving on, Abrams claimed the unelected bureaucracy is the epitome of democracy, “Then you move on to firing all the people who know how to make government work. So you gut the civil service. And you do that because you want to break democracy so people forget the stuff that used to get done, so you can't get your Social Security checks.”
Abrams also acted as if Trump was the first president ever to want loyalty out of his cabinet members, “Then you put in place these loyalists, people who are only responsive to you. You put them in charge of the FBI, so they go after your enemies. You put them in charge of the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense so they can signal to their friends and tell them all about the evil plans that you have.”
She also alleged, “You criticize the media, and you create your own echo chamber of propaganda. You call it truth even though you know you're lying.”
Continuing with her theme that she is democracy personified, Abrams went to bat for DEI, “Then you go to the next step, and I call that step seven. It's at step seven you have to blame someone. You have to blame someone for the broken government, for the broken promises. So, you go after DEI. You go after the vulnerable, the disposed, you go after any community that didn't look like what you think power should be.”
Furhter on, Abrams again acted like history began yesterday, “You get to step nine and you start to encourage and incentivize private violence. You send the U.S. Marines into spaces they should not be. You send the National Guard in. You kidnap people off of the streets and pretend that's normal, because that's how you quiet dissent, because you make everyone afraid that if they don't do what you want, they might be next.”
Finally, she brought things full circle, “And once you've done those nine steps, step ten is easy. That's when you decide there won't be new elections because everyone is either afraid, poor, broken, or complicit.”
It’s ironic; in one week, Major League Baseball will hold its All-Star Game in Atlanta after previously yanking the game from the city in 2021 because people like Abrams, who spread conspiracies about her 2018 gubernatorial loss, lied when they said Georgia’s new election law was an exercise in voter suppression. Now, Abrams has moved on from allegations of suppression to cancelation, but a conspiracy theorist who claims to have discovered a new conspiracy is still just a conspiracy theorist.
Here is a transcript for the July 7-taped show:
ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!
7/8/2025
12:23 AM ET
ANTHONY ANDERSON: Well, you know, stop stupid or slow it down, brings me to my next question. Over the weekend you went viral for laying out ten steps to autocracy. Run us through those steps so we all know.
STACEY ABRAMS: Okay, so this happens in every nation that has become an autocracy, having been a democracy. So whether we're talking about Brazil with Bolsonaro, or India, or Putin and Russia, the Philippines with Duterte, so start with winning an election.
ANDERSON: Uh-huh.
ABRAMS: Usually the last one you're going to get to have for real. Number two, you have an expansion of executive power. The president decides he wants more than he is supposed to have. Number three, you start to make the Congress complicit. So, you weaken them, and you neutralize or neuter the judiciary, like, oh, I don't know, the Supreme Court is giving you unfettered power and saying, "We don't have the ability to stop things."
Then you move on to firing all the people who know how to make government work. So you gut the civil service. And you do that because you want to break democracy so people forget the stuff that used to get done, so you can't get your Social Security checks. So, the CDC doesn't know what diseases are anymore.
Then you put in place these loyalists, people who are only responsive to you. You put them in charge of the FBI, so they go after your enemies. You put them in charge of the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense so they can signal to their friends and tell them all about the evil plans that you have. Then you make certain that you break how we communicate.
So, you criticize the media, and you create your own echo chamber of propaganda. You call it truth even though you know you're lying. Then you go to the next step, and I call that step seven. It's at step seven you have to blame someone. You have to blame someone for the broken government, for the broken promises. So, you go after DEI. You go after the vulnerable, the disposed, you go after any community that didn't look like what you think power should be.
While you're doing that you make certain that you, in step eight, you eliminate anybody that can help them. So, you sue law firms that do pro bono cases. You go after philanthropies and accuse them of giving money to the wrong people.
You go after colleges and universities that can teach people what possibly what else they should know.
You get to step nine and you start to encourage and incentivize private violence. You send the U.S. Marines into spaces they should not be. You send the National Guard in. You kidnap people off of the streets and pretend that's normal, because that's how you quiet dissent, because you make everyone afraid that if they don't do what you want, they might be next. And once you've done those nine steps, step ten is easy. That's when you decide there won't be new elections because everyone is either afraid, poor, broken, or complicit.
