Despite doubt and denial, authoritarianism accelerates in the United States

Good afternoon from Washington, where I‘m making sense of what's happening to the country I love and the institutions I venerate during the second Trump administration. As always, thank you for subscribing. If you find these newsletters useful, please share. I expect you to hold me accountable for getting both right. I remain my own editor at present, but you all are my bulwark against errors of fact or omission.

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An authoritarian transition accelerates across America

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that people must be afforded due process in the United States, which was cold comfort for the Venezuelan nationals who had been deported without it, including a man mistakenly removed. The rule of law continues to be under the greatest threat in my lifetime, with fundamental human rights and civil liberties in question.

Last week, immigration court ruled a legal permanent resident could be deported from the U.S. — despite not breaking any laws. The ACLU says they’ll appeal. No evidence introduced but Khalil’s speech, which Secretary Rubio claimed has “adverse foreign policy consequences.”

In January 1933, President Roosevelt summoned Congress into a 3-month special session. Congress then passed 77 laws in his first 100 days in office: 16 major bills. 

Trump has now signed 5 minor bills into law in his first 84 days, despite the GOP controlling both chambers in the 119th Congress, including a continuing resolution to keep our government operating.

No other administration in modern American history has controlled the White House, Senate, and House and yet failed to enact signature bills at the height of a new presidency’s power. 

That relative lack of legislative productivity reflects Trump’s thin electoral coattails and slim margins, contrary to his lies of a “landslide” or sweeping mandate. He is a weak strongman, despite state social propaganda of virility and toxic masculinity like Franco and Mussolini.

Instead, he's taken aggressive executive action, usurping Congressional powers through impoundment and "DOGE'ing" agencies. The flood of executive orders has slowed, but litigation in response has not. That tsunami of executive action is now running into a litigious society. While major law firms are bending the knee, there are millions of lawyers and an independent judiciary full of judges who don’t want to lose their lifetime seats or legal licenses.

But as the executive branch defies court orders, this constitutional crisis will escalate. Trump is behaving in unconstitutional & illegal ways, unchecked by his party, but has not been enacting lasting changes to our laws — yet. This week, the House passed a regressive voting bill that would disenfranchise millions of Americans if it passes the Senate.

I don’t mean to discount the generational damage Trump and Elon Musk are doing to the civil service, our government agencies, our union, & the world. It’s awful. It’s only that these first months could have been even darker. 

That said, Trump is purging military leaders, watchdogs, and civil servants across agencies and installing loyalists. It’s the authoritarian power grab I warned you about months ago.

As he’s consolidated power and removed internal constraints and watchdogs, Trump is increasingly turning outward to abuse state power to persecute and even prosecute his political opponents.

As the New York Times reported, Trump crossed a Rubicon on Wednesday.

Flanked by senior aides and cabinet secretaries, the president signed presidential memos that singled out two officials from his first term who had either defied or simply contradicted him. In a clear escalation, he directed the government to examine their actions for any criminal wrongdoing.

This will get much worse before it gets better.

Trump’s short political honeymoon is now long over, however, checked by markets that have reacted badly to the prospect of a global trade war. He's now reversed positions on tariffs more often than a weathervane in a hurricane.

Indiscriminate firings and cuts will keep affecting Republican families and local economies across the country. His popularity is dropping, as tariffs roil global markets.

That distributed and collective economic impact may finally awake a sleeping giant, should the impact of tariffs increase the cost of living for all Americans.

It's likely they will disproportionately affect working class voters, however, many of whom believed Trump’s promises about reducing their grocery and energy bills. While the following graphic is over a decade old and accompanying story is dated, the underlying trends continue.

An inbound economic crisis would further test every elected leader across the nation. If it comes, Congress could and should be acting to mitigate the cost-of-living increase for working-class Americans from tariffs, including:
-Targeted tax credits for families
-Subsidies for food, housing, & energy
-Wage support
-Temporary price caps on critical goods & rebates for affected purchases (e.g., a voucher for auto parts)

There is no sign of such relief happening, at present, but stay tuned.

In the interim, it's time to build out your threat model.

Julia Angwin's reflections on a threat model for opposing authoritarianism: are an excellent preface for her New Yorker article on being a dissident. Both are worth your time.

Remember: Courage is contagious.

Keep hope alive. Clean-up your digital footprint. Don’t give authorities legal excuses. Compartmentalize your life. Find community and build resilience.

The gathering storm in American prisons and beyond

The Trump administration's efforts to detain and deport non-citizens has done more to educate Americans about immigration law than the Constitution Annotated. What's coming next will challenge us more, if the Trump administration moves forward with denaturalizing American citizens.

As Sherrylin Ifill wrote this weekend, the fundamental rights of Americans in prison are about to be challenged.

American prisoners are American citizens. Their citizenship is not shed at the jailhouse door. They are not pawns to be shuffled about the world to far-flung prisons as part of Stephen Miller’s latest fever dream. They have rights under our Constitution – rights that cannot be stripped away at the whim of an authoritarian president. And we should remember that how a nation treats its prisoners is as powerful an indicator of its democratic health as any election.

Folks keep focusing on European fascists & fascism, but American fascism rose long ago.

It’s harder for US media to recognize when it came wrapped in a flag & bearing a cross, preaching faith, family, & hyper-patriotism, but far-right ultranationalism is surging. That's why reading the foreign press is crucial, along with independent voices willing to accurately describe what's happening in our nation.

DOGE :: Cybertruck

The U.S. DOGE Service is the Cybertruck of government organizations. They share a futuristic image, overpromising vs under-delivering, cost more than claimed, operate in secrecy, are politically polarizing, have been subject to multiple recalls, hostile to regulators, and are led by a chaotic narcissist.

The Cybertruck appears to be selling worse than Edsel. Ford sold ~63,000 Edsels in 1958. Tesla sold ~40,000 Cybertrucks in 2024. Sales volume in 2025 may be falling, per Forbes. Doing “zero market research whatsoever” on what truck drivers want and need was not a genius move.

Tesla could have embraced unions & partnered with the Biden administration on a nationwide charging network, focusing on delivering an electric pickup truck & a budget compact car rural & urban Americans would both covet & adore.

Nope. TBD if robotaxis ever show up.

The U.S. DOGE Service could have kept 18F & Digital Service staff, backed them with far more political capital, claimed credit for rolling out services that surprise & delight Americans, & gone all-in on modernizing legacy systems & partnering with inspectors general & GAO to find fraud & waste.

Nope.

There is no doge.gov/About page. No /FOIA. No public information officer. No calendars. No visitor logs. No list of staff. No asset disclosures, or ethics agreements. No weekly press conferences. No open meetings. No advisory committee.

The U.S. DOGE Service is not even close to the “most transparent organization in government ever," contrary to Musk's repeated false claims. Instead, it operates in "unusual secrecy," as Reuters reports.

We'll know more about the truths and falsehoods around both vehicle and organization by the end of 2025, though the General Accountability Office's audit of DOGE may come later.

Disclosure isn't enough: Congress should ban stock trading

There are once again suspicions of insider trading in Congress and the Trump administration during the historic yo-yoing of the stock market.

The vast majority of the American people support an outright Congressional trading stock ban. So do many Members of Congress.

Despite the calls of good governance organizations, Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t restore public trust by enacting one in 2022 or 2023, when they held power.

Former President Biden supported a Congressional stock trading ban – but only as a lame duck, on his way out of office. It was a historic mistake. Senator Elizabeth Warren was right, again.

Congress should require Senators and Representatives to disclose their income & divest from conflicts of interest in office, avoiding even the appearance of corruption. A blind trust is one approach. This has only become more acute with cryptocurrency.

In my view, a ban doesn't go far enough. Transparency isn’t enough, especially delayed. While the STOCK Act requires financial disclosures, most Members don't disclose tax returns.

Disclosing assets and income and divesting from conflicts of interest should be table stakes for Presidents, Cabinet Secretaries, Members of Congress, and federal judges and justices.

X does not mark the spot for exclusive government communications

Social Security moving communications exclusively to X should be a non-starter.Official U.S. government communications should always be cross-posted in an accessible format to a .gov website. No American should ever have to sign up for a commercial service nor agree to its Terms of Service to read public laws, court rulings, orders, or other edicts of government. (This is also true in other nations!)

I support government officials and federal, state, and local agencies cross-posting across social media services to reach all Americans where we are, no matter our ideological views, but it is wrong to only disclose official records on one service, much less one whose owner bans citizens & doesn’t care about accessibility.

I'm glad Kate Conger covered the emergence of X as state social media, but there’s a missing angle: how much more is the U.S. government now paying X for increased use of Organizations, Affiliate accounts, including both parties in Congress, & spending on advertising?

Cast ballots, never bullets

Vandalism isn’t protected speech.

Arson isn’t lawful protest.

Vandalizing cars or burning trucks isn’t terrorism.

Assaulting Metropolitan Police and Capitol Police officers to obstruct the certification of votes & transfer of power wasn’t “legitimate political discourse.”

Arson is not protected speech.

Arson with a family inside is attempted murder.

Arson in a Jewish household on the first night of Passover is a hate crime.

There must be no room for political violence in the USA, no matter the target.

Cast ballots, never bullets. Don't boo: vote.