Well, How Did We Get Here?
These are dark, dark days. We are living under an authoritarian regime. It is not just a “shattering of norms” or an “increasing threat”. It is here. Today. Today, armed, masked, unidentifiable agents of the state are literally breaking into people’s homes, kidnapping people off the street, and shooting projectiles at peaceful protestors. Today, hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been literally disappeared, unable to be located or contacted by their loved ones and lawyers and removed from the state’s detention records. The disappeared and deported are leaving behind hundreds of now orphaned children. The majority of those being detained by the state have committed no crime. A not insignificant number are here legally, and a smaller but significant subset are even American citizens. Some of those being deported have been sent to countries where they have been tortured and even killed. The vast majority of those being detained have been racially profiled under an apparent quota system put in place by the administration.
Today we live in a lawless country. Our buffoonish President – an insurrectionist, convicted felon, and sexual predator – can, with virtually no evidence, demand and produce the prosecution of duly elected opposition political officials and bureaucrats who have offended him in the present of the past, as well as judges who rule against him. He uses the might of the US military to attack and intimidate those within the country who oppose him, with the hope of producing a violent response that will provide an excuse for him to declare even more autocratic powers. He removes those in his administration who attempt to enforce laws he dislikes and promotes those who promise to use the law as he pleases. He fires members of legally independent agencies, voids valid government contracts at will, and abuses the executive’s “emergency” powers to violate existing laws. His administration refuses to spend Congressional appropriations for policies he disdains and redirects some of those monies to policies he prefers, a direct violation of the Constitution. He essentially extorts financial interest in private companies on behalf of the state or for his own benefit. He uses state power to coerce and control positive media coverage and state resources to spread partisan political messages. His administration is committing war crimes abroad and constitutional crimes at home. Corruption is rampant, brazen, and unpunished. The President and members of his administration constantly use the powers of the state for personal gain. All of this and more is condoned by an equally lawless and corrupt Supreme Court which eviscerates decades of jurisprudence and constitutional principle with baseless “theories”, bogus “history” or, often, with no reasoning at all. With the Supreme Court in its pocket, this administration sees no problem in brazenly lying to lower courts or openly ignoring their orders.
Every day provides a new atrocity, a new assault on the foundations of civil society, a new attack on the bonds of our union. The administration intends to destroy any independent power that might dare oppose and annoy it and its cult leader, even with domestic use of US military force. Truth and objective reality are its kryptonite; conspiracism, fabrication, and gaslighting are its core foundation. Expertise is cast as elitism. It intends to make us poorer and “purer” as it rejects the promise and productivity of a pluralistic society, all the while proclaiming a return to greatness. Its policies are purely designed to immiserate those not part of its white Christian nationalist project, even if its own supporters become collateral damage, while enriching the moneyed interests that drive it. Those policies will kill hundreds of thousands around the globe and, at minimum, tens of thousands here at home.
All of this is happening with minimal opposition from our political class. The Republican party today is a culmination of decades of work by of a bunch of wealthy entitled white men were radicalized by the advancement of civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, an emerging regulatory state that minimally restrained their capitalist excesses, and the general revolt of younger voters against the status quo that occurred in the 1960s and the 1970s. The country was as close as it ever had been to its founding ideals of a truly pluralistic and democratic society, and they just couldn’t bear it. They saw these events as an existential threat to the core of American capitalism and American civil society, and they spent untold sums of money over the next half century building movements and institutions that would ensure that not only were these recent expansions of rights rolled back but also much of the New Deal and now even the Reconstruction Amendments.
Yet, by the 1990s, more than a decade of work had still not moved the culture to any significant extent. In fact, the extension of rights continued, so their answer was to destroy the system entirely. Gaining and exercising power became far more important than respecting the foundations of our democracy. Their “solution” was the Gingrich shutdowns, the Brooks Brothers riot, Tom Delay’s in-decade gerrymandering, Bush’s Iraq War lies and torture war crimes, Mitch McConnell’s egregious abuse of the filibuster and his refusal to even give a hearing to Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Trump’s attempt to overturn a lawful election, and, today, Mike Johnson’s refusal to sit a validly elected member of Congress. They seeded the courts with ideologues who gave us Bush v. Gore, the evisceration of civil and voting rights, legalized bribery, district courts where Republicans can venue shop to get legal rulings that block Democratic policies or advance constitutionally dubious Republican ones, and now presidential immunity.
The collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen morphed from being an exemplar of accountability for criminality into an excuse for a massive crime spree where you just paid the fine instead of doing the time and continued as you were. As a result, we got the Great Financial Crisis, massive mortgage and foreclosure fraud, constant corporate criminal recidivism, the tech-bro “move fast and break things” which is code for break the law and hope your product becomes so popular that law won’t come after you, and an economy reliant on AI built entirely from illegally stolen copyrighted material. With the help of the Supreme Court’s theories that money is speech and political bribery is legal, rampant corporate corruption easily bled into political corruption. Any kind of accountability became just too costly. Epstein couldn’t be prosecuted because that would embarrass too many important people. The torture war criminals couldn’t be prosecuted because that would damage US credibility. The Wall Street thieves couldn’t be prosecuted because that would further shake confidence in the financial system. The Sacklers couldn’t be prosecuted because that would implicate too many doctors, state pharmacy boards, the PBMs, and pharmacies. The techies like Uber, AirBnB, and Bitcoin that were developed specifically to ignore existing laws and regulations couldn’t be held to those requirements because they were too popular. The organizers and funders of the 1/6 insurrection couldn’t be prosecuted because that would be political and endanger the Democrats’ hopes of winning those mythical swing voters.
Today, the United States is best classified as an illiberal democracy. For years now, because of both population sorting, the precision of partisan gerrymandering, the power of political money, and the anti-democratic nature of our electoral and legislative processes, we have evolved into a managed democracy. In virtually every election at all levels, nonvoters actually outnumber those who voted for one of the two main parties. Over 90% of congressional elections are non-competitive and have been so for years. As a result, we are led by a bunch of sclerotic codgers and inside political players, mostly male, captured by moneyed interests, who are largely out of touch with and often uninterested in the people they are supposed to represent. Today’s congressional Democratic leaders, for example, apparently live in a fantasy world where Trump is someone with whom they can make deal, and the minutia of policy is the primary focus of voters. Years of conditioning have taught them not to say anything that might offend their big-money donors, obfuscate to keep the various Democratic factions happy, and chase after mythical swing voters they will never convert. As a result, everything they say sounds scripted and unauthentic. Worse, they seem totally disconnected from their own base and oblivious to the crises at hand.
We are facing multiple crises. although the worst effects of these crises have yet to be felt. The core US economy is cratering, masked by an unprecedented AI bubble which everyone knows is going to pop relatively soon. Inflation on core consumer products is rising as the impact of tariffs finally start getting passed through. Tariffs and the ICE activity are crushing farmers and raising food prices. Stagflation is coming. Next year, Trump will be able to do more than just jawbone and threaten the Fed to set interest rates as he desires; he will be able to appoint a new Fed Chairman who will do his bidding. Trump’s mercantilism is absurdly but destructively anachronistic in today’s connected world. As the economy tanks, Trump will be forced to bail out more and more of his “constituents”, requiring more and more money and further busting the budget. As Trump becomes more and more unpopular, he and his minions will respond by becoming more and more autocratic, violent, and erratic.
Longer term, things look even worse. The attacks on education and research are already starting a brain drain. The administration’s anti-immigrant policies are ensuring that the best and the brightest from around the world not only don’t want to come here for education and research but also no longer see the US as a safe haven when they are forced to become refugees from their own country. The number of health and food deserts is rapidly increasing, and this administration is ensuring that our communal resistance to chronic and new highly contagious diseases is reduced. DOGE, the administration’s illegal impoundments and firings, and the revocation of union contracts is already severely hampering state capacity across all levels of government. As the rest of world rapidly transitions to renewable energy, the administration is locking us into more expensive fossil fuels with prices being driven even higher because of the AI bubble. Even if Dems regain power in 2028, does anyone really believe that this lost state capacity, that our global leadership position in science and health, that the near unconditional support of our allies, will ever be restored, especially when facing a decimated economy and trillions of new debt added by Trump and the GOP. The “American Century” is over.
The larger issue, of course, is that our constitutional system is also over. The original Constitution and its updates with the Reconstruction Amendments, the New Deal, the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, and Watergate reforms were designed to prevent a Trump from emerging. It has failed. There is no separation of powers or rule of law when the President has immunity from criminal prosecution. The only thing remaining that prevents a president from constantly pushing the institutional and legal boundaries of his power is conviction of impeachment, a threshold that is virtually impossible to meet especially when one of the two main parties is fully on board with the fascist project and is willing to ignore the rules and laws as it sees fit. Combine that with the President’s unrestricted pardon power, it further incentivizes administration officials to engage in criminality on his/her behalf in the belief (or hope) that they will be protected.
The Supreme Court has turned the Constitution on its head. The First Amendment provides the right to discriminate; the Second, to turn the country into a killing zone; the Fourth, eviscerated by Kavanaugh stops and warrantless ICE raids; the Fifth, abrogated by civil asset forfeiture; the Eighth mooted by the death penalty and solitary confinement. The numerous veto points for the minority, the demands of modern governance, and the weak defense of its own institutional power led Congress to delegate many of its powers to the executive branch and have subsequently rendered it almost impotent and, sadly, irrelevant. In the rare occasions when Congress does act – campaign finance reform, Voting Rights Act renewal, the ACA, etc. – the Supreme Court eviscerates its decisions. The irony is that Congress, originally designed as the best representative of the people and therefore given the most power, is now the least powerful branch in government. The existing constitutional system allows for a minority of voters to elect a president, for Senators representing a minority of voters to control the Senate, for Presidents who originally won elections with a minority of votes to appoint the majority of the Supreme Court. The Constitution and its institutions have failed our democracy.
Again, the longer term outlook is exceedingly grim. Just ponder the destruction the administration has unleashed already and realize there is three-plus more years of this. The history of Trumpism shows that as the administration’s popularity sinks, it will be even more determined to double down and become more violent, more fascistic. Right now, it is almost a given that the administration will interfere in the 2026 election. The spate in GOP efforts to implement more in-decade redistricting is just the first act in that process. And even if Democrats win the House, can we count on Mike Johnson actually allowing the new Democrats to be seated? After all, he is refusing to seat a current a validly elected Democrat today simply to prevent a vote on releasing the Epstein files. And, assuming Democrats control the House in 2027, are they seriously going to be able to restrain this administration which has shown its willingness to simply ignore Congressional laws and appropriations. How much further will this administration get in consolidating autocratic power by 2028? They are already floating the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act and calling even judges “terrorists”. And, if he is still alive, does anyone doubt Trump will run again in 2028 and refuse to leave if he loses? Beyond that, assuming Democrats do win in 2028, are we really expecting the new Dem president to give up all these new powers the office has accrued under Trump? The lawyers will be whispering in his/her ear about maintaining executive power; the base will be demanding accountability and even retribution; and Congress will still probably be as dysfunctional as ever, even if the filibuster is killed. The Supreme Court may reverse itself and restrain the new President simply because he’s a Democrat, but that will certainly be the final nail in its coffin for credibility and increase demands from the base to simply ignore their rulings, ironically making the country more autocratic.
There is no court ruling, no one election, no fever that is going to break that will save us from increasing autocratic rule. There are plenty of opportunities and options to slow that process down (some of which I hope to outline in an upcoming piece). But the reality is that history has shown that the only way to end autocratic rule is through a mass uprising of the people. While we do see some real stirrings, we are nowhere close to that today.