A 14-MONTH-LONG CAT-5 HURRICANE

 

Donald J. Trump has done more during the first fourteen months of his second term as president to undermine, and indeed, destroy the reputation, standing and integrity of the United States than any other phenomenon in American history.

I make this statement advisedly, because the US Civil War was indeed the greatest tragedy in American history. But it was also one of the nation’s greatest triumphs, reuniting the country as one, ending the scourge of slavery, reestablishing the rule of law, and, despite decades of hardships and challenges that were to follow, moving the country gradually toward ever greater equality and social order. Donald Trump has, on the contrary, even backtracked on much of that progress, by systematically seeking to turn the clock back to a pre-Civil Rights Era racist mentality—floating the elements of “manifest destiny” and of replacement-theory politics—and to a time when women were considered second-class citizens.

America's domestic essence and international reputation have been founded, historically, not on “power”, but on strength, the international strength of representing Western democratic ideals and of standing against aggression, and the domestic values of upholding free and fair elections, the strict rule of law, and the stability of peaceful transfers of power from one administration to the next.

While Trump’s first term in office tested all of these healthy and honorable traditions and principles to the limit, the liberal democratic system managed to endure. And the system prevailed despite scant effort on the part of the Republican Party, corrupted and hijacked by the Trump phenomenon, which, even after the fact, purged the most honorable of its members, who had demonstrated their devotion to political rectitude, and to the values of nation over political affiliation.

Incomprehensibly re-elected, however, by a slim popular margin in 2024, Trump has taken his second term as a mandate to completely dismantle the constitutional system that he repeatedly assaulted without final success during his first four years from 2016 to 2020. I have often compared Trump to “a bull in a china shop” when it comes to the Constitution, civil rights, the rule of law, and plain common decency. But in his second term, this metaphor has fallen short. The past fourteen and a half months have indeed been more like a prolonged and unabated category five hurricane in terms of the devastation wrought by Trump in the areas of constitutionality, democratic health, ethical traditions, civil rights, American culture, and the international standing of the United States on the domestic and global stage.

Since Day One of his second term starting on January 20^th, 2025, Trump has, with the aid of his unqualified but sycophantic picks for key posts in the Department of Justice, intelligence and law enforcement, systematically weaponized federal power against any and all opposition to his absolute power, not merely blurring, but basically obliterating the once sharp line between democracy and political retribution. He has underscored this corruption of American justice by making public attacks on judges, juries and the courts—including the Supreme Court—thus diluting confidence in American judicial independence, once the cornerstone of America’s credibility both at home and abroad.

The impact of this is a fast-growing perception of the US as an increasingly authoritarian regime in which once democratic institutions now serve power rather than constraining it.

Along these lines, a hallmark of this second term to date has been the gross use of government agencies for political ends. Immigration enforcement—something nearly all sides agree must improve, but which the majority of Americans agree must be carried out within the confines of the rule of law—has been particularly affected, expanding in ways that are blatantly illegal, unconstitutional, patently violent, and in frank violation of civil rights granted to citizens and foreigners alike under the Constitution.

“Immigration concerns” have also been used by the second Trump administration as an excuse to literally invade major cities and states governed by his political opponents, creating a personal army of thousands of federally-immune government agents as a shock force to attempt to intimidate dissent based on states’ rights. Congressional criticism—even among a handful of members of Congress from Trump’s own party—point to widespread concern over the Trump regime’s lawlessness and complete indifference to civil rights.

Trump has also openly pressured or publicly discredited both intelligence and law enforcement agencies whenever their findings point to credible reports of wrongdoing on his part or on the part of his friends and cronies, or when such findings conflict with his political or personal goals. Hundreds of law enforcement and  intelligence agents—three hundred in the FBI alone—many of them highly experienced experts in investigation, counter-terrorism, espionage, etc., have been unceremoniously sacked because of previously having been involved in probes into the Epstein files, or in Jack Smith’s inquiry into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and into his attempts to manipulate and overturn the 2020 elections. And more than three thousand prosecutors, investigators and staffers have been forced out of the DOJ for similar reasons.

This last, the savaging of the DOJ and federal law enforcement, has significantly weakened America’s ability to defend itself against its enemies, both foreign and domestic. And Trump has doubled down on debilitating the US by replacing some key officials in this area with individuals who have no qualified experience whatsoever. The naming of Kash Patel to head the FBI is a blatant enough example of placing highly trained agents under the command of a clueless sycophant—as was the stint of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

But an even greater and almost ludicrous example of this sort of surreally sycophantic restaffing of the State is that of Thomas Fugate III, appointed to head the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3)—a division of the Department of Homeland Security charged with combating domestic terrorism and targeted violence.

The man Fugate replaced was Bill Braniff. Braniff was an Army veteran with more than two decades of national security experience. Prior to heading up CP3 during the second half of the Biden administration and the first three months of the Trump regime, Braniff had been director of the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism—in other words, a consummate professional and expert. On leaving DHS, Braniff joined the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at the American University.

Fugate, for his part, prior to his appointment as the head of CP3, was working in 2022 as a cashier in a supermarket, then later was a staffer in the far-right Heritage Foundation. His only other qualification for the DHS appointment was apparently his being a self-described “Trumplican”, and having volunteered as a GOP campaign organizer.

All of this undermines the United States’ reputation as a neutral rule-of-law state, and aligns it with the sort of governments—Putin’s Russia and Orbán’s Hungary, for instance, as well as tinpot dictatorships in third world nations—that the US has historically criticized and condemned.

In line with all of this, both in his first term, and, to an even greater extent, in his second, Trump has normalized hate speech, while systematically dismantling through State action most of the  progress made since the Civil Rights Era in terms of diversity, equality and inclusion—positive values in modern civilized society but perceived by the Trump regime as negative terms that undermine MAGA’s most cherished white-supremacist principles (manifest destiny and the myth of “reverse racism”).  Trump’s rhetoric, on the whole, is reckless, disdainful and inflammatory. But it is particularly contemptuous when it comes to immigrants, political opponents, and international institutions.

Add to that his most recent attack on the Supreme Court for refusing to allow his regime to decide who, born on US soil, can be a citizen and who can’t. The Fourteenth Amendment clearly states that if you are born in the US, you are an American citizen, period. And that was the interpretation, even of the three far-right justices Trump named to the Court during his first term. Trump is now calling the three of them “stupid”, and has suggested that if they are on  the Court thanks to him, they should be grateful and always rule in his favor, no matter how outlandish the request might be. Someone should probably tell him, perhaps, that justices are bound to rule in accordance with the law,  not in harmony with the president. But then, who’s going to tell him? His lapdog sycophants in the DOJ?

Trump’s effect on political and social rhetoric has been so all-pervasive that he has managed to normalize language once considered a violation of democratic norms. He has persuaded his most loyal followers that it is now okay to employ the racial slurs they had been inhibited from using in good company by liberal democratic norms in the post-Civil Right Era. He has made it okay in certain circles to sneer at political correctness, to insult those one considers different, or as representative of “the others”, to reject, offend and ostracize people who failed to fit the framework of MAGA, and so on.

A recent example that pretty much says it all was Trump’s comment on the death last month of Robert Mueller. When learning of Mueller’s death at eighty-one, Trump could think of nothing more proper to say than, “Good. I’m glad he’s dead.”

It is worthwhile recalling who Robert Mueller was and why that makes Trump’s vile statement all the more egregious. Even as far back as the late sixties, before he had reached his mid-twenties, Robert Mueller was heroically serving his country. Born into privilege like Donald Trump, Mueller, much to the contrary of Trump—who comes from a long line of service-shirkers, and describes America’s dead heroes as “suckers and losers”—joined the Marines after receiving a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a post-graduate degree in international relations from New York University.

It is worthwhile remembering that there was still obligatory conscription during that war and that Donald Trump was eligible for it, but managed to acquire four temporary deferments from serving, and finally, a fifth permanent rejection which alleged he had bone spurs in his heels that rendered him physically inept.

After completing Officer Candidate School and being commissioned as a second lieutenant, Mueller went to the Army’s Ranger School. Marine officers frequently trained with the Rangers for experience leading long-range reconnaissance patrols—often search-and-destroy missions with a high casualty rate. He was placed with a Marine combat company in South Vietnam near enemy lines

It was on this first tour as a young second lieutenant that Mueller won a Bronze Star for valor. It was on December 11, 1968, while leading a Marine rifle platoon on patrol in Quang Tri Province that Mueller and his men fell victims to an ambush by Vietcong armed with grenade-launchers, machine guns, mortars and small arms. The citation issued with his Bronze Star said that he  “personally led a fire team across the fire-swept area terrain to recover a mortally wounded Marine,” while it commended his “courage, aggressive initiative and unwavering devotion to duty at great personal risk.” Four months later, he would win a Purple Heart for taking an AK-47 assault rifle slug through the thigh while leading his platoon on a mission to rescue US soldiers pinned down under  another lethal Vietcong attack.

After leaving Vietnam, Mueller attended the University of Virginia where he completed his law degree by 1973. Three years later, he was already a federal prosecutor in San Francisco. And in a meteoric rise of a few short years was chief prosecutor for the criminal division of the Northern District of California.

By 1982, at age thirty-seven, Mueller was in Boston prosecuting fraud, corruption, money-laundering and terrorism cases. Mueller joined the Justice Department in Washington in 1989, and within a year, would be chief of the criminal division, where he would grapple with managing a hundred US Attorney offices and some two thousand federal prosecutors, while serving as a nexus with the FBI.

Ironically enough, Mueller’s immediate superior at the Justice Department was William Barr, with whom he would cross paths again three decades later, when Barr was Trump’s attorney general and Mueller was a special prosecutor investigating Russian interference in Trump’s election.

Mueller would also oversee prosecution of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, whose power stemmed in large part from his long-term relationship with the CIA—one of those dictators immorally supported by the US in its so-called war on communism in Latin America. Mueller was investigating Noriega as a kingpin in cocaine trafficking to the US. He would also head up the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland that killed two hundred fifty-nine people on board and eleven people on the ground. The FBI had probed the case unsuccessfully for two years, when Mueller used his authority as head of the criminal division to break through the agency’s barriers to multi-agency investigations and brought in the CIA, Britain’s MI5 and the Scottish police and got them all to share their information. As a result, Mueller made use of a tip from Scottish authorities to put the FBI on the trail of a Libyan intelligence officer who had used his cover as security chief for the Libyan flag-carrier airline to plant the bomb on the Pan Am plane. The bomber,  Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was indicted in 1991, but it would take until 2001 to convict him.

That, 2001, was, paradoxically, the same year that George W. Bush, following the nine-eleven Twin Towers attack, would appoint Mueller to head the FBI. Mueller would serve in that post for the next twelve years. And over the course of that time, he would turn the agency into one of the most effective counter-terror organizations on earth. His tenure would make him the second-longest-serving FBI director in history, only outdistanced by FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover.

After his retirement from the FBI, Mueller would again volunteer to serve his country at a time when Washington was known as “the murder capital of the USA”. President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, who had worked under Mueller at the DOJ, said Mueller called him “out of the blue” and asked if he needed a murder prosecutor. Holder asked Mueller if he wasn’t maybe “over-qualified” for a line prosecutor’s post, but then said, “When can you start?”

Over the next three years, Mueller successfully investigated and brought down dozens of killers, helping significantly reduce the murder rate in the nation’s capital. During that time, he always answered his own phone, with a simple,  “Mueller, homicide.”

This is the American hero about whom the current president could think of nothing better to say than, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” And adding, “He can no longer hurt innocent people!” In typical style, the “innocent people” Trump referred to was only one person: him. It was Trump’s own DOJ that appointed Mueller as special counsel to investigate alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller, as always, did his job thoroughly and effectively. The report that he handed to Attorney General Bill Barr at the end of his probe concluded that while Trump himself had committed no crime, there was indeed evidence that Russian intelligence had interfered in the elections.

Barr, at Trump’s behest, smoothed this over by suppressing the report and providing an interpretation in which he dispelled any reports of collusion between Russia and the Trump camp. But Trump never forgave Mueller for carrying out an honest and impartial investigation, instead of engaging in a pro-Trump cover-up. In this second term, Trump has gone to great pains to ensure that there is no one impartial and effective in key positions in the government, surrounding himself with sycophants who are willing to break the law and the Constitution to protect his interests.

In conclusion of this point, Trump’s vile rhetoric and disdain for diversity, equality and inclusion—and the language that goes with it—has  not merely emboldened his cultist followers to take his lead. It has also emboldened other authoritarian leaders worldwide, who cite the United States as no longer having moral authority to criticize repression or abuses against their own citizens. Therefore, the US has lost its ability to influence other nations through values rather than force.

Worse still, Trump has single-handedly trashed America’s reputation as a reliable ally. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of this, since the full trust in us of our allies has been among America’s greatest strategic assets since World War II.

Starting already in his first term, Trump’s disparaging remarks regarding our closest Western allies, his cozy relations with perceived enemies of the West and dictators in general, his loose-lipped handling of shared intelligence and his transactional (extortive) brand of “diplomacy”  badly weakened long-standing partnerships including NATO. And in the first year and three months of his second term, the eighty-year-old Western NATO alliance has been stretched to the breaking point. America’s erstwhile allies are now reluctant to share intelligence with Washington and are studying contingencies for NATO without the US, and, perhaps even, NATO with the US as its enemy and as a clear and present threat.

Even if Americans manage to topple the Trump regime, the damage he has done to our world standing will surely take decades to heal. And that will only happen if a Trump-free Washington has the humility to act proactively to get the West back on board with us.

Trump’s illegal war in Iran has only underscored this disconnect, with Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatening to pull out of NATO because the alliance has refused to aid and abet the Trump regime in its war of aggression against Iran—a supreme crime against humanity under international law. Moreover, Trump’s lawless action has caused Iran to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, effectively blocking worldwide delivery of a fifth of the world’s oil.

And now Trump’s regime is telling our one-time allies that the oil  blockade is not his problem. That it will be up to them to re-open Hormuz, since he seems to have grown bored with his war and is planning to end it soon. This is tantamount to tossing a live grenade into the midst of a group of friendly acquaintances and then running away.

Trump’s abrupt unilateral military actions without allied consultation and in violation of international law and the UN Charter have, in short, underscored uncertainty about US decision-making. Escalatory actions like airstrikes or other military interventions are being perceived as authoritarian and impulsive rather than strategic, and, as such, an imminent threat to world peace and prosperity.

Allies are, then increasingly hedging their bets. They are building independent capabilities or turning to regional arrangements, because they understand that if the Trump phenomenon could happen twice in a decade in the US, with Congress doing nothing to rein in the chaos, then any prior commitments the US has ever agreed to are now untenable.

These fears among our allies are further underscored by the economic and institutional unpredictability that is rampant under the Trump regime. Especially worthy of worldwide concern is how Trump has abandoned every economic and trade norm ever upheld by the US. The perception is of a demented leadership that is completely unpredictable and that, at any time, can turn on its allies and trading partners like a mad dog or—more aptly, perhaps, like a psychopath. Suddenly, our long-standing trading partners are witnessing erratic policy shifts, onerous trade tariffs, economic coercion, and apparently intentional creation of instability.

Add to this the undermining of normally independent domestic agencies, such as the Federal Reserve and regulatory agencies, and the US is garnering worldwide concern about its capriciously politicized economic management. In the end, what this means is that global investors are beginning to treat the US like a marginal and volatile State, rather than as the once foundational system in the worldwide economy.

In global economics and diplomacy this is sometimes referred to as the “concentration effect”. What this means is that the Trump regime is not just seen as damaging because of its severity, but also because of the concentration of its effects. Multiple institutional norms are being challenged simultaneously, and the assault on them is not part of a structured national policy, but the whims of a single despotic leader who is going internally unchallenged. And the messaging in this sense is continuous and global, since Trump is, perhaps, the most globally mediatic world leader in history—with the possible exception of Adolf Hitler.  

The end-result is that each action by the Trump unipersonal regime has the global effect of reinforcing the perception that the United States is no longer internally stable or externally reliable.   

Many will argue that the US has faced crises before and has always prevailed “because we are the greatest nation on earth.” But I submit—as do many other political analysts—that this time it is different.

Never before has a crisis emerged so directly from the presidency. Never before have the co-equal branches of government simply sat on their hands and watched a president wreak havoc. (For instance, Watergate was a major leadership crisis, but in that case, Richard Nixon’s own party demanded his resignation en lieu of impeachment and removal). Never, more than Trump, has a president and his administration targeted so many democratic pillars simultaneously, nor have the other branches permitted the Executive to get away with it. Never has the abuse of authority been so blatant or as consistent over time, and never have the abuse and its consequences been so domestically and internationally blatant, unbridled and visible in real time.

Seen in this light, the first fourteen months of the second stage of the Trump regime have been uniquely, historically and, perhaps, permanently damaging to the reputation, standing and integrity of the United States—more so than any other phenomenon in the nation’s history.

The eight million Americans who turned out at more than three thousand No Kings demonstrations across the country and the world recently gives me hope for the future. Still, I can’t help but ask myself daily: When are we going to quit pretending that this is business as usual, and demand, by the tens of millions, that our representatives remove this criminal tyrant from office and take back our nation?

THE MCCONNELL REBELLION - THE LAST STRAW?

 

“I do not need the Senate. These people work for me. They're placeholders until I decide they're not useful anymore.”

This was the “private” statement by Donald Trump that reached the ears of some key Republican senators. They reportedly had a recording of it. And it apparently set off alarm bells with some of the most senior ones.

There is a sensation in Washington that a few of the less obtuse—or less compromised—of the Republican old guard are starting, very late in life, to realize that, while Trump demands loyalty, it is seldom if ever a two-way street. Once he has gotten those who (according to him) work for him to humiliate themselves, crawl to him, give up all autonomy, betray their own values and those of their country, ignore the Constitution, and justify the unjustifiable beyond the law and beyond all reason, if he no longer sees them as useful, they are discarded (read: primaried).

Of course, all they had to do was ask any of the myriad executives who ever did business with Donald Trump and got stiffed—an extremely high percentage—to know this was his modus operandi. I mean, Trump is a simple man to understand. The main rule is, if there is a choice between right and wrong, he will always choose wrong. But all too many politicians live life from poll to poll. They are only thinking about surviving until their next election and, hopefully, keeping their seat, that sacred place from which they are open for business to every perk and deal imaginable.

In the continuing era of Trump, however, even that looks like an iffy strategy, since, no matter how they may lie to the public, most senior GOP politicians are savvy. They know the score and know the reality and they are watching Trump’s popularity plummet with almost everyone withdrawing—independents, swing states, swing voters, and generally pissed-off consumers—and they know that his most brainwashed and most blindly loyal base just isn’t big enough to get them reelected, especially if the boss decides to endorse someone else, or at least not to campaign actively for them. So, what’s the upside of continuing to let the president run rough-shod over their co-equal powers?

Independent media outlets are excitedly reporting on this incipient split between the Senate GOP and Trump, no matter what sort of evasive falsehoods politicians are telling the mainstream media. And I’m not talking about—and I mean no disrespect, because I am, myself, a maverick—citizen journalists reporting from the makeshift basement studios in their homes. These are major independent voices, like conservative veteran commentator George Will (who seems to have developed permanent party heartburn ever since Trump usurped the GOP in 2016), Lawrence O’Donnell, and Rachel Maddow on her independent social media channels.

These are people with impeccable sources in Washington and elsewhere, people with access that no one else has, and, in the case of Will, decades of insider knowledge of the Republican Party and its top operators. In other words, when Will goes on record, it’s not with a story so thin as to be a mirage. On the contrary, what he says into the mic and the camera or types on his screen is the scoop, the tip of the iceberg. But you can bet there is a whole lot more as yet unconfirmed that he is probing beneath the surface. So, here's the story these and other independent journalists were covering this week.

To a man and woman, these stellar reporters, whose fingers have long been on the pulse of the nation, prefaced their reports by indicating that what they were about to tell viewers was not political theory or another headline fighting for attention. These are, they said, documented events from a 48 hour window that has effectively blown apart the Republican party's power structure as we've known it.

According to detailed reporting by these and other independent journalists, Wednesday morning shortly before 8am, several of the most powerful Republicans in the country walked into the office of Mitch McConnell—whose Senate career spans more than four decades—for what was supposed to be a routine meeting. They walked out less than an hour later and had reached an agreement to claw back the power that the Republican-controlled Senate has been relinquishing to the president. They were determined to take concrete institutional steps to limit the power of an administration that has become increasingly authoritarian by the day.

Within two hours the handful of influential Republicans had contacted and convinced more than a dozen other senators to stand with them against the president’s burgeoning unilateral power. And just like that, the GOP was deep into an internal crisis of its own making, with the battle lines being drawn between Senate institutionalists and Trump loyalists.

In historical terms, this marks the most serious internal Republican revolt since the Nixon administration and the Watergate scandal. As these independent commentators point out, this isn't a fight over ideology. This is about senior Republicans with institutional traditions that stretch far beyond the Trump Era and the personality cult loyalties that it has bred, quietly concluding that Donald Trump is off the rails and out of control.

It wasn’t just the arrogant quote with which I opened this essay that triggered the meeting of senior senators. It was also an increasingly “boss-employee” relationship that Trump seems determined to apply in dealing with the upper house of Congress. That same morning, at a quarter past two, Trump had reportedly called Senate Majority Leader John Thune. He wasn’t calling in the wee hours of the morning to negotiate emergency powers legislation. He was calling to demand that Thune organize an immediate vote on the Emergency Powers Act.

The draft legislation in question was no small thing. It was no less than a radical re-write of American governance. Among other things, it was designed, in the name of supposed “efficient national security”, to permit the president to completely sideline the Senate when it came to confirming (or rejecting) all cabinet and Armed Forces leadership appointments—something that would give an already inordinately powerful executive unprecedented power as both president and commander-in-chief.

Like an all-powerful boss talking to an employee who was either bound to listen or bound to lose his job, Trump wasn’t asking Thune, he was telling him, and the president punctuated his demand with a threat: Pass the emergency Powers Act by Friday, “or I’ll primary every one of  you.”

By 6am, the reported recording of Trump saying, “I do not need the Senate. These people work for me. They're placeholders until I decide they're not useful anymore,” had made the rounds of the senior party leadership, and by less than two hours later, it had become the elephant in the room during the  meeting in McConnell’s office, which was reportedly attended by Majority Leader Thune and none other than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others, including Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. 

But this sort of behavior on Trump’s part is nothing new, and if a handful of Republicans—fearing for their own political power and nothing else (there is no noble cause here; this is political survival mode)—are now finally being jolted awake and deciding to rebel, it may be way too little and, perhaps, too late. For nearly a decade, Senate Republicans’ performance has been one of supine cowardly appeasement of a megalomaniacal despot. Instead of standing up to Trump, instead of risking all for the nation and for democracy, they have cringed in fear and compliantly watched as those who did have the courage to call Trump out—Cheney, Kinzinger, Romney, Gonzalez, Herrera Beutler, Katko, Meijer, Newhouse, Rice, Upton, Valadao, etc.—were all turned into political non-persons by the MAGA machine. Worse still are the cases of Bill Cassidy and Kevin McCarthy who provided Trump with his every desire short of carnal relations, and still ended up sidelined and barred from Trump’s inner circle.

According to Rachel Maddow, “When that recording hit the encrypted group chats of senior Republicans, the reaction wasn't the usual silence. It wasn't compliance. It was fury. For the first time, the institution felt a knife at its throat. And for the first time, it decided to strike back.”

I’m not so sure. In most cases I’m thinking it’s the blade at their own throats, not that of the institution that is motivating them.

Perhaps in the case of McConnell it is purely institutional, if also a bit of a Hail Mary, before he closes out his career and goes home to live out his last days and die. Maybe it’s atonement for his past cowardice, since, more than anyone else, McConnell had it in his hands, and had the standing, to seek the impeachment and political trial of Trump when he tried to overthrow the government and steal the election in January of 2021. That was precisely when his decisive leadership was needed. Instead, he punted.

He admitted that Trump was to blame for it all, admitted that the president had violated the constitutional order and encouraged sedition. But he said the Senate would leave it to Justice—and the next (Democratic) administration—to deal with it. That day, he was the key to Trump’s never being able to hold public office again, and he clutched, demurred, chickened out.

That was also the day when Lindsey Graham declared that he was done with Trump, that Trump had crossed the line and had to go for good. But as soon as it was clear that Trump was going for a comeback, Graham—whose political backbone, if it ever existed as anything but a lunar reflection of the light from a great Republican politician, died and was buried with American hero and Trump foe, Senator John McCain—was again doing Trump’s every bidding. He  has followed him around grinning, cheering and panting like his lapdog ever since.

Now, Lindsey Graham is one of the 17 Republican rebels joining McConnell and friends. Trump is reported to have called Graham when he found out and said, “You’re dead to me.” To which Graham allegedly responded, “Then I’m dead.”

We shall see, but it’s really hard to trust a man with the spine of a jellyfish and the ethics of a pickpocket.

Still, in a Senate split of 53 Republicans to 47 Democrats, the rebellion of even a dozen GOP senators, if their resolve holds, is devastating to MAGA.   

Perhaps as Maddow and Will say, inside that 47-minute meeting in McConnell's office, the reality finally set in. And that reality was that loyalty to Trump was no guarantee for immunity from harm. The rules had changed. The fear senior congressional leaders felt in the past was from having watched the political demise of the GOP politicians I mentioned before. In all cases, Trump and his MAGA associates made sure that their ostracism was, as Maddow describes it, “brutal, public, and unmistakable, to keep the rest in line.”

There’s even a name for it in political science: authoritarian co-option. The idea encompassed by that term is to convince those who band together that doing so will carry a higher penalty than standing alone and keeping their mouths shut.

It’s a tactic often used in military training. I recall being a rebellious youth in my first week of basic combat training at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. We had a tough DI—think of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, and you get the picture—and just about everybody in my platoon was beat at the end of that first week. The DI kept getting us up earlier and earlier. We were stressed and exhausted, unaccustomed as most of us were to intense training. So, remembering my Spartacus, I went all Norma Rae and organized a “slave revolt.” When the sarge came in banging on a garbage can and calling us maggots at 4am, we would all remain in our bunks. If we didn’t move, what was he going to do, fight us all? He was just a man, after all, and there were 40 of us. 

Obviously, 4am came, the DI arrived with his garbage pail alarm clock, and I could hear him going from bed to bed, cursing and shouting, rocking bunks and kicking footlockers across the room. I kept my eyes shut and thought, “I can’t let him scare me. I owe it to the other guys to stick together with them.”

Suddenly the barracks was quiet, and then the DI was leaning over me in my lower bunk so close that the brim of his campaign hat was touching my face. In a low, menacing voice, he said, “And how ‘bout you, Sleepin’ Beauty? What’s your major fucking problem.”

I opened my eyes and, trying my best to lie at attention, I said, “We’re not starting training this early today, Drill Sergeant. We’re exhausted and need to sleep.”

He straightened up and looming over me said, “Who the fuck’s we, maggot?” I glanced past him and saw that all of the others were standing tall in their skivvies by their bunks. And then the DI had me by the throat, jerked me from the bunk, and tossed me onto my hands and knees on the linoleum floor before giving me a swift kick in the ass with his paratroop boot.

I spent the morning low-crawling around the company streets in my underwear under the watchful eye of a corporal assigned to the task, and the afternoon and evening doing the dirtiest KP jobs there were, including cleaning out the mess hall’s grave-size grease trap.

“Brutal, public, and unmistakable”…and add “humiliating.” And it worked. We each remained silent, passive and alone, except when the authority ordered us to act together.

Says Maddow, “Fear becomes discipline. Silence becomes survival.
But this week, that calculation collapsed. For the first time, the cost of submission outweighed the risk of resistance…The senators in that room understood something immediately. Passing the Emergency Powers Expansion Act wouldn't protect their careers. It would erase them. They wouldn't be preserving their seats.
They'd be voting themselves into irrelevance.”

If independent analysts are right, rebelling senators have finally realized that, if they don’t stop Trump now, there may soon be no US Senate as such. Congress could become a rubber stamp legislature for the justification of executive decrees. And then the hollow fear of losing Trump’s waning base in elections would be overridden by the legislature’s own demise.

And the reality is that, thanks to Trump’s plummeting popularity, polling shows GOP candidates down by crucial margins in vital states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Montana.

Meanwhile, federal agents occupying Minnesota have just summarily executed another citizen, a 37-year-old intensive-care nurse. Say his name: Alex Jeffrey Pretti. Aso, rhetoric surrounding Trump’s so-called Board of Peace and his justification of it to “replace the UN” continues to raise hackles worldwide. Moreover, his continuing threats to invade a NATO country’s sovereign territory—the name of which he seems to have trouble recalling—is pushing national security to the limits and the fallout from the Greenland debacle has pushed the national security establishment to its breaking point.

There is reason to believe that, while part of his aggression at home and abroad is simply an outgrowth of Trump’s megalomania and psychopathy, it also plays to his complete lack of a moral compass, and that it is not beyond him to start simultaneous civil and international wars in order to take the world’s sights off of his close connection to one of the most prolific pedophiles in the history of the world.

George Will points out that our former European allies in NATO—now potential rivals in Greenland (not Iceland, Mr. President)—this week held an emergency meeting. The subject: To determine the current stability status of the US. Never before has this happened. US stability was never an issue before the Era of Trump. The US was, in fact, the cornerstone of the NATO alliance for eight decades. Trump has destroyed that overnight, and even if and when the Trump Era ends, it will take decades of stability for the US to ever be trusted again.

Will explains that NATO is now quietly withholding intelligence from the US, for the obvious reason that its leadership isn’t trustworthy. And that puts US security at much heightened risk.

Will concludes that weakness in Congress, and especially in the Senate has always been a choice regarding Trump, not an inevitability. And he indicates that this unprecedented rebellion could end up halting Trump’s reign of terror. I hope and pray his analysis is sound and that rebelling GOP politicians stand firm. But excuse me if I don’t hold my breath.

Says Will, “(R)ight now the Republican Senate is in open revolt, not against Democrats, not against the media, but against Trump himself. And at the center of this rebellion is a war powers resolution that threatens to do something Trump fears more than bad headlines. It threatens to legally limit his ability to use military force as a personal political weapon.”

This is important, because Trump never plays his cards close to his vest. It’s all out there to see. On the home front, his prolonged full-scale invasions of Democrat-led American cities and states is clearly designed to sow chaos, and, if he’s lucky, an incipient civil war. Anything to justify invoking the Insurrection Act and the declaration of martial law, as a means of taking the midterm elections, which the GOP stands to lose, off the table. Americans have trouble believing that could ever happen in the USA. But if Republicans fail to get a leash on the monster they have sicked on democracy, it will.

The strategy, if you can call it that, for trying to rustle up conflicts abroad is, in my opinion, multi-faceted. The elements include a childish tantrum over not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, envy over what he sees as his friend Vladimir Putin’s strongman status, a desire to show the world who’s boss, and a burning need to create a diversion to direct attention away from the Epstein Files.

So, does the Senate still control foreign policy, or has it been abandoned to the whims of a madman? And are members of Congress still representatives of the people, or are they the submissive vassals of a demented tyrant?

Those are questions the rebelling senators need to ask themselves when their resolve starts to falter. Whether their cause is the noble idea of restoring democracy, or if they are simply trying to save their own asses, they need to know that whether Trump’s dictatorial reign ebbs or if he is allowed to double down and finish destroying American democracy, and, perhaps the world order, all depends on what they do with the decision they signed onto this past week.

If there was ever a time to assert themselves, and the Congress they represent, now is the time.

 

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS UNDER IMMINENT ATTACK

 

Freedom of expression (and the right to dissent that goes with it) is the cornerstone of any democracy. If you are dropped by parachute into a place you know nothing about, you can immediately tell if it is governed by an authoritarian regime, because people will be afraid to talk about anything but the weather—and even then, there had better be no complaints. In authoritarian regimes, “nothing is wrong.” It’s business as usual, no matter what. Everything is hunky-dory…as long as it toes the official line. And if you don’t think so, there’s something wrong with you. You haven’t gotten with the program. You are, therefore, a “subversive” and need to be “re-educated”, or eliminated. Dissent, then, is a capital sin.

Because under authoritarian regimes, there is no left, right or center. There is only the official line—and whatever flag it happens to package itself in. Putinism in Russia, Castroism in Cuba, Orbanism in Hungary, Maduroism in Venezuela, Trumpism in America. No matter which flag they wrap themselves in, what they have in common is the alienation and repression of any view but their own—whatever it may be on any given day.

We Americans didn’t use to believe that was any way to live. We literally fought World War II, and accepted the terrible sacrifices made there during our fathers’ and grandfathers’ generations,  as the necessary cost of defending freedom, a basic tenet of which—apart from the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is, again, the right to have, exercise and freely express our ideals and convictions, no matter whether they agree or not with those of the powers that be…or anyone else’s, for that matter.

The current US administration—and the party, and state and local officials who support and defend it, no matter what action it takes—does not believe in freedom of expression. Or rather, they believe in it on a narrowly limited basis. That is, they vehemently defend their own right to freedom of expression (in fact, to voice whatever bizarre insulting, violent or divisive idea pops into their heads) and that of anyone who slavishly agrees with them, but not anyone else’s. Indeed, they have repeatedly demonstrated that they will move to belittle, undermine, denigrate, attack and suppress any view that does not coincide one hundred percent with that of the party’s leader and the administration’s president.

It is no accident that the very first amendment to the Constitution of the United States that was passed and ratified is the one guaranteeing free expression to everyone inhabiting American soil. It is also the first of ten points  (amendments) included in what has since become known as The Bill of Rights. The list of basic civil rights guaranteed to everyone inhabiting US territory, and that are inalienable and inviolable by any other law or authority. Made law in December of 1791, freedom of expression is a two hundred thirty-four-year-old law and democratic tradition in the United States. And the mere fact that this administration feels (wrongly, illegitimately and illegally) that it is above obeying it, and somehow empowered to violate it, is a clear indication of the arrogance and authoritarian nature of the country’s current leadership.

The First Amendment is short, succinctly and brilliantly drafted, and crystal clear. It states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In other words, in questions of conscience, point of view, beliefs and opinions, and the stating thereof, the state is, by authority of the Constitution, powerless to dictate anything to the people. And that is true not only for American citizens but for “the people” as a whole—all people, everybody within the boundaries of the US.

It should be noted that the current administration has repeatedly violated the spirit and letter of this constitutional guarantee. And in far too many cases, has gotten away with it.

As an inalienable right, we have not only come to expect it, but are also entitled to it, as a principle enshrined in the United States Constitution. Free speech is where all rights begin, the concrete foundation and starting point for open all political discourse, social critique, and the exchange of diverse ideas.

It is, then, no coincidence that concerns are growing by the day among small-d democratic Americans of all stripes who understand that, if one person’s right to freedom of expression (and hence, to freedom in general) is suspended or repressed, everyone’s right to free expression and conscience is vulnerable and subject to violation. It is a matter of precedent.

Concerns have grown exponentially regarding the status of free-speech rights since President Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025. This was already a matter of deep concern under Trump’s first administration, but the beginning of his second term has proved to be Trump on steroids, a bull in a china shop with his erstwhile “handlers” standing, arms folded, in the street, gazing impassively through the window as he lays the place to waste.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits Congress from enacting laws that abridge the freedoms of speech or the press. This protection extends to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. Federal and state courts have consistently upheld broad free-speech rights. The only legal limitations to free expression are in regard to incitement (a principle clearly violated by Donald Trump himself during the infamous January Sixth Insurrection, in which he tried to overthrow the US government and remain in office as a de facto president), obscenity, and national security. Key legal precedents include Brandenburg v Ohio and New York Times v Sullivan, which establish the contours for permissible governmental regulation of speech. No such precedent exists when it comes to efforts by Trump to repressed criticism of his administration and the statement of facts that he denies.

It is worthwhile recapping some of the most blatant violations of free expression under the first Trump regime.

·      The Trump administration restricted press access to coverage of government activities by revoking reporters’ press credentials. One of the most high-profile cases was that of CNN’s Jim Acosta, a newsman of impeccable reputation, who was serving as the chief White House reporter for that major cable news network. Generally speaking, the first-term Trump White House consistently sought to cast itself as the “owner of the truth” and to label time-honored mainstream media outlets as “fake news.” Such actions raised profound concern about government retaliation against critical reporting, and the chilling effect it could have on journalistic independence. Indeed, that effect has more recently become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as major non-news corporations that have bought out the original owners of many mainstream media outlets have begun seeking to muzzle their own journalists to avoid multi-million-dollar lawsuits threatened by Trump and his political machine. Notably, the “taming” of CNN, and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s silencing of the renowned paper’s editorial board are good examples, but certainly not the only ones.

·      Protest suppression has also been a growing part of the Trump regime’s efforts to silence critics. In June 2020, federal law enforcement forcibly cleared peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square near the White House. The excuse was that the square needed to be cleared to facilitate a presidential photo op. The incident drew widespread condemnation and prompted lawsuits alleging violations of free-speech and assembly rights. It also forced a major split between Trump and the then-head of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Millie, who refused an unconstitutional order from the president to use military force to clear civilians out.

·      President Trump and senior officials pressured social media platforms to remove content deemed unfavorable to the regime. They also threatened regulatory actions, and attempted to block critics on official accounts. However, The Knight First Amendment Institute v Trump established that blocking critics on Twitter from official accounts violated the First Amendment.

·      Whistleblowers from among federal employees and contractors who publicly criticized administration policies or exposed misconduct suffered Trump retaliation, including dismissal and prosecution. Notable cases involved whistleblowers in the intelligence community and public health sectors.

·      Lesser-known First Amendment violations during Trump’s first term include restrictions on scientific communication. Reports from agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have detailed instances in which employees were discouraged or barred from sharing scientific findings on climate change and public health, in a clear violation of academic and professional speech.

·      The regime also set limits on protest permits. Punitory actions included delays or denials of permits for protests on federal property, including the National Mall and outside federal courthouses. While the administration cited security concerns, its actions were clearly bent on suppressing dissent. At a state and local level, certain Trump-supporting states (Florida, Oklahoma and Tennessee spring to mind) enacted laws increasing penalties for protest-related offenses, broadening definitions of unlawful assembly, and granting immunity to drivers who injure protesters—a literal invitation to extremists to run protesters down. Such laws deter and discourage lawful protest and openly target social justice movements, thus flying in the face of the First Amendment.

·     The regime is also relentlessly attacking education and intellectual freedom. State legislatures and local school boards in conservative districts have passed measures limiting classroom discussion of topics such as race, gender, and history, citing concerns about "divisive concepts." Educators and advocacy groups point out that such actions infringe on academic freedom and student expression. The regime’s culture re-education efforts have also targeted libraries, imposing book bans in chillingly similar actions to those seen in every high-profile dictatorial regime throughout history—a practice tantamount to cultural erasure. Concretely, local governments in Trump-supporting areas have increased efforts to ban or restrict access to books addressing race, LGBTQ+ issues, and social justice, often in response to parental complaints. These bans have been challenged as violations of students' and authors' free-speech rights.

·      Other less-publicized moves by the Trump regime to suppress free expression include gag orders imposed on public employees. Specifically, city councils in certain conservative regions have slapped gag orders on public employees, restricting communication with the press and prohibiting comments on controversial local policies. Similarly, social and cultural activists and organizers in states such as Texas and Arizona report increased surveillance, harassment, and legal threats in response to their advocacy activities, particularly those critical of law enforcement or immigration policies. Some local governments have also limited or cancelled public forums and town halls addressing contentious issues. While these governments have cited security concerns or issues of “decorum”, it is clear that their actions are designed to   silence dissent.

While many of the both high-profile and lesser-known violations of free expression have resulted in lawsuits in which the defendants’ rights have been upheld, it is apparent that the regime’s purpose is to create nuisance suits that place significant pressure, expense and time constraints on their victims, who are subsequently forced to defend their inalienable rights in court, rather than being able to simply assume that they will be respected by what should be (but is not) a lawful and constitutionally respectful administration.

While most Americans have trouble wrapping their minds around what is happening, the regime’s strategy is clear to anyone who has experienced authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world. The overall chilling effect of consistent and progressive repression is that it creates a climate of caution, and discourages people from expressing dissenting views or participating in protests, particularly in areas where enforcement of speech restrictions is aggressive.

The situation has only grown more grave since Donald Trump returned to office at the beginning of this year.

·      Since January, the Trump administration has imposed new and ever more aggressive federal restrictions on protests. Increased limitations have been imposed on the issuing of permits for demonstrations near federal facilities. The protests of activists citing these restrictions as nothing more than moves to suppress anti-Trump dissent have fallen on deaf ears.

·      The Trump White House has intensified its efforts to control the narrative in the presidential press room by revoking the legitimate credentials of multiple journalists from outlets critical of the administration, thus hobbling these outlets’ ability to report on official events and briefings.

·      Executive orders have been issued to expand federal oversight on major social media platforms, often compelling them to remove content deemed “anti-government” or “incendiary”, when the materials suppressed are usually just run-of-the-mill criticism of the regime’s actions. Civil liberties groups contend that these measures have led to the removal of legitimate political speech from much of social media discourse.

·      In Trump’s new term, federal prosecutors under orders from regime rubber-stamp Attorney General Pamela Bondi have aggressively pursued government whistleblowers, using expanded interpretations of the Espionage Act to deter disclosures of official wrongdoing.

·      At a state and local level, Trump-supporting governments have enacted policies and practices that restrict free-speech rights. Some lesser-known incidents include campus speech restrictions: State legislatures in several pro-Trump states have passed laws restricting campus protests, and otherwise limiting the ability of students and faculty to voice dissenting opinions or to criticize government policies. This is particularly true at all levels, from federal to local, when it comes to foreign students. Under the Trump regime, these students, many of them from authoritarian-ruled countries, are now prohibited from experiencing what was once the pride of the United States—namely, the equal rights of any and all people inhabiting American soil. In the healthy cultural exchange that was once presumed in multi-national educational programs, these students now return home with the sad but authentic belief that there is no freedom of speech anywhere in the world and that the ideas of equality in America are a false narrative and a PR myth.  

·      Other authoritarian advances in education include book bans and curriculum control , with local school boards sweeping numerous books off of library shelves—a grim reminder of book-burning rallies in Nazi Germany before the Second World War—and imposing curriculum changes to eliminate materials perceived as “anti-American” or “anti-Trump” (which MAGA equates as one and the same thing), undermining academic freedom and access to diverse viewpoints.

·      Latest local violations of the constitutional right to free expression include local ordinances against free assembly. City councils in certain municipalities have enacted ordinances requiring prior approval for public gatherings, which have been used to deny permits for rallies opposed to local or federal policies. This is a chilling emulation of local practices under dictatorial regimes in other parts of the world.

·      Local media are also being targeted. Community radio stations and independent newspapers in some areas have faced selective licensing reviews, funding cuts and official advertising boycotts after publishing content critical of local officials aligned with the Trump administration.

We are, furthermore, seeing the development of patterns in governmental actions, and therefore, the institutionalization of repression under the Trump regime. For instance:

·      Use of security to justify authoritarian overreach. Both federal and state authorities frequently cite security concerns as an excuse to restrict the right to protest, the right of assembly, assembly, and media access to government activities.

·      Political dissent is also being specifically targeted, with official actions disproportionately affecting individuals and groups that express opposition to Trump administration policies or to local government decisions.

·     We are witnessing expansion of executive power, including increasing use of  executive orders and administrative regulations to enable swift implementation of speech restrictions. This tactic has often bypassed any legislative debate.

·      State legislatures and local governments have enacted laws and ordinances specifically designed to curtail speech in educational, civic, and media contexts.

These governmental actions have triggered a wave of lawsuits. Federal courts have sometimes issued temporary injunctions against certain protest restrictions and press credential revocations, citing First Amendment concerns. Nevertheless, the composition of the judiciary, which has been significantly altered by recent appointments, has led to mixed outcomes. Some lower courts are thus upholding new restrictive regulations, limiting, as such, access to free expression rights.

Legislative changes at the state level have prompted lawsuits from civil liberties organizations, resulting in ongoing litigation and appeals. But the process of overcoming these de facto hurdles for free expression are long, and have the effect of allowing the regime to get away with violating free speech by imposing impromptu restrictions and then letting the victims fight it out in court.

The expansion of executive powers and reinterpretation of existing laws have had a highly pernicious effect on constitutional guarantees, calling the real durability of free speech into increasing question. Legal scholars are voicing concern about the negative effect of court decisions that create precedents that narrow the scope of permissible speech in public spaces and educational institutions. The long-term implications are clearly nefarious.

Beyond legal battles, the damaging  actions by the Trump regime are creating polarization and mistrust of government institutions on the one hand and of media outlets on the other. Media critical of Trump administration policies, have faced diminished access and heightened scrutiny, hindering their ability to inform the public properly and fully. Civil society organizations have also experienced pernicious effects, with activists and community leaders expressing reluctance to engage in public discourse due to fear of retaliation or prosecution. Academic environments have suffered as well, with restrictions on campus speech, stifling debate and undermining the role of universities as forums for the exchange of ideas. The suppression of community media has limited access to alternative viewpoints, reducing the diversity of information available to local populations.

Overall, the erosion of free-speech rights undermines the ability of citizens to hold government accountable, to participate in policy debates, and to express dissenting views. If current patterns persist, the US risks a decline in civic engagement and a further weakening of democratic institutions, which are already languishing at unprecedentedly low levels.

This is all key in  the advancing authoritarian takeover of the United States. There is a clear reason why the first thing dictatorial regimes do is launch aggressive campaigns to muzzle the press, restrict assembly and discourage the expression of diverse ideas and ideals. The reason is that these are the foundation of a healthy democracy, and democracy is the nemesis of authoritarianism. Seen in this light, and judging by not only its words but also its actions, the ultimate goal of the Trump regime couldn’t be clearer.