First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for the Catholics And I did not speak out Because I was not a Catholic* Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me.
I learned about Niemoller's poem at an early age, knowing nothing about the author, only that is described the rise of the Nazis. At the time, my interpretation was the simplest one -- freedom is indivisible. None can be free unless all are free.
But over time, I began to understand more about the significance of the progression, and to see other layers of meaning.
One was when Jonah Goldberg came out with his ridiculous book, Liberal Fascism, claiming that Hitler was really a left-winger. Niemoller's poem can come as a shorthand refutation as Hitler's victims parade from left to right -- Communists, then Socialist, then trade unionists, then Jews (broadly liberal), then (possibly) Catholics (generally conservative).
Another is as a rejection of the morality that JD Vance called ordo amoris or Jonathan Haidt (at his worst) calls well-balanced values with a proper sense of group loyalty, i.e., the idea that everyone should be divided into an in-group of people who morally matter and an out-group of un-people who don't morally matter. Admittedly, both Vance and Haidt appear to draw the boundary nationality -- since Hitler's early victims were fellow German citizens, Niemoller should have cared. But really, neither Vance nor Haidt offer any really good reason why one should draw the line at citizenship. If Niemoller originally drew the line more narrowly, neither man's reasoning offer a good reason why he should have drawn it more broadly. Niemoller practiced ordo amoris. He had well-balanced values, including a proper sense of group loyalty. When people outside his in-group were targeted, he showed a commendable indifference. When he was targeted other people stuck to their in-groups just as much as he did. Too late, he learned the error of his ways.
Another insight came, of all places, from the Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus. He described a thwarted rebellion against Rome and Cicero (then serving as consul) proposed to execute the conspirators without trials. Caesar warned against such an action:
These thirty began their administration by putting to death, even without a trial, all who were notoriously wicked, or publicly detestable; acts at which the people rejoiced, and extolled their justice. But afterward, when their lawless power gradually increased, they proceeded, at their pleasure, to kill the good and the bad indiscriminately, and to strike terror into all; and thus the state, overpowered and enslaved, paid a heavy penalty for its imprudent exultation.
Within our own memory, too, when the victorious Sylla ordered Damasippus,14 and others of similar character, who had risen by distressing their country, to be put to death, who did not commend the proceeding? All exclaimed that wicked and factious men, who had troubled the state with their seditious practices, had justly forfeited their lives. Yet this proceeding was the commencement of great bloodshed. For whenever any one coveted the mansion or villa, or even the plate or apparel of another, he exerted his influence to have him numbered among the proscribed. Thus they, to whom the death of Damasippus had been a subject of joy, were soon after dragged to death themselves; nor was there any cessation of slaughter, until Sylla had glutted all his partisans with riches.
Such excesses, indeed, I do not fear from Marcus Tullius [Cicero], or in these times. But in a large state there arise many men of various dispositions. At some other period, and under another consul, who, like the present, may have an army at his command, some false accusation may be credited as true; and when, with our example for a precedent, the consul shall have drawn the sword on the authority of the senate, who shall stay its progress, or moderate its fury?**
"First they came for the Communists. . ." Those haunting words echoed with new meaning. The early victims of the Nazis were not sympathetic people, especially to a conservative like Niemoller.***
Another point of significance here is that the Nazis targeted the organized opposition first. Communists, Socialists, and unions are all organized structures with institutional power. Jews and Catholics, by contrast, are much more diffuse groups. And in that sense, "There was no one left to speak out for me," is not purely hyperbolic. There were people, of course, who could have spoken out for him, but there were no organized institutions left to oppose the Nazis.
In general, I would say, do not be too quick to quote Niemoller. Stick to the face-eating leopards. But I am beginning to find that poem apt in the case of ICE. More to come.
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*The inclusion of Catholics is debated. Certainly many Catholics continued to practice their faith openly in Nazi Germany, but the transnational nature of Catholicism made it the natural enemy of Nazi hypernationalism. **Classical historians generally sided against Caesar and suspected that is solicitude for the conspirators may have been because of complicity. Modern readers would applaud him more if he had advocated for due process. Instead of calling for trial, Caesar was actually calling for non-capital punishment, still without trial. It should be noted that when Caesar became dictator, he practiced what he preached. He did not execute any of his political rivals. ***Indeed, Niemoller's own comments appear to confirm this interpretation, "We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—should I be my brother's keeper?"
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for the Catholics And I did not speak out Because I was not a Catholic* Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me.
These quotes are, in their own way, saying the same thing. They stand as warning that if you allow government to trample on the rights of others, your own rights may be the next target.
The Niemoller quote is meant to be taken seriously and mostly literally. I say mostly because, obviously, no country will ever truly reach the point when there is no one left to speak for the last person arrested. When Niemoller was arrested, there were many people left to speak for him. The just didn't. A more accurate account might be, "And then they came for me. And no one spoke out because they were not me."
The face-eating leopards, by contrast, are clearly hyperbolic and metaphoric. No one literally comes out in favor of leopards eating people's faces.
Both Niemoller and the face-eating leopards get a lot of play in our political debate, sometimes as expressions of disagreement on quite mundane policy disputes. My advice in most cases is that the face-eating leopards are the better choice. The face-eating leopards are such an obvious and outrageous exaggeration that no one can possibly see them otherwise than as a metaphor. It may very well be that people quoting Niemoller also mean it as a metaphor and not a serious comparison of whatever one is opposing to the Nazis. But the point is not always clear. The Niemoller quote leave open the possibility that one is literally comparing one's opponents to Nazis. Godwin's law and all that.
Stick to the leopards. Although there are a few exceptions. More on that later.
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*The inclusion of Catholics is debated. Certainly many Catholics continued to practice their faith openly in Nazi Germany, but the transnational nature of Catholicism made it the natural enemy of Nazi hypernationalism.
What If Trump Wins? is a book with an agenda. It does not just oppose Trump, it has clear ideas what we should and should not do to oppose him. I think their overall approach is good, even if I may not agree on all particulars. Obviously the actions of any one person will not change the outcome, but accept the usual fiction that what you do will scale up. Their recommendations do not differ much regardless of what Trump does.
Don'ts:
Don't resort to violence. It simply discredits your movement and gives the authorities an excuse to move against you. It also scales up more than anything else, in the sense that it doesn't take all that much violence to give any movement a bad name. Agree. Despite a few acts of vandalism at Tesla dealerships, we have generally avoided violence.
Don't give up, despair, or flee to Canada. This is what is known as "submission in advance." Remember, hope gives no guarantee of success, but despair guarantees failure. Again, agreed.
Don't limit yourself to street protests. Street protests are all fine and good, but they are just the beginning. By themselves, street protests are not sustainable and will fizzle out. They have to be followed by organizing. Again, agreed. That is the lesson of the Tea Party's success and Occupy Wall Street's failure.
Don't let t come to this
I will add that people I know who cut their political teeth in the 1960's have a mixture of enthusiasm and anxiety about protests that I am not quite old enough to understand. The Kent State shootings are a major traumatic memory for them, and the general, widespread use of violence against protestors in the 1960's. This may be why so many of them feared the National Guard firing on peaceful protestors and I was more willing to give the Trump Administration the benefit of the doubt on that score. We have been having protests and getting safety instructions that always strike me as a little overwrought. Counter demonstrators have shown up and tried to provoke us, so far without much success. Maybe our peace keeping team makes a difference and things would have gotten ugly without them. But really, the counter protestors have been vastly outnumbered.
Or it just might come to this
Of course, you don't have to go back to the 1960's to know about the danger of protests and violence. As recently as 2020, protests all to frequently degenerated into riots, and the police responded with violence. I think it is a mistake to underestimate just how traumatizing the 2020 riots were to a lot of right wingers, how much it cemented in their minds that violence was the exclusive province of the left, and that they were the party of law and order. Trump turned this to good effect by taking a strong stance against riots.
Observers of the April 19 protests commented that the protestors were significantly older and whiter that the ones during the 2020 protests. I feel mixed about that. On the one hand, it confirms the view that we are out of touch elitists. We will not have the really broad-based movement we need until crowds start looking younger and darker. On the other hand, an older, whiter crowd is also less likely to riot, which is all to the good.
In general, I think our side need to refrain from violence, but also not be too fearful of a violent response, either from the state or from the militias. If Trump had 10 million Proud Boys, things would no doubt be quite different. But he doesn't have them. While the authors underestimate the ease with which Trump would close the border and just how aggressively his government layoffs and cutoffs of funding would be, they overestimate the threat from rightwing militias. Let's not give them any excuses. And the warning about the need to move beyond street protests is sound.
Do's
The authors recommend four courses of action as useful:
Protect people being targeted;
Defend existing institutions;
Strategize acts of disobedience; and
Plan for what comes after Trump.
This is not to say that everyone should devote themselves to all four activities. Specialization and division of labor are essential to any really effective activity -- but with coordination as well. The authors offer some procedural advice here that strikes me as sound. People who want to protect individuals and institutions are generally people who dislike conflict. And protecting work is certainly useful -- up to a point. But the time may well come when they need to get out of their comfort zones and confront the regime.
To people strategizing acts of disobedience, the advice is the opposite. Calling for civil disobedience too soon will receive a feeble response and weaken the movement. You have to wait until the time is ripe. The time frame is not clearly laid out, but most scenarios talk in terms of seeing small political changes "over the next year." Whether that means the first year Trump is in power or the first year after the first 100 days. One scenario refers to events that happen by the semiquincentenial (July 4, 2026). That is purely speculative, of course, but it gives some idea when the authors think the time my be ripe. We are not there yet.
Finally, it is important not just to be against Trump, but to offer a positive alternative. Defending existing institutions is all very well, but the reason people voted for a man proposing to burn it all down is that they thought our institutions were not working for them. We need to offer something better.
All of this seems like sound advice. In gaming out what might happen, the authors introduce their own agenda.
Protect people being targeted
The authors have three suggestions here -- a mutual aid society, joint emergency funding, and an underground railroad. Many of these are alternatives to government funding, which has been pulled (true). The authors clearly like the non-hierarchical nature of mutual aid societies -- no division between givers and recipients, but everyone gives when they can and accepts when they need. But fundraising for existing organizations that lost their federal funding also works. Neither activity is overtly political, and the authors imagine that they may lose supporters if they come out as openly anti-Trump, but in the end they must. An underground railroad -- primarily for immigrants, but occasionally for a federal whistle blower -- is a riskier option. The authors also seem to think that staying small and nimble, staying local but expanding offerings, and forming a national network are all reasonable options.
Defendant existing institutions
The authors here offer three options that presumably are just intended as a sampling of what is possible. One is to reach out to veterans and their families and urge them to use their ties to the active duty military to remind them that the military must stay out of domestic politics. One is for fired federal scientists (and presumably other skilled workers) to do their work outside the federal government and possibly use information they have gathered to help regulatory agencies get by on a smaller staff. One is to work with election workers to keep elections safe, educate voters, and the like. Once again, the authors consider either staying small and nimble or building a broader network as reasonable options. They do see these things as being more confrontational and posing more danger than mutual aid or charitable fundraising. If you want to scale up, better adopt strong cyber security to avoid being doxed. And they differ from helping people being targeted by involving local government. The role of local government in elections is obvious. And the authors suggest local regulations when the feds are unwilling to act. Obvious question -- why can't state or local government also be part of funding nonprofits?
Envision what comes after Trump
Here is where the authors reveal their ideological agenda most of all. They favor a constitutional convention, or rather, a series of local conventions to recommend changes to the Constitution. They recommend that these conventions follow a certain format -- a three day convention, with the first day devoted to learning, the second to making proposals and discussing them, and the third to voting on them. The authors consider this a good general format for participatory decision-making. I suppose it works if you have three days to spare. Not everyone does. The convention adopts the proposals that have widespread support and leave the more controversial ones for a later day. This seems like a sound approach.
The measures that are widely supported, presumably including by the authors are term limits for judges and senators, ending the influence of money in politics, ending secret holds and the filibuster, "breaking apart" the two party system, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. More controversial are guns, crime, and other aspects of immigration. Funny, but I don't think these procedural issues are what most people are most likely to care about. They seem too abstract to excite most people. The part about imposing term limits on judges was presumably born of frustration at the Supreme Court's overall direction, particularly in repealing protection for abortion and creating the doctrine of presidential immunity. I am guessing that a lot of people may feel differently seeing how firmly judges have held the line against Trump, largely thanks to lifetime tenure that protects them from political pressure.
I must admit to mixed feelings about the filibuster as well. I do think the general principle of voting by simple majority is a sound one. But the filibuster may also turn out to be essential to blocking many aspects of Trump's agenda. And the authors do not make clear how the convention proposes to "break apart" the two party system. Two party systems seem to be inherent in a first-past-the-post electoral system. Do the authors propose ending the first-past-the-post system and, if so, how? Especially, how can that be done for the President. And it does seem strange that they don't propose ending the Electoral College (not that it would have made a difference this time around, but the authors didn't know that).
Strategize acts of disobedience
The authors offer three alternatives, presumably not intended to be exhaustive. One is simply to adopt a symbol (they propose a paperclip) to represent refusal to obey an unconstitutional order. One is to strike -- starting with a one-minute strike that will scarcely be notice, and then to escalate to a 15 minutes strike. Another is an organized movement to refuse paying taxes, in whole or in part.
While the other approaches largely continue on their own, with no response by the Trump Administration, the more confrontational movements do receive a response. The book games out possible responses by Trump -- none, denunciation by tweet, arresting leaders, or having the IRS seize the movement's assets.
At the risk of stating the obvious, these three approaches are not equivalent. Wearing a paperclip or other symbol of resistance is completely legal. The narrative also talks about the movements leaders, assets, website, etc. What leaders, assets, website, etc? While there are laws governing when strikes are and are not allowed, does anyone truly think anyone will care about a one minute work stoppage? Or even 15 minutes? Refusing to pay taxes, by contrast, is clearly illegal. The authors appear to recognize this, by having the IRS crack down much harder on the tax protesters than the others. While the author treat staying local and nimble or connecting on a nationwide scale both as reasonable alternatives for the other movement, it makes clear that anyone seeking confrontation must reach out to others before it initiates a showdown. A showdown will fail without a sufficient number of supporters. This will happen if the resistance movement does not reach out to a wider population, or if it strikes before the time is ripe.
How will be know when the time is ripe? In the meantime, the adventures imagine serious crackdowns on immigrants (true), subversion of the federal bureaucracy (to some degree), packing the bench with MAGA judges (may happen, but hasn't yet but presumably will) and violence by rightwing militias (probably an exaggerated fear). (The book also mentions a shaky economy resulting from Trump's erratic polices, but does not emphasize it). The back of the book has some shocking potential headlines -- Liz Cheney is arrested, HHS bans "gender affirming" care, hate crimes rise and the feds refuse to prosecute, Trump threatens to withhold funds unless Congress bans abortifact drugs, and the Texas National Guard goes to California to crack down on immigration, leading to a shootout. Some of the groups featured in earlier pages show up in these stories.
But still the time is not ripe for confrontation. While these shocking stories clearly mean that groups focused on confrontation should reach out to a wider public, still they are not quite ready for the final confrontation.
How will be know when the time is ripe? The authors have two hypotheticals -- Trump trying to stay in office in defiance of the 22nd Amendment, and Trump trying to forcibly shut down an electric vehicle plant. No, I don't know how the authors chose the electric vehicle plant, but it strikes me as unlikely. Another obvious possibility suggests itself -- Trump openly defies a Supreme Court order, probably one involving the rights of immigrants.
The authors are understandably vague about the time frame. In numerous scenarios the authors say, "Over the next year, you see small political changes around you. But it barely feels like a dent amidst the national scene." So they envision a least a year going by before the time is ripe. Is this a year from when Trump was first inaugurated, a year from when you, the hypothetical actor, first take action, or a year from Trump's first 100 days?
We get a better picture of the hypothetical time frame for anyone who declines to join in the confrontation when the crisis strikes. As you celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026, resistance leaders are beaten and arrested. Democracy enters an irretrievable downward spiral. So the authors appear to believe that the decisive moment will take place in the first half of 2026. Perhaps for this reason, the midterms play no role in their scenarios. There is some ambiguity here. The electric vehicle scenario has the Trump regime fatally weakened relatively early but limp out the rest of the term. The 22nd Amendment scenario takes place in the first half of 2026 if Trump opponents fail to stop him, but skips over to 2028 if confrontation proceeds. Make of it what you will.
Meanwhile, what is really happening?
Thus far I would say that immigration crackdown is worse than the authors anticipated, firing of federal workers and cancelling of federal funding is also worse, but private rightwing violence is not nearly as bad as they expected. Civil society continues to function -- both in reality and in the book. How are people responding in real life?
The authors comment that their proposed categories -- protecting people being targeted, defending existing institutions, strategizing forms of disobedience, and envisioning what comes after -- are not such separate categories as they propose. Also, a whole lot of resistance is taking place at the elite level, out of reach of regular folks like you and me. I suspect the authors recognized this but did not emphasize it because the book was written, after all to suggest what you, John Q. Citizen can do.
Elite litigators, including state attorney generals, the ACLU, and immigration rights advocates, have challenged many Trump policies in court. People are quitting law firms that knuckled under to Trump. Law students are keeping spreadsheets to show which firms have and have not submitted. Private parties are saving data the federal government has deleted. An immigration rights activist is tracking and compiling ICE flights and passing the information on to immigration lawyers -- and training others to do the same.* All of this is extremely valuable. Some of it is geared toward protecting people being targeted and some is best described as building new institutions. It is all very valuable -- and all out of reach of most people.
In the meantime, a lot of resistance is taking place through ordinary political channels. People aren't just showing up in the streets; they are showing up in town halls to confront members of Congress. 5 Calls is organizing calls to Congress. Indivisibles regularly shows up at Congressional offices. Run for Something is seeing record numbers of people seeking to run for local office. Democrats are focusing on a positive agenda, mostly focused on building more housing. Aside from the focus on protecting elections What If Trump Wins? does not really pay attention to any of these options.
Speaking just for myself, I must admit that I have not yet decided what I want to do to oppose Trump. But my hypothetical goal is to do two activities -- one solely benevolent and not overtly political, and one overtly political and activist. I just haven't decided what yet.
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*If there is anyone I fear should flee to Canada, this is probably who.
And then there are the speculations on the Trump Presidency from What if Trump Wins, a choose your own adventure from Choose Democracy. Naturally, as a choose your own adventure, there were alternate scenarios of what Trump might do, and alternate responses. Their basic advice on resistance is about the same, regardless of what Trump does. Democracy fails if you don't resist, or resist the wrong way. But it offers at least two ways that popular resistance might bring down the regime, if Trump tries to cancel the 2028 election or tries to shut down an electric vehicle plant.*
But that it getting a little ahead of ourselves. It offered six alternate scenarios of the first 100 days.
Certain communalities present themselves in these alternate scenarios. In nearly all, Trump:
Pardons himself and the other January 6 defendants (true)
Either closes the border (true) or reallocates funds to build the border wall (false, he seems to have lost interest in this), which is challenged in court but not halted (false)
Withdraws from the Paris Climate Accords, halts all government research on climate, and/or deletes it from government websites (true)
Appoints loyalists to key positions (true), possibly bypassing the Senate (false)
Classifies 50,000 to 100,000 federal workers as Schedule F so he can replace them, temporarily blocked by courts (not quite but happened, but really!)
Clearly, these were the things the authors were most confident Trump would do and, for the most part, they were correct. They did underestimate Trump's effectiveness in closing the border and failed to foresee DOGE, but no one foresaw DOGE.
There were also differences.
Scenario 1: Trump installs loyalists and opens IRS investigations into protest groups
This one is only presented if there are widespread protests against Trump that degenerate into violence. It has Trump institute a 16-week abortion ban and has the IRS freeze the assets of the groups that organized the protests. The IRS freezes assets of organizations involved in protests, opens investigations of Planned Parenthood, MoveOn, and a dozen others.
Certainly this was something I was very much afraid of. But in fact widespread pre-inauguration protests and violence did not materialize, and neither did IRS attacks on organizations opposed to Trump -- at least not yet. One reason may be that there are currently institutional safeguards that make such a thing extremely difficult. The bad news is that Trump's "big beautiful bill" contains a provision that would largely eliminate those barriers. Stay tuned.
Aside from the usual measures (see above), Trump issues a "Back the Blue" order giving legal protection to police and encourages them to join forces with ICE. He orders ICE to prepare for mass deportations, which ICE begins, joined by right wing militias. Trump also orders the investigation of Liz Cheney, the rest of the January 6 Select Committee, and 27 others involved in the 2020 election.
The mass deportation part is true, clearly, although it took longer than this scenario supposed, presumably as a result of the logistical difficulty in ramping up deportations so quickly. Neither local police nor rightwing militias appear to have joined the effort. And there have been no investigations of Liz Cheney and the rest. So basically thus far the Trump Administration has been focusing on deporting immigrants -- including ones with a plausible claim to legal status -- but not on his political opponents.
Scenario 3: Trump talks big, but his chaotic office only completes 10 major executive orders:
The executive orders are basically the ones outlined above. Further actions are stymied by infighting within the Administration. Unable to gain traction on real-world actions, Trump turns to online incitement. In this scenario, the Georgia case against him for election subversion continues and the Proud Boys firebomb Fani Willis's house and shoot at her father.
The authors did not anticipate that Fani Willis would be disqualified for having an affair with the special prosecutor she hired. What would have happened if the parties had curbed their impulses is anyone's guess.
Scenario 4: Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and orders the military into major Democratic cities
In this scenario, besides the usual actions above, Trump pledges to end the "lawlessness of major Democratic cities," invokes the Insurrection Act, and sends in the National Guard. Military leaders are alarmed and take this to military courts, which limit the activity. National Guard limits itself to walking around, but everyone is on edge, fearing a violent explosion.
Well, first of all, the authors get this wrong. Trump would have said, "lawlessness of major Democrat cities," a small difference, but one with big resonance. Obviously, this hasn't happened. Trump has focused on deportations instead. And I must say that I, at least, was not all that worried about this one. I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the National Guard were limited to violent riots. And, in fact, it was proposed as an alternative mostly (not exclusively) if there were widespread protests that broke out into violence.
Scenario 5: Trump talks big but governs like a normal President
This one is very similar to Scenario 3, above, including the hypothetical firebombing and shooting at Fani Willis's house. The main difference is that the governors of Texas and Arizona send the National Guard to the border, backed by rightwing militias.
This one did not happen, either. Trump has proved much more aggressive and successful on the border than anyone anticipated.
Scenario 6: Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and orders the military to the US Mexico border
This is probably the closest to what actually happened. Trump issues the usual orders, invokes the Insurrection Act, sends the military to the border, and proclaims "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." For the first 100 days, the National Guard limits itself to patrolling the border and does not engage in military operations. Border crossings are reduced. The authors do not say anything about domestic deportations.
After the first 100 days, before the midterms
Regardless of what Trump does, the basic options on how to respond are about the same. I will address that later. Also notable are that the options on how to respond all assume certain things are happening above and beyond what is proposed in the six scenarios. Maybe the authors think of these as things that happen after the first 100 days, or maybe they expect these things to happen within the first 100 days but saw them as background noise. Most of these presumed events assume that the midterm elections have not yet happened, although the midterms play a fairly minimal role in the book.
Obviously awe are just a little out of the first 100 days and well short of the midterms. A lot can happen in the next year and a half. Still, it is worth considering what the authors expect to happen over the first year or so of the Trump term and what has happened so far:
Large scale immigration raids and mass deportations, with little or no process
Loss of funding for health departments
Increase is hate crime or workplace violence, which the FBI declines to investigate
Somewhat vague conflict with the military, which slow-walks some of Trump's orders
Department of Education takes funding from public schools and sends it to private schools
Trump appoints young, rightwing judges who gerrymander districts to ensure Republicans will win
Large scale firing of executive branch officials, to the point of making most regulation impossible
Right wing violence against protesters
Calls for political arrests
At this early stage, much of this has come about, but not all. Obviously, the mass deportations, loss of funding, and widespread firing of executive branch officials have come about. The cancellation of funding and firings have been much worse than anyone could have foreseen, and are being at least somewhat reversed. Trump will undoubtedly appoint rightwing judges, many of whom do not have the same devotion to the rule of law as his first-term appointees, but that will take time. Calls to prosecute opponents have happened but so far it has mostly been empty talk, with the notable exception of public officials who stand in the way of the Administration's worst deportation policies.
What the authors most seem to overestimate is the power of rightwing militias and terrorists.** I do not mean to deny the existence of such things. There is some evidences, for instance, that some Senate votes to confirm have been the result of threats of physical violence and not merely threats of a primary challenge. And there have been vague but alarming threats against federal judges. But judges continue ruling against the Trump Administration, and plenty of Republicans in Congress, like Thomas Massie and Rand Paul, freely speak out against Trump's economic policies. And there has been no widespread outbreak of rightwing violence.
I was afraid of this sort of thing, too. Looking back on it, that may have been a misunderstanding of how these things work. In general, rightwing militias tend to tick upward when a Democrat is in the White House because they feel threatened and downward under a Republican because they consider mission accomplished. The upsurge in 2020 was a exception, largely in response to COVID lockdowns and riots, that militia members saw as threatening.
I assured many friends ahead of the election that while I greatly feared Trump winning, I did not think he was Hitler -- more like Orban. One challenged me. Did I mean that Trump was not as evil as Hitler, or not as competent. I thought it over and and said that the US was not facing the sort of social breakdown that Germany was.
While I stand by this opinion, there is more to add to it. When Hitler was named Chancellor, he had a private army of 2 million Brown Shirts out of a population of about 66 million. Do the math. That means about one in 33 Germans was a Brown Shirt, or about 3% of the population. Rounding the US population today to 330 million, that would be equivalent to about 10 million Proud Boys. (Or 10 million combined Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters). If Donald Trump had a private army of that size, the calculus of power would undoubtedly be very different from what it is today.
*I personally considered the former much more likely than that latter, but that is just applying Rule Number One of Smart Authoritarians. It should be obvious by now that Trump is not very smart.
**Also significant -- the authors do not say anything about economic damage from tariffs or budget-busting tax cuts, even though these were major campaign promises that Trump made. Presumably the authors deemphasize these issue because they do not see them as serious threats to democracy. But Trump's incredibly arbitrary tariff policies are a vivid illustration of the danger of Congress ceding the power of the purse strings. And economic issues of this kind are what is most likely to sink the Trump Administration.
Needless to say, I am not the onlyone to do 100 day retrospectives on Trump.* Doubtless there are more retrospectives than anyone could possibly review, but let me draw attention to two from The Bulwark.
Cathy Young linked to a pro-Trump poster who proposed at opponents write down their worst fears and compare them to what actually happens. He assured us that it will be reassuring, and should give us pause as to why he had such fears in the first place. I attempted to do justthat with decidedly mixed results.**
Young's general assessment was:
Rule of law: Complete disregard for any personal rights in immigrants, undermining of court orders, but so far without open defiance, and the arrest of a judge who did not cooperate in what looks like an attempt to intimidate the judiciary.
Legal retribution against opponents: Not as bad as his calls for televised military tribunals, but retaliation against law firms that opposed him in the 2020 election and calls to investigate cybersecurity expert Chris Krebs for saying the 2020 election was secure.
Pardon for January 6 insurrectionists: Yes.
Freedom of the press: Trump brought a frivolous lawsuit against CBS 60 Minutes for routine edits of a Kamala Harris interview, sued the Des Moines Register for an erroneous poll that showed him losing in Iowa, and urged FCC investigation of CBS stories he disliked and is broadly hinting that the future of a merger involving CBS' parent corporation depends on their coverage. So, not good. But (although the article does not mention this) thus far the second Trump term, like the first, has featured an administration that leaks like a sieve and proved a positive spur to investigative journalism by outlets who know that they will never get the truth from him.
Immigration: The worst has absolutely come about with men shipped off to a brutal prison without due process, children who are US citizens (including cancer patients) deported, attempts to turn Afghan Christians over the the Taliban, deportation proceedings against foreign students for constitutionally protected free speech, authority to enter homes without a warrant and deport without a hearing, cruelty porn videos, harassment of US citizens.
Ruinous trade wars: Well, duh!
Self-sabotage as leader of the free world: Again, duh!
Betrayal of Ukraine: Trump's behavior has been endlessly vacillating, with cutoff in Ukrainian aid, restoration of Ukrainian aid, attempts at negotiation leading nowhere, and threats to sanction Russia with no follow-up. Still, it could be worse. . . .
Attack on health institutions: Trump promised to name RFK, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Many people didn't expect him to follow through, but he did, and RFK, Jr. has not notably moderated in office. She lists this one was significantly worse than her worst fears. (I agree).
Appointees who were unqualified at best and completely nuts at worst: Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, Ed Martin, Pete Hegseth. Yep!***
Pushing for a third term: He is putting out feelers. To early to say how it will turn out.
A popularity completely impervious to facts: That one, at least, has not come about. Young sees it as our one ray of hope.
Nick Grossman takes up the issue of what we have learned in the first 100 days about resistance:
[T]he administration can be delayed, spread thin, confused, frustrated,
overwhelmed. The more they stall out, the fewer people they hurt, and
the less appealing they look to all but the most cultish supporters.
They have limited time and attention.
They have limited control over the executive branch, and with Elon Musk’s DOGE are destroying significant government capacity.
They
have limited resources and personnel. Yes, they have awful people in
key positions, but they don’t yet have loyalists all the way up and down
the Department of Justice, the FBI, the military, or the intelligence
services. They’re having difficulty finding lawyers willing to argue absurdities in court.
Smarter
authoritarians would have coasted on the positive economic trends they
inherited, gradually purging the government of law-followers and
installing loyalists. The Trump team started smashing things and
bullying in many directions as soon as they got power.
Above all, he argues, do not yield to any "unreasonable, unethical government demand." Resist instead. Columbia yielded and got only escalating demands. Harvard resisted and has met with retaliation. But (Grossman points out), part of the reason for seeking to make an example of an elite university or two is that the Administration probably does not have the resources to take on all universities in the United States at the same time.
In other words, Grossman agrees with my overall assessment of fighting Trump. Enforcement power in this country is extremely diffuse. The Federal government lacks the resources to impose its will by force on the country without cooperation from local authorities (and possibly vigilantes). Its real power lies in its ability to withhold money. My view was that the best way to fight Trump was to plan for how to deal with a cutoff in federal funding. Grossman makes another point I had not thought of. The weakness of this card is that it can only be played once.**** His advice to universities -- band together to meet the challenge. The Administration can't control all universities in the country at once.d
His advice to judges is similar. When a Wisconsin state judge was arrested for directing a man in her courtroom to leave through a door not blocked by ICE agents, another judge vowed to do the same. Grossman urged state judges everywhere to do the same. The feds can't arrest every state judge. He also urged federal judges not to uphold Trump's illegal actions for fear that he would defy their order. He has undermined some orders and may openly defy others, but he is obeying others. To refuse to rule against Trump for fear of defiance is simply submission in advance. Even partial compliance by the Administration reduces the damage it does.
Of course, this recommendation ignores an important detail. A large portion of the country supports Trump and his actions. But that only emphasizes the importance of undermining his popularity. And Grossman believes that making people aware of Trump's lawlessness, including defiance of court orders, will make him more and more unpopular.
I am not sure I agree with that last. I am inclined to think that what is most likely to make Trump unpopular is economic issues, and that everything else will follow. But the real point, once again, is that Trump is breaking Rule Number One of Smart Authoritarians -- save the unpopular stuff until after you have consolidated complete power.
__________________________________
*Yes, I know, we are almost a month past the 100 day mark and that there have been disturbing changes since then, but bear with me.
**In general, I found he was causing much more senseless destruction of completely unideological programs than I ever feared, but less targeted harassment. His reign of terror against immigrants but as bad as I feared, but more in the form of arrests of people complying with immigration law and less in the form of workplace raids and use of the National Guard. And his damages to healthcare was just insane. ***Ed Martin was ultimately withdrawn, but that was after the first 100 days.
****Neither he nor I foresaw the next, devastating, escalation against Harvard --barring foreign students.
I have given up guessing what the Supreme Court will do on anything -- including universal injunctions. When the Trump Administration argued against universal injunctions in the case of birthright citizenship, apparently Justice Kavanaugh seemed skeptical, raising hopes that they will allow universal injunctions at least in this case.
I hope they do. Clearly there needs to be a single, nationwide rule birthright citizenship, and I am confident that, with a little ingenuity, the Supreme Court can make one in this case while leaving the question open whether universal injunctions are allowed in any other case. Or maybe it can come up with a rule so convoluted and incomprehensible that no one has any idea when universal injunctions are and are not allowed.
Attorney General Raul Torrez
I am rather of mixed thoughts on whether to allow universal injunctions in other cases. I recently heard New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez speak, and thought he had excellent things to say on many issues. I share his frustration with both Joe Biden and the New Mexico State Legislature for acting as if this were a perfectly ordinary occasion and focusing on ordinary issues instead of recognizing the democracy is on the line and acting to shore it up. At the same time, I also agreed with him that ordinary voters just don't seem to care. They find democracy too abstract and want leaders to deal with more immediate and concrete issues.
But I am not sure I agree with him on universal injunctions. Torrez warned that without universal injunctions, lawsuits by state would lose half their power since the injunction would only apply in states that joined in the lawsuit. To which I am inclined to say -- so much the better! Republican states have been free riding of suits by Democratic Attorney Generals for too long. Right before Torrez, we heard from a medical researcher warning about the devastating effects DOGE cuts to research could have on our healthcare system. And the danger was not something remote, with cures not being found. The harm is happening in the immediate future.
Consider, then if court rulings to block the cuts applied only in states that joined in the suit.* That would put every Republican Attorney General on the spot. Either join in the lawsuit and come out against Trump, or stay out and see valuable funds cut, sometimes with devastating effects. I can't think of a better way to split the movement and bring the practice to an end. Granted, some people will object that if we allow cuts to go through in red states, innocent people will be hurt. But it should be clear by now that keeping Trump from hurting people simply enables him to continue. Only the prospect of hurting supporters will stop him.
Rumor has it that was why he backed down on tariffs against China.
_________________________________ *Admittedly, DOGE cuts appear to be running their course and the next set of injunctions will presumably deal with immigration -- a different dynamic altogether. It is also true that Republican members of Congress were able to quietly intervene to restore funding in some cases.
While I fully expected Trump to look for some face-saving out to back down on the 145% tariffs on China, I did not expect it to happen so soon. (The day after my latest post, actually!). I expected him to cave only when we started feeling some real pain on Main Street. He didn't wait that long.
I will add that I fully expect the 90 day "pause" to be the face-saving out Trump was looking for, and any return to either the 145% rate on China or "reciprocal" tariffs on the rest of the world to be quietly forgotten when 90 days roll around. I expect any noises Trump is making now about resuming tariffs to be so much empty talk. Of course, I though that when he put a 30 day "pause" on tariffs against Canada and Mexico as well.
So, what if I am right? Well, for starters, I expect Trump's popularity to recover at least somewhat with the decision not to drive us into a ditch. Then again, 10% tariffs on everyone and 30% on China will cause some price increases and economic slowing, particularly in our international trade sectors. It will not be obviously catastrophic, but there will be a pinch. People may not recognize the tariffs are causing the pinch, but it will be there and I expect it to eventually erode any recovery in Trump's popularity. But it will take time.
I also suspect that Trump will take away some lessons from this little episode. One will be that if one of his policies proves disastrous it is, after all, better to abandon the policy than to stick with it. Fair enough. One only wishes any number of other Presidents had learned the same thing. Of course, it is better not to adopt a disastrous policy in the first place, but that is a different story.
Another lesson I expect Trump to take away that may -- alas -- prove true is that if you start with a disastrous policy, retreating to one that is merely bad makes the bad policy look pretty good by comparison. (Incidentally, it is past hoping that any future President will not adopt any bad policies. that amounts to saying one hopes future President will never make mistakes -- not compatible with ordinary, fallible human nature).
One he seems highly resistant to learning is that, while it is better to retreat from a disastrous policy to a merely bad policy than stick with the disastrous policy, it is better to pick one bad policy and stick with it than to jump erratically from one bad policy to another.
And, of course, I could be wrong. Trump might raise tariffs again after all. Then all bets would be off.
Those are my thoughts about the procedural aspects of the Trump Administration. How do his substantive policies match up to my worst fears, and how do they compare to a smart authoritarian? The most obvious policies are immigration, education and science, abortion, foreign policy, budget, and the economy, particularly tariffs.
IMMIGRATION
What I feared: This was another area I was afraid could get really bad. I was afraid of ICE teaming up with local law enforcement and possibly informal militias, of Trump calling up the National Guard where the local authorities would not cooperate, of large-scale workplace raids, of makeshift outdoor facilities, of house-to-house searches in Aurora, Colorado. I did see a distinct countervailing pressure against all of this -- the fear of widespread labor shortages if it went to far.
What has happened: This is another case of just as bad but in a different way. Trump has largely halted illegal border crossings and made some use of the military at the border. So far he has not activated the National Guard for internal enforcement and local law enforcement has shown little interest in taking resources out of fighting street crime and putting them into arresting and holding border crossers who posed no threat to public safety. But horrific things have happened that I did not anticipate. ICE has been making arrests of people at routine check-ins at enforcement offices and even at a naturalization ceremony. It has been seeking deportation of legal residents for political activity or traffic tickets. And, of course, it has shipped over 200 men to indefinite imprisonment in El Salvador without and process. And we are starting to see arrests of people -- including a judge and a mayor. And now Steve Miller is threatening to suspend habeas corpus if courts continue to insist the immigrants are entitled to due process. (Not within the first 100 days, I admit). It is terrifying, though a different kind of terrifying than I feared.
What a smart authoritarian would do: I have no doubt that a smart authoritarian would close the border, as Trump has done. The overwhelming deluge on the border was a major reason for Trump's win. Ending the deluge is altogether in line with Rule Number One of Smart Authoritarians -- stick to popular stuff until you have consolidated complete power. A smart authoritarian would have a problem here. A deluge on the border is a story. The absence of such a deluge it not a story. But he could at least somewhat overcome that problem by taking a tour of the border, doing photo ops with people who were deluged with border crossers and are no longer having that problem, and getting rightwing influencers to do more stories on the subject.
No doubt a smart authoritarian would also expel foreign students for expressing political views that he disliked, and any other prominent and outspoken foreigner who opposed him, for that matter. But it makes no sense to pick a fight with ordinary apolitical types who keep their heads down and conduct valuable scientific research or do jobs Americans don't want. Especially if it caused labor shortages. To the extent people are upset about hearing people speak a language they don't understand and recordings that say, "Para espanol, oprima dos," strong pressure to assimilate makes more sense.
But if a smart authoritarian feels that he absolutely must engage in mass deportations to sate his base's bloodlust, a smart authoritarian would first seek to whip of bloodlust outside the base. Already these measures are beginning to spark a backlash -- and that is ever without serious labor shortages. Trump has been making a major priority of saying that non-citizens have no right to due process, and pointing to the worst of the worst to justify the point. But the opposite approach really makes more sense. Although Trump grossly exaggerates the numbers of fentanyl smugglers, human traffickers, serious criminals and the like among migrants, no one is seriously disputing that a few such individuals really do exist. Why not hold some highly publicized trials, with graphic details of real crimes? If you want to stir up real hatred against immigrants in general, graphic show trials of real crimes seem like an effective way to do it. It would unite that base and swing voters against immigrants and paralyze opponents, who can hardly defend such crimes, and reduce them to sputtering arguments that the defendants are not typical. Granted, it may take some time to put together such a trial, but so what? There is no need for hurry. And presumably different cases are in different stages of preparation. So much the better. A series of show trials, one after another, will be more effective in whipping up hate than doing them all at once.
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
What I feared: This one was not on my bingo card. I knew that Republican don't approve of college education. They prefer trade schools and believe that studying humanities and social sciences is a frivolous luxury at best, and a source of dangerously subversive ideas at worst. But I always assumed that Republican understood the value of STEM and favored things like, I don't know, cancer research. I did expect the Trump Administration to use federal funds as a form of coercion in education.
What has happened: Trump has put anti-vax lunatic who rejects the germ theory of disease as the Secretary of Health and Human Services and a New Age woo woo type for Surgeon General. He is senselessly cutting off any health research that contains certain forbidden words about "diversity, equity and inclusion" and cut funding for cancer research and Alzheimers research. This is in addition to the overall jihad against foreign students and scientists. The US used to attract first rate students and scientists from around the world. No longer!
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian would make something like Trump's crackdown on the independence of universities. A smart authoritarian would also use federal funds as a means of coercion against schools to make them adopt his desired curriculum, or at least keep certain topics out. And a smart authoritarian would no doubt expel foreign students who expressed dangerous political views, and probably any other foreign resident who did something to offend him. But he would not attack cancer research or Alzheimer's research or generally come across as anti-healthcare.
ABORTION
What I feared: Trump has been studiously avoiding the issue of abortion, knowing how unpopular a ban is with the general public, even if the Party faithful favor it. I fully expected him to avoid this hot potato and leave it to the states.
What Trump has done: He has avoided this hot potato and left it to the states.
What a smart authoritarian would do: Avoid this hot potato. Vladimir Putin allows very lax abortion laws, knowing that a crackdown would be unpopular. What's good enough for Pooty should be good enough for Trump.
FOREIGN POLICY
What I feared: Democratic backsliding is taking place the world over. Europe, Latin America, Israel, South Korea are all experiencing an erosion in democracy. Countries that were never democratic, like China or Saudi Arabia, are becoming more autocratic. We are also well into a second Cold War between an alliance between Russia and China (with China very much the senior partner) and the embattled democracies of the West. I feared that Trump would switch sides and align us with the autocracies of the world against the democracies. This would include withdrawing from NATO, halting all aid to Ukraine, encouraging Russian propaganda, and who knows what else. I also assumed that democratic backsliding would rise or fall together -- if the US had overcome the anti-democratic forces, I expected other countries would follow our example. If democracy failed here, what chance would it have anywhere else?
On the other hand, I absolutely was not afraid that he would start WWIII or a nuclear war. In fact, when my anxiety about Donald Trump was at its height, I would look back to my fears of global thermonuclear was when Russia first invaded Ukraine and remind myself -- no matter how bad it gets, at least it won't be that bad.
What happened: Well, one thing I did not take into account is what might be called foreign policy by Twitter trolling. It did not occur to me that Trump would propose to annex Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and possibly Gaza, or that he would insist on calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America or photoshop himself as Pope. On a much more serious note, I also did not consider that possibility that he might overnight halt all foreign aid and condemn millions in Africa to death by starvation, AIDS and Ebola. So that part has to be considered worse than my worst fears.
On the other hand, after showing a decidedly pro-Putin tilt in Europe, Trump is now showing signs of disillusionment and may end up adopted a more conventional pro-Ukrainian policy (or he might not. You never know with the Donald). And he may be preparing for a nuclear deal with Iran, probably not all that different from the one that he rejected -- Nixon to China and all that. So Trump's foreign policy might not turn out so badly.
I also knew about the thermostatic effect in domestic politics, i.e., whatever policy is in effect provokes a backlash. It did not occur to me that the thermostatic effect might go international, and that Trump's deliberate attempts to insult and demean democratic allies would lead to an international backlash against Trumpish parties. The effect has not been universal. Alternatives fur Deutschland continues to poll better and better. The UK Independence Party made major gains in local elections. But Trumpish parties suffered major reversals in Canada, Australia, and now the Papacy.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian bases foreign policy on one simple premise -- never lose a war. Many an authoritarian has been brought down by losing a war. Of course, the surest way to avoid losing a war is not to get into one in the first place. Donald Trump came to power on a wave of war-weariness and seems to understand this rule and intend to avoid getting into any wars. So long as he does that, I doubt that anyone but hardcore news junkies like me will care what he does in terms of foreign policy.
THE BUDGET
What I feared: I never expected much to happen in this regard. I expected the usual Republican shuffle -- freak out about deficits as long as the Democrats hold the White House and lose all interest once a Republican is elected. Also, tax cuts and military spending don't count toward the deficit. To that you can now add deportation spending. Also, I though Trump had learned his lesson from the attempt to repeal Obamacare and would avoid diving headfirst into a wood chipper by making serious cuts to mandatory spending.
What has happened: Not much, at least in the first 100 days. At least, not much in Congress which so far has limited itself to extending existing spending to the end of the fiscal year. DOGE, of course, has engaged in massive layoffs and defunding of grants, causing maximal damage to government function with minimal actual savings. What lies ahead is anyone's guess. But a few facts remain.
First, we have been running large deficits since 2001. So long as interest rates have been low, these have been sustainable, but now that interest rates have gone up, these deficits are no longer sustainable. That does not mean a catastrophic fiscal crisis, but it does mean that debt service will eat up a larger and larger portion of the budget, crowding everything else out. Second, any meaningful cuts will be wildly unpopular. And third, tax increases are against Republican orthodoxy, although it must be noted that that last has changed at least with respect to import taxes, and just might change in other regards as well.
What a smart authoritarian would do: I would expect a smart authoritarian to kick the can down the road and refrain from any unpopular fiscal consolidation until after he had consolidated complete power.
TARIFFS AND THE ECONOMY
What I feared: I was not afraid of tariffs. To the contrary, I hoped Trump would bring on stagflation with ruinous tariffs. My fantasy on this score ran to Trump combining the worst of his and Kamala Harris's policies -- slap heavy taxes on imports and respond to the resulting price increases with price controls and prosecutions for "price gouging." It seemed like the most effective way for Trump to completely ruin is presidency, including splitting his base. If I had any fears, it was of the grownups in the room prevailing and preventing such foolishness.
What happened: Well, The Donald certainly hasn't disappointed in this regard. After promising a 10% general tariff, with 60% on China and possibly 100% on car imports on the campaign trail, Trump has adopted and then dropped his insane "reciprocal" tariffs and moved to a 10% general tariff with 25% on cars and145% (!) on China. Wall Street understandably freaked out over the "reciprocal" tariffs so Trump, whose whole career has been based on bilking gullible rubes, has discovered that there are no rubes so gullible as the ones on Wall Street and has quieted the stock market by stringing them on with endless promises of a trade deal. But I don't think painful realities can be denied forever. West coast ports have seen a dramatic drop in cargo arriving. Job losses are close at hand. And these will not be confined to a single sector. Companies have stocked up on inventory, but it will necessarily run out. Over the next few months, we will see increased prices, or even empty shelves. And once Main Street starts feeling the pain, Wall Street can no longer be fooled.
I think it is also clear that Trump realizes his mistake and is looking for a face-saving way to retreat. My guess is he will start his retreat once obvious pain appears on Main Street, probably in the form of carving out more and more exceptions to tariffs until nothing is left. It has already started. I don't know how long it will take for the pain to reverse. Estimates I have seen are that it takes two weeks for ships to load up cargo and 2-3 weeks for them to cross the Pacific, and depleted inventory will not be restored overnight, so at least a few months.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian would take credit for a good economy and leave well enough alone. Probably a smart authoritarian would do something about bird flu like vaccinating hens and importing more eggs. I think that people would forgive high egg prices if they knew something was being done and relief was in sight. Or, put differently, Trump has given us a circus, but forgotten the bread.
In short, Trump has been as bad as I feared on immigration, but in a different way. He has been much worse on science, remains unknown on the budget, and is threatening to make complete hash out of the economy with his tariffs. And all that in the first 100 days. Hold onto your hats, who knows what comes next.
So, Trump has passed the 100 day mark, and everyone has been doing retrospectives. At this point I am supposed to say that he has been worse than my worst fears.
But that is really not true. The truth is that Trump has been worse than my worst fears in some ways, not as bad in other ways, and sometimes equally bad, but a different kind of bad. At least one fear has not come to pass. Trump is not a smart authoritarian. He has not saved the unpopular actions until after consolidating power.
Consider, then, my worst fears, Trump's actions, and the marks of a smart authoritarian.
ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY
What I feared: My worst fears assumed a Trump Presidency and a Republican majority in both houses of Congress which, of course, has happened. I feared Congressional Republicans would summon all lobbyists and tell them to tell their clients that they had until a certain date to cease all donations to Democratic candidates, parties, and non-profits, and that any business making donations beyond that date would never see any legislation introduced into Congress. They would also broadly hint that the prospects of getting any sort of legislation onto the floor would be proportional to donations to Republican candidates, parties, and non-profits.
So far as I know, this would be completely legal.
The Administration would give similar instructions to government contractors. Contracts would be awarded in proportion to donations to Republican candidates and causes and any donation to Democrats would mean an end to all government contracts. That would violate Federal procurements law, and presumably at least some contractors would challenge the provisions as violations of procurement laws. Trump would challenge the laws as unconstitutional infringements on the President's power and, given the history of the present Supreme Court, I would expect him to win.
I also feared he would direct the IRS to deny tax-exempt status to any non-profit that opposed him. I also anticipated a lot of discriminatory enforcement of regulations based on companies' political donations, or on general ideological grounds.
I feared the upshot of all of this might be that in the next election, Democrats would have their institutional donations cut off and their aligned non-profits shut down and be unable to compete. Republicans would win a large landslide and cement their gains.
I also feared that Republicans, having succeeded and largely shutting down the Democratic parties and its non-profits might then start attacking companies that advertised in media outlets that criticized Trump or donated to college endowments. I also thought that any serious attempt to shut down college endowments would generate enough of a backlash by people who either loved their alma mater or wanted their children to have the chance to go to college that it would fail.
And I expected the Trump Administration to use the threat of loss of Federal funds to bring state and local governments and school districts into line.
What has happened: Nothing that systematic has happened. And, quite honestly, DOGE has fired so many people and made such arbitrary denials of grants as to make such a systematic approach difficult.
On the other hand, the Administration has made a systematic attack on the independence of universities. It has threatened to withhold all federal funding from Columbia unless the university allowed the government to dictate its internal discipline procedures and take its Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department into academic receivership for a minimum of five years. It demanded that Harvard end all affirmative action based on race or ethnicity, institute affirmative action for conservatives, and submit all of these programs to federal oversight. When Harvard refused to submit, Trump threatened its tax-exempt status.
I expected Trump to attack the independence of universities. After all Orban did the same. I did not anticipate that Trump would respond to legal challenges to his actions by attacking elite law firms -- cutting off their security clearance, canceling their contracts, and barring them from government buildings. Needless to say, this is a very serious threat to the rule of law.
In short, the game is young. The so far the Trump Administration's attack on independent and elite institutions has been real, but less thorough-going than I feared. But there is plenty of time to escalate.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian would combine Trump's actual actions -- attacks on universities, elite law firms, and Act Blue -- with my worst fears -- attacks on a wide range of other institutions as well, and attempts to cut off all Democratic funding. I may have underestimated the difficulty and institutional safeguards preventing the line of attack I fears.
But here is the thing. A smart authoritarian would take care not to combine these attacks with unpopular actions. While there is some evidence of disapproval of these actions, this is simply not the sort of thing any normal person is going to care about, or be out in the street protesting. A smart authoritarian would make attacks of this kind and only hardcore political junkies would ever notice.
THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
What I feared: I feared Schedule F firings -- replacement of middle management and everyone with policy making power in favor of Trump loyalists. I feared the subversion of the Federal bureaucracy into in instrument of Donald Trump's will that would entirely disregard the law. I feared this would turn the executive branch into in instrument of one man's whims in the short run, and in the long run into a patronage instrument for promoting the fortunes of the Republican Party.
Certainly, I assumed that the Trump Administration would drop all employment discrimination cases except for allegations of discrimination against White people. If, say Target were to sell trans-friendly baby clothes, or Bud Lite were to hire a trans influencer as a promotor, these things would be clearly protected by the First Amendment and government could not ban them outright. But Trump appointees could harass the companies with a raft of wage and hour investigations and other discriminatory enforcement actions and investigations, to be dropped upon the company pulling the offending products and making a large donation to the Republican Party.
I feared the use of regulatory actions to harass political and ideological opponents. And I feared the use of threats to funding as an explicit form of coercion, primarily of state and local governments, but possibly other actors as well.
What has happened: In a word -- DOGE. Instead of focusing on managerial employees, Elon Musk has been firing "probationary" employees -- anyone who was hired or promoted within the last year. The point here is to avoid legal challenges because the "probationary" status makes such employees easier to fire. DOGE has completely ignored the law when it comes to invading Federal agencies, hijacking computer systems, cutting off funds, and locking employees out -- both of the computer and the building.
Grants have been cut off for having words some computer program considered too DEI. Employment and grant cuts have frequently shown no rhyme or reason, attacking everything from cancer research to national parks to weather forecasting, none of which seems particularly political or ideological. There has also been use of funding cuts as a political weapon -- against universities or state school systems.
The problem, of course, is that firing in such a random, haphazard manner seriously disrupts operations without actually achieving anything (other than reducing the federal work force). Services are being disrupted, grants are being cut off for no discernable reason, and such widespread firings are making weaponization of government more difficult instead of easier.
Then again, apparently the Administration has finally issued an executive order seeking to implement Schedule F and replace middle management with loyalists. As of now it is way too early to know how that will play out.
In short, this is been worse than my wildest fears in terms of damage to government function, random harm to the wider society, and general lawlessness. But it has also been much less targeted or systematic than I feared, with much less method to its overall madness.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian would choose Schedule F over DOGE. A smart authoritarian would fire managers and replace them with loyalists, not smash things at random. A smart authoritarian would not fire park rangers, shut down weather stations, defund cancer research, and take other, obvious actions that would upset people. Replacing middle management with loyalists might still hurt the quality of government services, but it would do so more slowly and subtly, such that most people would not notice anything was wrong until it was too late.
WEAPONIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
What I feared: Certainly I expected Trump to pardon all the January 6 rioters and generally use his office and the Department of Justice to shield political allies from all consequences. I was not all that afraid of Trump arresting his political opponents because of the constraints of an independent judiciary. There was some loose talk about martial law and deploying the military against citizens or to shoot protesters. I was willing to give the Trump Administration the benefit of the doubt and assume they only meant shooting violent rioters. What I was afraid of what that the Administration would harass opponents with the IRS and regulatory actions. I also feared that Trump would incited the Proud Boys and other militias against his opponents.
What has happened: Not too different from my fears. Certainly Trump has pardoned all January 6 defendants and shielded allies from prosecution. He has made some scary comments -- challenging the validity of Biden's pardons, for instance, or calling for investigation of officials who said the 2020 election was not rigged -- but so far nothing has come of that. Some of his more hardcore supporters are disappointed at the lack of action on that front. Acting US District Attorney for DC Ed Martin has made a lot of threats, but nothing has come of them so far.
What about weaponization of regulation? Brendan Carr of the FCC has been harassing networks.So far the media has held firm. And, as discussed above, there is the threat to Harvard's tax-exempt status and the order to investigate Act Blue. And there has been a great deal of use of federal funding as a tool of coercion, but this is different from weaponization of law enforcement or even regulatory agencies.
And then there is the matter of militias. Certainly there are rumors that Republicans caved to Trump on appointments because of physical threats from militia. That may be true, or it may not. Certainly judges have not been intimidated. Widespread protests have taken place and not drawn violent attacks, either from the government or from militias. A wide range of opponents operate in the open and without fear. More on this later.
What a smart authoritarian would do: A smart authoritarian would probably be more effective with regulatory harassment, but I think the Administration has generally been both smart and authoritarian here.
To be continued, in discussions of substantive policy.
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