A Slow Boil

The President of the United States has deployed the military into two American cities, one of which is the nation's capital. His masked secret police force, ICE, not only has a budget larger than that of any other federal law enforcement agency, but also exceeds that of 23 of the world's top 40 most expensive militaries.

Meanwhile, the US military has been purged of anyone who won’t be more loyal to the president than the Constitution, and MAGA conspiracy theorists have been put in charge of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and US intelligence services.

The free press is being buried in billion-dollar lawsuits—the right to assemble is facing off against the National Guard. Citizens have been threatened with deportation. Law enforcement is being wielded to intimidate vocal opposition. The Constitution is under assault. Judicial rulings are being ignored.

It isn’t a question of if authoritarianism will arrive in the US; it is how far it will go before we try to stop it.

Too many believe that Democracy defends itself, that it is self-correcting whenever pulled off course. Not true. Everything we have, including the Constitution, our rights, and our freedoms, is temporary. At any point in time, a populist with a cult of personality can show up and tear it all down.

This isn’t a new realization. George Washington warned about it early on in our nation’s history, even calling out that coalescing into political parties would make it all the more likely to happen.

they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion

Trump declared that he would seek retribution against his enemies during his campaign. Now, while declaring himself the chief law enforcement officer in the country, the FBI has raided the home of one of Trump’s vocal opponents. He has also threatened to revoke citizenship from his critics and deport them.

Newspapers and media companies that have refused to toe the line have found themselves removed from the White House press corps or dragged into court, facing baseless lawsuits designed to force them to bow to Trump. Unfortunately, they have bowed down because, at the end of the day, higher profits matter more to them than standing up to a wannabe dictator.

Judicial rulings have been ignored, judges threatened, and court houses raided by ICE agents looking to arrest people following the law. While Trump ran on a message of rounding up hardened criminals and getting them out of the country, as so many fascist leaders have in the past, he has instead let his secret police loose to do whatever they want as long as they meet the quotas for detentions and deportations he sets.

The abuse of the law is overlooked as these secret police grab people off the street. Guns are drawn against unarmed, non-threatening individuals who are then thrown to the ground before a squad of thugs dogpiles on top of them, muffling the cries about not being able to breathe. US citizens have been hauled off and left in cells for days without due process, a violation of their rights.

That’s because the Constitution is just a suggestion, or maybe a mere nuisance, to Trump rather than the foundation of our democracy.

Birthright citizenship was the first target. The issue has been tangled up in the courts as the few organizations still resisting bring lawsuits to try and protect America. The census is another target. The Constitution is clear that the census is to count all people living in the US and that it is performed every 10 years. Trump, realizing how his unpopular agenda threatens the Republican majority in Congress, is seeking ways to mitigate those losses.

His goal is to conduct a new census now and be the one who decides who should be counted, in hopes of shifting the balance in the House of Representatives. The irony being that the last census, which Trump continues to complain about, was performed during his first term. Nonetheless, MAGA politicians ignore such basic facts and claim that Biden used the census to grab power for Democrats. History is one of the first targets of tyrants, who rewrite it to create a narrative that best serves their purpose.

The likelihood of the midterms taking power away from Trump is also why he pushed Texas to redraw its districts in an off-year in hopes of gaining more Republican seats in Congress. At the same time, Trump is preparing to bring a legal challenge against California, which is considering its own redistricting to counterbalance Texas’s power grab. Hypocrisy at its worst. Even more glaring is the fact that Texas pushed through its redistricting in the dark of night, while California is putting the issue in front of voters.

It doesn’t stop there. Trump wants to intimidate protestors, too. Despite the Supreme Court ruling long ago that burning the American flag is part of free speech, Trump signed an executive order to have the Department of Justice investigate anyone who burns the flag to look for other crimes they could be charged with, such as disorderly conduct. And just today, Trump said that people organizing protests should be charged with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, RICO, a law created to take down organized crime like the mafia.

Those National Guard that filled the streets of LA and DC? They’re now armed, and Trump is threatening to send them to other major blue cities in blue states like Chicago. Big cities in red states with significantly higher violent crime than either DC or Chicago are not receiving the same treatment because it is about Trump going after his political opposition, not trying to “Make America Great Again.”

The biggest issue is the silence and timid response from the American public. Some are already too intimidated to get involved, and others wrongly believe that since tyranny didn’t conquer the nation overnight, democracy will be safe. Fascism never takes hold in one sudden move. It is about eroding checks and balances, shifting norms, and consolidating power incrementally, one step at a time.

America is a pot of frogs sitting still as the water rises to a boil. Will we take it seriously before it is too late? Or will millions of Americans wake up one day and wonder what happened to their rights and freedoms?