Second presidency of Donald Trump

"If Iran doesn't FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!"

"Immediately after the targeting of power plants and infrastructure in our country, vital infrastructure and energy and oil facilities across the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be destroyed irreversibly, and oil prices will rise for a long time."

"BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS."

"President Trump late Sunday said there would be no deal to end the partial government shutdown until Democrats join with Republicans to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act. “I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,’” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “It is far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate, and that includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems (who are to blame for this mess!), a Five Billion Dollar cut in ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] funding, a deal which, even when disguised as something else, is unacceptable to me and the American people – UNLESS it includes their approval of Voter I.D., (with picture!), Citizenship to Vote, No Mail-In Voting (with exceptions), All Paper Ballots, No Men In Women’s Sports, and No Transgender MUTILIZATION of our precious children,” he added. Trump has pressed for passage of the legislation, which would require proof of citizenship to vote and largely do away with mail-in ballots. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has repeatedly said there aren’t enough votes to get the bill over the line any time soon."

"So, we estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission [in Iran]. 26 days in, we're extremely -- really a lot ahead of schedule. The Iranian regime is now admitting to itself that they have been decisively defeated. They're saying to people, this is a disaster. They know it, that's why they're talking to us. They're only -- they wouldn't talk otherwise, but they're talking to us because they've got a disaster on their hands. They're defeated. They can't make a comeback. We're free to roam over their cities and towns and destroy all of their crazy nuclear weapons and missiles and drones that they're building, and we're doing that. They now have a chance to make a deal, but that's up to them and they'll tell you, 'We're not negotiating. We will not negotiate.' Of course they're negotiating, they've been obliterated. Who wouldn't negotiate? They are begging to make a deal. We'll see if we can make the right deal. And if they make the right deal, then the Strait will open up, Hormuz Strait will open up."

"President Trump does not bluff. He is prepared to unleash hell. There does not need to be anymore death and destruction. But if Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Iran should not miscalculate again. Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force and their air defence system. Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refused to understand they have already been defeated and refuse to come to a deal."

"The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.” This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP"

"A lot of people will say it's a war crime because mostly these power plants are probably there for the civilian population. You cannot destroy civilian assets in an effort to put harm on the population."

"All I have to do is leave Iran, and we'll be doing that very soon. And they'll become tumbling down."

"It was an extraordinary week. The slumbering giant of America is awakening. Americans forced Disney to put Jimmy Kimmel back on the air. Over 6 million people watched Kimmel’s Tuesday monologue assailing Trump’s attempt to censor him. Another 26 million watched it on social media, including YouTube. (Kimmel’s usual television audience is about 1.42 million.) Trump’s dictatorial narcissism revealed itself nearly as dramatically in the criminal indictment of former FBI director James Comey, coming immediately after Trump fired the U.S. attorney who refused to indict him. As did Trump’s demand that prosecutors go after philanthropist George Soros, Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and other perceived enemies. As did Trump’s order yesterday, directing the “Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth” to use “full force, if necessary” to “protect War ravaged Portland” Oregon and any “ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” He is escalating his use of the U.S. military against Americans. There was also his bonkers speech to the United Nations telling delegates that their nations are “going to hell.” His attribution of autism to Tylenol, even though doctors say it is safe for pregnant women in moderation. His unilateral imposition of tariffs as high as 100 percent on imports of pharmaceuticals and kitchen cabinets. Friends, his neofascism and his dementia are both in plain sight."

"His polls continue to drop. Voters are turning against him and his Republican party. On Tuesday, Democrat Adelita Grijalva won Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in a special election — leaving House Republicans with a majority of just five. Grijalva’s victory comes on the heels of another Democratic win: James Walkinshaw’s in Virginia. Two more special elections are coming, in Texas and Tennessee. Speaker Mike Johnson is struggling to hold House Republicans together, facing rebellion on issues such as the release of files relating to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats are refusing to go along with Republicans to fund the government beyond Tuesday unless Republicans agree to extending Affordable Care Act subsidies — now set to expire at the end of the year and cause 24 million people to lose coverage or pay skyrocketing premiums."

"Friends, I can’t tell you exactly when the tipping point will occur — when elected Republicans will rebel against him, or when his dementia becomes so apparent he’s forced to resign, or when so much of the nation rises up against his dictatorship that he’s impeached and convicted of high crimes — but we’re getting closer. As I said a few days ago, I’ve been in and around politics for 60 years and have developed a sixth sense about the slumbering giant of America. That giant is now stirring. He about to stand. He’s angry. Soon he will roar. Your activism is working. Be strong. Be safe. Hug your loved ones. We’ll get through this."

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to top generals was supposed to serve as a rallying cry for military exceptionalism — but it didn’t land that way with many of the people it was targeting. Numerous defense officials — who watched senior brass scramble to Washington and then sit through a partisan speech from President Donald Trump and a return to old-school military standards by Hegseth — were left wondering why the event had occurred at all. “More like a press conference than briefing the generals,” said one defense official, who, like others, was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution. “Could have been an email.”"

"Defense officials, in the Pentagon and at bases around the world, spent much of Tuesday trying to make sense of the last-minute gathering at the Quantico base in Virginia. Hegseth called out “fat generals,” and, separately, pushed fitness standards that could limit women in combat roles, while Trump offered his justification for sending the military into American cities. The 90-minute event — which featured military officials who swore an oath to the Constitution attending something more akin to a campaign rally — had the feeling of a Hollywood production. Trump even instructed officials to “just have a good time.” The meeting took place hours before a likely government shutdown, and struck some officials as a distraction that threatens to shift the military’s focus away from foreign threats toward an unprecedented domestic role. “Not quite a loyalty test, but … on the spectrum of loyalty to ideology,” said a second defense official. “Total waste of money.”"

"The Pentagon has insisted the U.S. military is retooling to prepare for a potential war with China. But sending American troops to patrol their own cities will “distract warfighters from actually training to fight and win” against Beijing, said a fourth defense official. Several Trump allies, including Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), said a face-to-face meeting like Hegseth’s helped reinforce the administration's visions. “There needs to be more warfighter training,” he said in an interview. “We don't do enough of it. We don't do enough flying training. I like this approach … I thought it was a strong speech.” Democrats, on the other hand, attacked the event as purely vanity-driven. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) called the resources used for the meeting “totally unjustified” and an exercise in chest thumping. “This comes at the expense of real national security,” she said in an interview. “But obviously they don’t give a rip.”"

"Lt. Col. Amy McGrath called out U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for trying to overshadow women’s contribution to the U.S. military in his effort to meet “the highest male standard’ among U.S. soldiers. “Each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat [Military Occupational Specialty], for every designated combat arms position, returns to the highest male standard,” Hegseth told leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia on Tuesday. “Only because this job is life or death, standards must be met and not just met at every level. We should seek to exceed the standard to push the envelope to compete.”"

"“Hegseth still has a lot to learn, unfortunately,” said McGrath, speaking with the “Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” “When I flew my combat missions, there was not a set male standard and a female standard for flying an aircraft onto the back of an aircraft carrier. You can either do it or you can't. Combat jobs have had one standard for a long time. And part of when we opened combat jobs to women, those of us that were in those jobs wanted one standard to be set. And it was — so I think it's kind of ridiculous.” “But, honestly, that, in comparison to the rest of what we heard in the last hour, is really minor,” McGrath added. “That speech was bonkers by the president, and everybody sitting in that room knows that we don't have a coherent foreign policy or defense policy. And that, I think, is a bigger issue indeed.”"

"McGrath was particularly wrathful at President Donald Trump suggesting the city of Chicago serve as a kind of “training ground” for urban warfare. “There was a lot of rambling. There was a ton of lies. There was a lot of politicization … and craziness that you heard from this speech, but the scariest part was when the president talked about using our cities as a training ground for the United States military,” said McGrath. “Now, the military has done training in cities before, but that's not what I think he's talking about here. He's talking about using the military in ways that we should not see in America. And I'm very worried about this.” “I think the whole part of bringing these generals and admirals back here was to discuss this type of thing, and it should it should scare us all,” McGrath said. “This is something that we just don't do in America. We have police to fight crime, and we should be putting money into those police forces, not sending American troops that are trained for war to American cities.”"

"In an interview at Catholic University last week, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said what he’s clearly been thinking for the past 30 years: Supreme Court precedents don’t matter, and he’s making things up as he goes along to fulfill his own political agenda. He didn’t say it in that way, of course. People would have noticed that. Instead, he couched his self-serving philosophy in legal jargon that will fly under the radar of most people, including journalists. Here’s what he said: “At some point we need to think about what we’re doing with stare decisis.… [I]t’s not some sort of talismanic deal where you can just say ‘stare decisis’ and not think, turn off the brain, right?” To translate: “Stare decisis” is a foundational legal principle in this country and all countries that follow a “common law” system. What it means, in simple terms, is that prior judicial rulings govern future judicial rulings. If a court rules, for instance, that “gay people have the same basic rights as everyone else in this country, including the right to marry other people,” then that ruling is supposed to govern all future cases concerning the rights of gay people. Thomas, apparently, doesn’t agree. Instead of respecting stare decisis and precedent, he is saying that older cases shouldn’t have the power to control newer ones. For Thomas, just because courts ruled that LGBTQ people should have rights in the past, including the right to marry, doesn’t mean he feels compelled to rule that they should keep them."

"We’ve seen this in Thomas’s opinions in recent years. In 2022, he declared, in a separate but supporting opinion in the Dobbs case, that Roe v. Wade was not respectful of our legal traditions, but Loving v. Virginia is. Why? Well because Roe gave women rights, while Loving gave Thomas the right to marry his white wife, and if you have a better legal difference between those cases other than Thomas’s own personal preferences, I’d love to hear you explain it. Thomas has also decided (in this case, writing for the majority) that simple gun registration laws are not respectful of our traditions in this country, but he signed on to an opinion giving the president the powers of the very king we revolted against. You simply cannot chart a course through what passes for logic in Thomas’s head without understanding his preferred policy outcomes. If Thomas were the only justice who thought like this, it would be a containable problem. But the entire Republican cabal on the Supreme Court rules exactly in the way Thomas is talking about, with no respect for precedent or stare decisis. This coming term, the Republicans on the court are likely to overturn a voting rights precedent they set for themselves only a couple of years ago. The Republicans literally cannot be trusted to respect their own rulings."

"The entire Trump administration has been a “mask off” moment for the Supreme Court’s conservatives. It turns out, they don’t actually care about precedent (no matter how many times they lied and claimed to care during their Senate confirmation hearings). They don’t actually care about the text. They don’t actually care about judicial restraint. They want the political outcomes they want and they have the votes to do it. Thomas’s speech is a declaration that there is no judicial precedent that is safe from the current Republicans on the court. Stare decisis will not stand in their way of getting what they want. You could read the entire speech as a shot across the bow of Obergefell v. Hodges, and it is, but it’s also a rare moment where Thomas told the truth about what he and his friends are actually doing. They do not care about traditions, norms, or the very foundation of judicial decision making in a common law system. They only care about winning."

"That’s all going to be very bad for those of us who do not happen to be white cis-hetero men in the near term, but there is a silver lining. Thomas’s speech at Catholic University literally lays down the playbook for how to defeat him and all the evil and cruelty he has wrought during his time on the bench. According to Thomas, future Supreme Court justices do not have to wrestle with the precedents laid down by Thomas and his Roberts-court brethren. They do not have to distinguish future cases from the ones that are being decided today. They do not have to wait for Congress to pass new laws, or for the Constitution to be amended. They don’t have to stay on the train Clarence Thomas is driving. And I am here for that. By Thomas’s own admission, the power of the Roberts court dies the moment there are more liberals on the bench than Republicans. That could happen as soon as the next presidential election, if Democrats get their act together to take control of the Supreme Court. If stare decisis is dead, then it’s dead forever. What can’t happen is for future Democratic justices to try to resurrect it, to preserve the power of the people who killed it. Clarence Thomas will soon be the longest-serving justice in American history. It’s good to know that he thinks his opinions will not matter after he’s dead. On that, he and I agree."

"Six months ago, I wrote a piece urging soldiers to leave the United States military. At the time, the possibility that the president might use the military as a tool to unjustly abuse US citizens was still somewhat theoretical. At the risk of being repetitive, events in the world make me feel compelled to write, once again: Leave the military now. The time when you can say that you did not understand what might happen is coming to an end. Yesterday, the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief gave speeches to all of our nation’s generals, who they had ordered to assemble in Washington. It is bad enough, I imagine, for all of these accomplished career officers to be subjected to the performative tirade of Pete Hegseth, a childish television host, installed as their superior, ranting about the need to be more macho, fairly dripping with overcompensation for his various inadequacies. Yet if Hegseth’s speech was unnecessary, bigoted, and cartoonish, the performance of the Commander in Chief was much more substantively dangerous."

"First, because it must have been clear to all of those assembled generals that Donald Trump, who possesses complete and total control of the military and its awesome powers, is, at best, mentally unwell. His speech, characteristically, was an incoherent stream-of-consciousness rant consisting mostly of narcissism and fiction and personal grievances. The mind of the man who has the ability to tell all of these officers what to do is broken and impervious to facts and reason. This is the man who can tell you when and how and who to kill. “They’re brave in our inner cities, which we’re going to be talking about because it’s a big part of war now, it’s a big part of war,” Trump said, speaking about firemen. “But the firemen go up on ladders and you have people shooting at them while they’re up on ladders. I don’t even know if anybody heard that. And actually don’t talk about it much, but I think you have to. Our firemen are incredible. They’re up on one of these ladders that goes way up to the sky rescuing people, and you have animals shooting at them — shooting bullets at firemen that are way up in death territory.” This is your boss."

"Worse, the president made his intentions for the military clear. “You know, the Democrats run most of the cities that are in bad shape. We have many cities in great shape too, by the way. I want you to know that. But it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” he said. “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard, but military,” he said, repeating bizarre, made-up stories about Chicago, Portland, and Seattle as war zones."

"I am not going to try to convince generals in the United States armed forces to embrace my own personal moral beliefs. Rather, I would urge them all to consider their own moral beliefs. Honor and courage are often touted as the highest military values. What do those values demand of these generals at this moment in history? To salute their deranged superiors, and then, in private, to mutter under their breath about how incompetent and awful those commanders are? Is it honorable for these hundreds of generals to go forward doing their very best to carry out the will of a president who vows openly to use the military to suppress his domestic political enemies, and who has in fact already done that in major cities? Is it courageous of these officer to—for the sake of their own careers—continue to robotically serve a man who is obviously making decisions based upon things that are not true, and who is obsessed with revenge above all, and who is quite straightforward about his intentions to use the military to forcefully oppress Americans? Is that what honor and courage demand of the highest ranking officers in our military? Nothing at all? It is common for people in the military to point out that they took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” and to imply that their allegiance to that oath would prevent them from carrying out truly unjust orders. I can’t help but notice that the point at which this moral duty to stop obeying orders kicks in appears to recede forever into the future. We, the citizens, are assured that there exists some ill-defined moment at which the personal moral code of military soldiers and officers will kick in and stop an out-of-control Commander in Chief from using the military for purposes of tyranny. Well? The tyrant is here. Talk is cheap. This theoretical guardrail of our democracy would be much more comforting if it were ever possible to see it produce some tangible action."

"It is not too late to change America’s future. We sit, right now, in a moment of possibility. The president has made his intention to use the military against American citizens abundantly clear, but the worst versions of this oppression are still to come. He has told us what is coming, but all of it has not happened yet. That means that there will never be a better moment for people of honor and courage to leave the military. There will never be a better moment for the generals to demonstrate that their moral values are not just empty words. There will never be a better time to actually weaken the power of an aspiring dictator by refusing to be a part of his army. There will never be a better chance to exempt yourself from the stain of participating in a great, historic injustice against America’s ideals. Everyone can see who is in charge. Everyone can see what the plan is. Nobody can say that they didn’t see what was coming. Nobody can say that they went into this blind. For the members of the military—and, above all, for the officers at its highest level—the time to be courageous, or not, has arrived. Like any large organization, the military is full of all types of people who got into it for all types of reasons. Despite my own objections to the things that politicians make the military do, I do believe that the military itself is full of people who sincerely value patriotism, sacrifice, and public service. And there can be no doubt that the military is full of people who have demonstrated great personal bravery, perseverance, and willingness to overcome daunting obstacles in order to do a job that they believe is honorable and necessary. In 2025, all of these admirable qualities demand a very particular action: to leave the military. Before you find yourself doing things that do not comport with the values that you hold. Before you find that you have become the bad guy. If you can run into a gunfight, you can find the bravery to quit. That’s what patriotism means today."

"President Donald Trump has condemned the shutdown and laid the blame squarely at the feet of the “Radical Left Democrats”— in the meantime, he appears to be making the most of it. Trump teased on Truth Social that he would be meeting with Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought to – as he warned Democrats he would do – reevaluate the necessity of various government agencies. “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote. As a potential shutdown loomed, the administration cautioned Democrats that if they didn’t sign on to Republicans’ short stopgap funding bill and prevent a shutdown, more federal employees would lose their jobs. The OMB sent a letter to federal agencies last week directing them to take a critical look at where they might be able to shed more employees. “With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out,” the letter reads. “Agencies are directed to use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force (RIF) notices for all employees in programs, projects, or activities (PPAs) that satisfy all three of the following conditions: (1) discretionary funding lapses on October 1, 2025; (2) another source of funding, such as H.R. 1 (Public Law 119-21) is not currently available; and (3) the PPA is not consistent with the President’s priorities.”"

"The New York Times reported in August that the federal workforce may have about 300,000 less people by year’s end. Most of the terminations or resignations were reportedly prompted by the Department of Government Efficiency, which was created by an executive order at the start of Trump’s second term. It’s unclear which “Democrat Agencies” are on the chopping block Tuesday – and whether entire agencies will be eradicated or they’ll merely lose more employees. The administration has previously described the Congressional Budget Office and the Bureau of Labor Statistics as unreliable, “Democrat-controlled,” politically motivated and riddled with “longstanding failures,” to name a few."

"The “Project 2025,” which Trump referenced in his social media post, is a strategy for the restructuring of the federal government, crafted by conservatives and published by the Heritage Foundation. The goals of the project, as summarized by the BBC, are to “restore the family as the centrepiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state; defend the nation's sovereignty and borders; and secure God-given individual rights to live freely.” Vought was a project co-author, and the president has framed the shutdown as an opportunity to further carry out this initiative. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DJT," his post concluded."

"As United States President Donald Trump relentlessly threatens to annex Canada, reiterating the threat again this week in a speech to American military officials, some Canadians are worried that a U.S. invasion could one day become a reality. How would that scenario play out? Looking at the sheer size of the American military, many people might believe that Trump would enjoy an easy victory. That analysis is wrong. If Trump ever decides to use military force to annex Canada, the result would not be determined by a conventional military confrontation between the Canadian and American armies. Rather, a military invasion of Canada would trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States. But in this nightmare scenario, could Canadians successfully resist an American invasion? Absolutely. I know this because I have studied insurgencies around the world for more than two decades, and I have spent time with ordinary people who have fought against powerful invading armies."

"Guerrillas use ambushes, raids and surprise attacks to slowly bleed an invading army, and local communities support these fighters by giving them safe havens and material support. These supporting citizens can also engage in forms of “everyday resistance,” using millions of passive-aggressive episodes of sabotage to frustrate and drain the enemy. Trump is delusional if he believes that 40 million Canadians will passively accept conquest without resistance. There is no political party or leader willing to relinquish Canadian sovereignty over “economic coercion,” and so if the U.S. wanted to annex Canada, it would have to invade. That decision would set in motion an unstoppable cycle of violence. Even if we imagine a scenario in which the Canadian government unconditionally surrenders, a fight would ensue on the streets. A teenager might throw a rock at invading soldiers. That kid would get shot, and then there would be more rocks, and more gunfire. An insurgency would be inevitable."

"This idea may shock Canadians today because they see themselves as friendly and affable people. However, Canada’s current self-image of “niceness” only exists because they’re at peace. War changes people very quickly, and Canadians are no more innately peaceful than any other human beings. When your child is dying in your arms, you become capable of violence. Once you lose what you love, resistance becomes as natural as breathing. Except for a few collaborators and kapos, my research suggests many Canadians would likely engage in various forms of everyday resistance against invading forces that could involve stealing, lying, cutting wires and diverting funds. Meanwhile, the insurgents would unleash physical devastation on American targets. Even if one per cent of all resisting Canadians engaged in armed insurrection, that would constitute a 400,000-person insurgency, nearly 10 times the size of the Taliban at the start of the Afghan war. If a fraction of that number engaged in violent attacks, it would set fire to the entire continent."

"This scenario would guarantee the destruction of both Canada and the United States. No one in their right mind would choose this gruesome future over a peaceful and mutually beneficial alliance with a friendly neighbour. Nevertheless, if Trump is reckless enough to think the violent annexation of Canada is an achievable goal, then let it be known that all these horrifying outcomes were predictable well in advance, and that he was forewarned."

"Several people recently asked me who I think is next after Comey and what will happen to him during his prosecution. I don’t know. But the fact that we even have to ask the question embodies just how fast American democracy is collapsing. Comey’s indictment — and likely conviction — will surely be followed by others. Many others. Trump will demand it, and many Americans will want it too. The Justice Department has already launched investigations against former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James. Other names that have been mentioned as potential targets include Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who brought charges against Trump in a 2023 election interference case, and former FBI Director Christopher Wray. These names show that the unthinkable has become routine. Malignant normality is now the new normal."

"Since Trump was first elected in 2016, America’s responsible political and media class have constructed a model of American politics and society that increasingly does not exist. The long-cherished ideals of institutions, American exceptionalism and the character of the American people have been thrown out the window. In many ways, those fantasies never matched reality in the first place — and now the gap is undeniable. For many, this truth is too frightening to face. As America’s democracy rapidly collapses, there are public voices in the news media and political class who are warning about the evils of a new Red Scare. In reality, what the Trump administration and its forces are unleashing will likely be much worse."

"In an interview, Adam Hochschild, the prominent historian and award-winning author of books including “American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis,” was clear-eyed about what America is facing: “This is profoundly frightening because it’s right out of the playbook of the way democracies are converted to dictatorships.” He compared our present moment to what was happening a century ago in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution. The country, he said in an email interview, was “inflamed by military fervor…and then by paranoia,” which caused “severe damage to democracy.” “The government shut down some 75 newspapers and magazines, and imprisoned hundreds of people — most notably Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs — solely for things they wrote or said,” Hochschild said. “Donald Trump would greatly like to do the same, as his attacks on critical media and prosecutions of people like James Comey show. But he is going one step further than this country went during the madness of the Red Scare of 1917-1921 by trying to seize control of electoral machinery. That, to me, is the most frightening thing about an already dangerous presidency.” Commentators get hung up, he explained, on comparing Trump to Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who saw “subversives everywhere.” While noting similarities, Hochschild argued the better parallel is Democratic President Woodrow Wilson who, in his second term, “did all kinds of things Trump would like to do, such as throwing his critics in jail under the Espionage Act by the hundreds, and shutting down media that criticized him.” But that wasn’t all. Under the 28th president, the Justice Department created the American Protective League, which Hochschild described as “a national vigilante force [that] scoured cities for suspected draft-dodgers.” “We pay far too little attention to that ominous period of American life,” he said, “always preferring to look on the bright side rather than the dark side.”"

"Trumpism is the embodiment of Shakespeare’s observation that what’s past is prologue. It’s now our present and future. But this is not a call to despair, or to embrace the comfort of learned helplessness or to take poison of hopium. It is the opposite. Unearned hope leads to despair. The way forward is to first accept the dire reality and then to engage in peaceful collective action that seizes the moral high ground, and never surrenders or compromises.The Black Freedom Struggle and long civil rights movements offer one such example. To paraphrase Hemingway: “A man alone ain’t got no bloody damn chance.”"

"To capture a democratic nation, authoritarians must control three sources of power: the intelligence agencies, the justice system, and the military. President Donald Trump and his circle of would-be autocrats have made rapid progress toward seizing these institutions and detaching them from the Constitution and rule of law. The intelligence community has effectively been muzzled, and the nation’s top lawyers and cops are being purged and replaced with loyalist hacks. Only the military remains outside Trump’s grip. Despite the firing of several top officers—and Trump’s threat to fire more—the U.S. armed forces are still led by generals and admirals whose oath is to the Constitution, not the commander in chief. But for how long? Trump and his valet at the Defense Department, Secretary of Physical Training Pete Hegseth, are now making a dedicated run at turning the men and women of the armed forces into Trump’s personal and partisan army. In his first term, Trump regularly violated the sacred American tradition of the military’s political neutrality, but people around him—including retired and active-duty generals such as James Mattis, John Kelly, and Mark Milley—restrained some of his worst impulses. Now no one is left to stop him: The president learned from his first-term struggles and this time has surrounded himself with a Cabinet of sycophants and ideologues rather than advisers, especially those at the Pentagon. He has declared war on Chicago; called Portland, Oregon, a “war zone”; and referred to his political opponents as “the enemy from within.” Trump clearly wants to use military power to exert more control over the American people, and soon, top U.S.-military commanders may have to decide whether they will refuse such orders from the commander in chief. The greatest crisis of American civil-military relations in modern history is now under way."

"I write these words with great trepidation. When I was a professor at the Naval War College, I gave lectures to American military officers about the sturdiness of civil-military relations in the United States, a remarkable historical achievement that has allowed the most powerful military in the world to serve democracy without being a threat to it. I so revered this system that I went to Moscow just before the fall of the U.S.S.R. and told an audience of Soviet military officers that they should look to the American military as a model for how to disentangle themselves from the Communist Party and Kremlin politics. I regularly reminded both my military students and civilian audiences that they had good reason to have faith in American institutions and the constitutional loyalty of U.S. civilian and military leaders. This new and dangerous moment has arrived for many reasons, including Trump’s antics in front of young soldiers and sailors, through which he has succeeded in pulling many of them into displays of partisan behavior that are both an insult to American civil-military traditions and a violation of military regulations. Senior military leaders should have stepped in to prevent Trump from turning addresses at Fort Bragg and Naval Station Norfolk into political rallies; the silence of the Army and Navy secretaries, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some top generals and admirals is appalling. To their credit, those same officers listened impassively as Trump and Hegseth subjected them to political rants during a meeting at Quantico last week. But young enlisted people and their immediate superiors take their cues from the top, and one day of decorum from the high command cannot reverse Trump’s influence on the rank and file."

"Trump’s rhetoric in his speeches to the military has been awful—he has ridiculed former commanders in chief, castigated sitting elected officials, and told the members of America’s armed forces that other Americans are their enemies. But his actions are worse. In deploying troops to American cities, he has set up a confrontation in which military commanders may soon have to choose between obeying the president and obeying the law. “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Judge Karin Immergut—a conservative Trump appointee—wrote last week when she blocked Trump’s attempt to send troops to Portland. The White House aide Stephen Miller likely foreshadowed Trump’s next moves, including possibly ignoring such rulings, when he lashed out at Immergut’s decision. Miller, a man who hates being called a fascist, made the fascistic accusation that a “large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country” is being “shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general.”"

"Trump, of course, doesn’t care all that much about Venezuelan speedboats or costumed pranksters in Portland. He cares about power, which is why he is determined to flex military muscle on the streets of American cities. As opposition grows and his popularity falls, Trump may be tempted to issue orders to the military that will be aimed at suppressing dissent, or disrupting elections, or detaining political figures; he has already floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act, which could enable such actions. He may even become desperate enough to launch a foreign war—as he seems to be trying to do right now with Venezuela. If more of these orders come, how should the leaders of America’s armed forces respond?"

"Congress, so far, has been useless in restraining Trump: The Democrats are too timid, and the Republicans are too compromised. Only by standing together can the senior military officials warn Trump away from leading America into a full-blown civil-military confrontation. Military officers are human beings, not Vulcans or robots. Even the most virtuous young officer may tremble at the idea of refusing a direct order—especially one from the president of the United States. Others may be tempted to abandon their oath, either by ideology or a misplaced sense of obedience, and they should recall Hyten’s warning from 2017: “If you execute an unlawful order, you will go to jail. You could go to jail for the rest of your life.” Most American military personnel, however, need no reminder of their constitutional duty. But they do need some reassurance that they have support from their chain of command to resist illegal orders. And the rest of us, whether we’re elected officials or ordinary citizens, should do everything we can to let our fellow Americans in uniform know that if they risk their careers and even their freedom to protect the Constitution, we will stand with them."

"The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift. The Fourteenth Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” That provision rightly repudiated the Supreme Court of the United States’s shameful decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race. But the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Consistent with this understanding, the Congress has further specified through legislation that “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a national and citizen of the United States at birth, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text. Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth."

"A furlough is different from a layoff in that it’s temporary. Generally, federal employees have to be given 60 days’ notice before a layoff can take effect. The cuts will slash an Education Department that has grown substantially leaner since the start of the second Trump administration. The agency has shed nearly half its staff since the winter. Its footprint shrank from more than 4,000 staff to about 2,400 after the department announced layoffs in March. The earlier layoffs touched just about every office within the department—though they cut more deeply in some places than others, such as the office for civil rights, which lost just under half its 562 positions and seven of its 12 regional offices. The office of elementary and secondary education, which employed 282 staff members in 2023, lost at least 49 positions in the March cuts. (Meanwhile, the office’s new leader, Kirsten Baesler, was just confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday but can’t be sworn in until the shutdown ends.)"

"The earlier layoffs are being challenged in court by states and education leaders who say the department can’t carry out its congressionally mandated functions with fewer staff. Court orders delayed the layoffs, but higher courts have since allowed them to take effect. The Education Department is among at least nine federal agencies subject to the shutdown RIF, according to Politico. The American Federation of Government Employees sued OMB last month for telling agencies to prepare RIF plans ahead of the shutdown. Normally, agencies prepare only to furlough staff during a shutdown and bring them back when the government reopens. “It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” the union’s president, Everett Kelley, said in a prepared statement on Friday. “It’s time for Congress to do their jobs and negotiate an end to this shutdown immediately.”"

"Trump created his MAGA coalition based on fear of “the other,” which has historically been a potent political move (think Richard Nixon’s perfection of the Southern strategy and Ronald Reagan’s aggressive race-baiting with his fictional Chicago welfare queen, among many other dog whistles). After America elected and then re-elected Barack Obama, not only a Black man but a constitutional scholar and an intellectual, to the presidency, the Republicans in Congress completely lost their minds and pledged to make him fail as president. They began to do all they could to shut down government and to excoriate Democrats, using the list of pejorative terms former House Speaker Newt Gingrich cribbed from conservative shock-jock Rush Limbaugh. The hard turn in Congress away from collegiality and compromise had begun."

"We could argue the many, many inhumane points of Trumpist decrees if we were actually interested in discussing policy or, say, the mainline Christianity I once knew as a Presbyterian. But the Republican Party stopped working on policy — and started perverting Christianity — many election cycles back. Why? Largely because the GOP ran out of ideas that would fly with the American public (“Trickle-down” economics? C’mon, man!), and was assiduously courting the evangelical and Catholic religious right as a voting bloc. Meanwhile, “welcome-the-stranger” and “eye-of-the-needle” messages of Jesus had become entirely inconvenient for elite Republicans. With Trump, the Southern strategy morphed into something quite like a “Bring back the Jim Crow laws that inspired the Nazis” strategy. To divert attention from their desire to give further assistance to the wealthy and corporations through tax breaks, they focused their energies on “othering” different groups: People of color, immigrants, Democrats, women and LGBTQ folks. Of course, if you are part of the MAGA cult of personality, you don’t want to hear any of this. But we — progressives, liberals, Democrats, moderate Republicans (those horrible “RINOs”), people of faith and of no faith — are, frankly (to use a word Republicans love to utilize), the reasonable ones. There’s no question about it. To mimic Trump, everybody knows it. You do, too."

"Government works pretty well all over the world, so long as well-meaning people with strong, relevant experience are put in leadership positions. Look at this deplorable Trump “administration,” filled to the brim with suck-ups, grifters, unhinged ideologues and conspiracy-theory kooks — each one, including the one playacting at the Resolute desk, astonishingly unqualified. The word for that kind of group being in charge is kakistocracy, which is an unhappy-sounding term that describes a devastatingly unhappy situation: government by the worst people. It sounds like something you might utter right before vomiting. A white supremacist theocracy, installing this Trumpian reign of the corrupt, mean-spirited, and woefully incompetent? We are just as disappointed and angry as you are about predatory capitalism, which leaves many Americans homeless and many more without access to health care. And we are just as angry about the failures of our democracy, which, as Robert Reich recently pointed out, are almost entirely due to lobbying money in politics. Much of our political class takes legal bribes and serves the interests of those with the most money."

"But we aren’t living in the wrong country. Our America is multicultural and all of us benefit, socially and economically — yes, even you — from that fact. Our America supports freedom of religious belief, including the freedom to hold none at all, because we do not have a national religion. Our America strives to make it easier for all citizens to exercise their right to vote. Our America believes in facts and the process of scientific discovery. Our America does not whitewash its history but learns from it. Our America recoils from people who push their religious beliefs on others, or who denigrate women and other citizens who happen to be unlike them. Our America welcomes the strangers who come to this country with a desire to better their lives through hard work and community service. Our America supports public education and wants to make it stronger, not undermine it. Our America believes that a country should be judged by how it treats its least fortunate citizens. Our America is not ruled by a petty, vindictive despot wannabe with an outrageous history of criminal and socially abhorrent behavior who imagines he is king. No, despite what the astonishingly corrupt, would-be Roman emperor occupying the White House tells you, we are not the enemy: we are Americans. We have tried to be true to the best, most idealistic of American values. In the meantime — and these truly are mean times, both in material and spiritual terms — we will serve the public good by standing up for the Constitution, the rule of law and the nonpartisan civil service, and we will argue for our own ideas on how we might make a better union."