Confronting the Single Biggest Obstacle to Progress

It’s hard to make progress fixing systemic problems like climate change and access to healthcare – let alone to report on such efforts, as is our mission – when the Republicans who control our government are organized to undermine and traumatize the very people we depend on to protect the environment and food supply, research and develop medical treatments, and make programs like social security, Medicaid, and natural disaster response work.

In its first 100 days, the Trump White House has shown its readiness to ignore the Constitution, rulings by the courts (including the Supreme Court), long-standing military alliances and commitments, and common sense security and economic policies. And Republicans in Congress are going along. Given the administration’s embrace of the authoritarian playbook and Section 4 of President Trump’s executive order of April 28 calling for the use of “national security assets” to enforce law and order, it is clear Republicans are more preoccupied with accumulating power than solving problems.

Now is when it’s necessary to shake our tree of knowledge free of the useless, dead, and unproductive limbs that have stunted its growth over the last few decades. It’s time to shed our hopes for government solutions that serve the public good, dismiss our worries of appearing biased or partisan, and drop the pretense that both parties are playing by the same rules. It’s time to acknowledge that only the Republican Party, as presently constituted, supports the subversion of American laws, liberties, and economic vitality. The party under Trump is systematically

• curtailing through intimidation and threats the freedom to criticize and hold those in power to account;
• eliminating due process of law and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty;
• abusing the powers given to the office of the president to impose arbitrary, economically damaging tariffs and to increase the role of the military on US soil; and
• gutting the federal bureaucracy, whose programs make up 25% of the nation’s economic activity.

Trump is making it all happen by fiat. No debates. No expert input. No votes by Congress. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult to make popular concerns heard, let alone have them addressed.

Rather than making America great again, Trump is making America fail, and in the process, serving those who oppose our democracy here and abroad. He is hammering away at the very foundations of our politics, our economy, and our national security. His actions – and the number of court rulings against them – explode any illusions that this president is abiding by his oath of office. In fact, when asked directly if he needed to uphold the Constitution, the current President of the United States replied, “I don’t know.” He then explained it was a question for his lawyers to answer, by implication revealing his own ambivalence not just to the authority of the Constitution but to the oath he swore to “preserve, protect and defend” it.

Most Americans – including many Trump voters – know the correct answer to that question is an unequivocal “yes”. They also know that Trump’s policies are doing us harm. Some of his supporters are justifiably beginning to doubt him, as reflected in his shrinking approval ratings.

For too long, the country has been locked into a red-blue narrative that obscured the coup within the Republican Party. Americans in larger numbers are starting to confront what’s happened. Authoritarians have taken over the GOP and now run our government. “It” really is happening here.

Millions of citizens are already resisting the march of autocracy. They have gathered – and many continue to gather – in parks and streets in every state to protest the administration’s actions. More and more people are pushing back against the lies and distortions that are the regular manure used by Republicans and their mouthpieces in the media to grow and strengthen their support. Town halls are seething, and elected officials of both parties have been inundated with calls and emails from angry, concerned constituents.

Former US AID workers – people who are familiar with the signs of authoritarian regimes on the rise and who are trained to respond – are organizing to oppose him. As one of them said, Trump “really sowed the seeds of his own resistance by creating this cadre of people who know how to work in authoritarian environments.”

Lawyers from dozens of advocacy organizations, including the ACLU, Public Citizen, and the newly formed Federal Workers Legal Defense Network, are opposing Trump and his administration in hundreds of court actions. Harvard University is suing in response to Trump’s threats and attempts at intimidation, and academic institutions are banding together in opposition to his attacks. Some, but not all, law firms that have been similarly attacked by Trump are also suing him and his administration.

So far, where the courts have ruled, they are mostly ruling against Trump and in favor of the Constitution and the rule of law – including courts overseen by Republican-appointed judges.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy and JB Pritzker, governor of Illinois, have stepped out front among our elected leaders to meet the challenge head-on. Early in March, Murphy outlined 24 instances of corruption committed by Trump and people in his administration in the six weeks since his inauguration. He followed up at the end of April with a presentation that included an additional 20 instances. In what should be an issue that crosses partisan lines, he implored his colleagues not to allow such criminal and unethical acts to be normalized and accepted as politics in America.

In his February State of the State speech, Pritzker called out Trump’s quest for unrestrained power and the devastating impact his administration’s policies will have on the people of Illinois. In New Hampshire at the end of April, he warned his audience against listening to “do-nothing” Democrats and lauded three citizens who took it upon themselves to protest what this government is doing to this country. He blasted Trump and his supportive Republicans for kidnapping people off the street and attacking the Constitution, and was openly contemptuous of this administration and the people in it. He concluded with a call for action: “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.”

Former Moscow correspondent Peter Baker wrote in the New York Times recently that the Trump agenda achieves long-sought objectives of Russia and Vladimir Putin. That view explains why Russia helped elect him with a massive and ongoing disinformation campaign. Observing Trump’s “transformation” of our politics, our economy, and our military alliances, we can now comfortably acknowledge the truth in journalist Craig Unger’s 2018 assertion that Trump is an asset to Putin. As Unger defines it, an asset doesn’t know he is an asset, meaning our president is likely an unwitting ally of an enemy of the state.

This is not a normal presidency, and these are not normal times. Despite some laudable goals in Republican rhetoric, the administration is on a path to establishing an authoritarian state. Policy differences are no longer the primary concern; how policy is made and executed is now the central focus. The important policies of Trump’s first 100 days – and there have been many as the regime has “flooded the zone” – have been issued from the White House by executive order and by order of Elon Musk and DOGE. They have neither been debated nor authorized by our representatives in Congress – a critical relinquishing of power by the Republicans who control Congress.

Eliminating the current threat from the White House and restoring the balance of power is the single most important and immediate goal for all who disapprove of this president and the many non-experts who are helping him bring down a political, economic, and national security system that was once the envy of the free world.

Only by neutralizing Trump’s attempts to consolidate power and then rebuilding a functioning democratic government led by knowledgeable representatives of the people can we expect to have the debates necessary to solve the critical problems that are shaping our lives.