Update The Trump regime has been stopped, or at least stalled, on all three fronts discussed below. In particular, the Hegseth-Noem report on the Insurrection Act seems to have been quietly buried. That doesn’t mean US democracy is safe by any means, but at least it has some chance of survival. More on this at my Substack
Back in November, when I concluded that Trump’s dictatorship was a fait accompli lots of readers thought I was going over the top. In retrospect, and with one exception, I was hopelessly over-optimistic. I imagined a trajectory similar to Orban’s Hungary, with a gradual squeeze on political opposition and civil society, playing out over years and multiple terms in office,.
The reality has been massively worse, both in terms of speed and scope. Threats of conquest against friendly countries, masked thugs abducting people from the street, shakedowns of property from enemies of the state, concentration camps outside the reach of the legal system, all happening at a pace more comparable to Germany in 1933 than to the examples I had in mind.