Good @gregsargent.bsky.social reminder to every single elected Democrat, corporate and institutional leaders from: "Stop acting like he's invincible" ↘️

Genuinely appreciate Sargent’s clear-headed takes.

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Trump is consolidating power mainly in areas where it's relatively easier for him to do so. When he faces real resistance, it's a different story. Stop acting like he's invincible.

Add me to those saying it’s crucial to acknowledge anti-authoritarian successes. Harvard and NYT are fighting in court instead of folding. Pritzker and other IL leaders kept Nat. Guard troops out of Chicago. Grand juries reject frivolous charges; many lower court judges uphold the law. And more

Interesting via @jvl.bsky.social: US democracy may have hidden resilience, per political economist Jonathan Schlefer. I would also encourage a key distinction between areas where he has what you might call an "easy" path to autocratic consolidation and where it's harder and he's failing. See below

Let's hope that this analysis is more right than wrong.

Yes, do this. Via @brianbeutler.bsky.social www.offmessage.net/p/meme-ify-t...

As @dandrezner.bsky.social notes, we must highlight where Trump's authoritarianism is failing, too. "Civil resistance works. Combined with the inevitable economic downturn, it is what will bring his regime crashing down to Earth." (cites my piece on this) danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-weakne...

Trump "desperately wants you to believe you're living in a fully consolidated authoritarian state...but you have to understand it is an illusion...all the authoritarian steps have to be balanced against the ways the entire society is pushing back." -- @jamellebouie.net bsky.app/profile/cole...

😳 “think it's really important to note here that this would represent a dramatic reallocation of Congress's war powers to the executive. It would be the president deciding who the United States goes to war with and where that takes place.”

just formalizing a big part of Our Current Crisis, the utter collapse of Congress as an institution

THIS IS A BFD

Unnerving point from @bcfinucane.bsky.social: The White House appears to be quietly trying to get Republicans to formally turn over a large swath of Congress's warmaking powers to Trump. That's what this new draft bill would do. From our pod discussion: newrepublic.com/article/2007...

Pleased to speak with @gregsargent.bsky.social about the legal issues raised by the lethal US strikes in the Caribbean and a draft use of force authorization that would be a blank check for war on "narco-terrorists" globally.

We REALLY ought to be talking more about the US military murdering people. A veteran I can tell you these are unlawful orders and this is a crime.

I’m not really sure that we have come to grips with what it will mean if Congress authorizes these extrajudicial killings. Congressional passivity alone is unconscionable. But congressional endorsement?

Exactly.

I mean, if one believes the Fed is too powerful or insular, why not get Congress to reform its institutional arrangements? Wouldn't that be a more genuinely democratic reassertion/recalibration than unilaterally (and possibly illegally) rolling over what the people's representatives put in place?

If you want to fully understand just how lawless Trump's bombings of "drug boats" has really become, check out this pod episode. @bcfinucane.bsky.social is so illuminating in explaining it all:

Also in this episode: *Trump's lawless bombings of so-called "drug boats" are only getting more emboldened *Trump's biggest backers are encouraging him to expand the bombings (see JD Vance "joking" about killing fishermen) *GOPers doing nothing to join Dems in imposing constraints/transparency

Awful: White House is circulating draft bill to vastly expand Trump's authority to bomb "drug cartels" w/o Congress. It's a "blank check to use force anywhere in the world against anyone he designates a narco-terrorist," says @bcfinucane.bsky.social. All on the pod: newrepublic.com/article/2007...

good stuff. we are not just folding.

the mainline protestant churches - Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, UCC, etc -- and the Catholic church are by and large standing firm

Really good @gregsargent.bsky.social on Trump/Letitia James. Key points: Trump is easily defeated, and he treats law as a power game absolutely not connected to, well, law. newrepublic.com/article/2006... As I've said before...

As @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social says here, Trump doesn't accept that the law is anything more than an instrument for whoever is in power to screw over whoever they want to at any given moment:

Trump wants you to think dictatorship is inevitable. But it isn't. Don't let him gaslight you into doomerism.

A disorienting moment: Trump is consolidating autocratic power in areas where there's an easy path to do so. But in other areas he's facing deep institutional resistance and people are refusing to abandon the rule of law. Here he's weak and failing. Thoughts on that: newrepublic.com/article/2006...

The US attorney in Maryland, Kelly Hayes, is now telling people she's bracing for pressure to bring charges against Adam Schiff. But she also won't do so if the facts don't warrant it, NYT reports. More evidence that Trump's corruption is running into deep institutional resistance (see below).

when criminals run the justice department, the law is what they say it is. #lawlesstimes

"Disorienting" is the right word and peril. You have to leverage the wins for momentum (message: we're winning) while acting as if you are currently losing on net (which *is* true). "We are sure to win if we accelerate and to lose if we don't" is a tricky mindset but the right one. via @gowder.io

This article does not seem to have received much attention, but it should!!! Recommended reading

Also blue states governors that are constructing alternative public health regimes that expressly counter program Trump/RFK destruction of CDC, with much buy in from medical and scientific establishments

With alt text:

Somebody over on The Hellsite asked me which institutions are still standing in the face of Trump's blitzkrieg. Here's my partial answer, please LMK if I'm missing anything:

And this is what I was getting at with my constitution comments a moment ago. He’s not winning on a lot of these legal battles. Which means the constitution/law is stronger in some ways than we are currently giving credence to. If it weren’t - we’d be even deeper than we are. I think that matters.

Just a pure exercise of furious, irrational power: you can't prosecute me; I prosecute you. The facts don't matter and the hypocrisy is beside the point. The goal isn't to be right, and there's no appeal to the truth. The goal is to dominate. You can't debate them or reason with them.

Yup - when a Trump capo says we can do this the easy way or the hard way, the only response as we’ve seen over and over is to make ‘em try and do it the hard way.

In a "powerful" display of foolishness, Trumpers damaged their own Regime by forcing out one of the few prosecutors close to Bove, et al. who also had credibility in the judicial and justice systems. The only good thing about the current Dictatorship is that it is chock full of idiots.

Trump can be stopped if we have the courage to stop him.

One thing that's absolutely f---ing unbearable on this site is that if you dare to point out that Trump is not actually successfully oppressing all of us on every conceivable front, that not *all* is irretrievably lost, a parade of doomers materializes to denounce you. It's counterproductive. Stop.

As corrupt and appalling as the ouster of this career prosecutor for refusing to prosecute Trump's enemies truly is, I strongly encourage folks to also understand this as evidence that Trump's authoritarian designs are facing serious institutional resistance:

As Jon Favreau put it: “The president is firing prosecutors who won’t help him get revenge on his political enemies by making up fake crimes.”

Prosecution for made up crimes as revenge for law enforcement enforcing the law against real crimes in accordance with proper procedures of due process. Wildly illegitimate. But as @gregsargent.bsky.social argues, that’s the point. Erase the notion of objective, fair, rule of law legitimacy at all.

Also, that they want to charge her with the exact same crime she prosecuted against him is a way to cement the notion that “everybody does it” which is meant to say it is no crime at all. Except when she does it, of course - which she hasn’t.

Trump's corrupt prosecutions of enemies as "retribution" for legitimate fact-based prosecutions of him are really about the core authoritarian goal of erasing the very idea of legitimate guilt and innocence. This new firing is all about that. Thoughts on this here: newrepublic.com/article/2006...

Profound Misconduct

This whole sorry saga is another proof point: Trump is a weak and failing and ineffectual president who is simultaneously consolidating autocratic power in areas where that's easier for him to do. And that's a dangerous combination. newrepublic.com/article/2006...

There's a deeper absurdity here. Trump and Stephen Miller have been shrieking that Letitia James is corrupt. But James' team *did the actual work* necessary to *successfully* bring a case against Trump on the facts, and Trump is failing to do even that. newrepublic.com/article/2006...