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Six months into the second Trump administration, two things are becoming clear: First, the president remains a nearly entirely non-strategic actor, motivated only by an abiding desire to accumulate ever greater power, adulation, and wealth. And second, he’s fundamentally changing the nature of the United States in ways that threaten to bring an end to the nation’s 249 year old status as the world’s leading democracy.
Despite Trump’s consistently haphazard “governance” style, it’s becoming easy to foresee how his regime could effectively void our democracy. The now fully MAGA-fied GOP is increasingly likely to lose the next presidential election after incurring bracing losses in the midterms and other intervening state races. And as the nation learned before and following the 2020 election, Trumpists are more than willing to use force and other extra-legal actions to attempt to cling to power.
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For Trump and his cronies, the prospect of losing power — or even sharing it with Democrats in the event control of the House shifts in 2026 — could prove to be catastrophic because of their reasonable fear of being held accountable for criminality that dwarfs Trump’s first term. And unlike January 2021 — when the Big Lie scheme failed — Trump and his cohorts will have new tools to carry out a coup, including a massive federal police force with a proven willingness to engage in systemic illegality.
Trump’s brownshirts
From its outset, Trump 2.0 has been grounded on systemic illegality and unilateral executive actions, a course of (mis)conduct the administration has succeeded in pursuing because of pliant GOP majorities in Congress the Supreme Court. It’s all but certain that the administration’s authoritarian conduct will grow in scope and intensity over the succeeding months, in no small part because the GOP reconciliation bill will hand over a staggering $170 billion to the Department of Homeland Security.
The bill includes nearly $30 billion in new “enforcement” funds. DHS boasts that it is already the largest federal law enforcement agency, with over 80,000 officers spread across nine organizations. But DHS says it plans to use the new funding to quickly hire 10,000 more more ICE thugs. And in recent months, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has systematically dismantled DHS’s oversight offices, thereby paving the way for a lot of corner cutting.
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The bill also includes $45 billion for expanding detention facilities comprised of both government and privately contracted facilities, meaning DHS is working with a jail budget that far exceeds that of the federal prison system.
With this infusion of cash, the US for the first time will have a massive federal police force with its own rapidly growing concentration camp system, with a reach that extends directly into the nation’s largest states and municipalities, potentially displacing local governance in critical respects.
We do not have to wait to find out how ICE and other agencies will conduct themselves within the US, and particularly in blue states and municipalities with Democratic (and demographically diverse) populations. Just look at what began as a quasi occupation of LA County and has now expanded to encompass large swathes of the state of California. There, the new ICE is focused on creating a state of fear and uncertainty among entire communities, including with militarized assaults on workplaces, complete with chemical munitions.
Last week, for example, a phalanx of masked ICE thugs marched into LA’s MacArthur Park, smack in the middle of one of the city’s largest Hispanic communities, accompanied by California National Guard troops that Trump had dragooned over the governor’s objection.
After parading around MacArthur with assault rifles and other military paraphernalia that served no apparent purpose, the invading force retreated.
Also in recent days, masked and heavily armed thugs have descended upon such dangerous locations as farms at harvest time and car body shops, where they have used force, and in some cases beaten,