The content is too big for 300 words. This Essay was posted on 2/10/2026.
The Republican Party’s implied need to dissolve the so-called welfare state combined with Donald Trump’s implied need to control everything coalesced to get us where we are today, an eerie model of national socialism that infected Germany. What steps were used to neutralize the guardrails in government and also convince the public that the changes are for the greater good?
The guardrails are the separation of powers between the branches of the federal government and also between the federal government and the individual states. The process of making our government more autocratic started getting serious when Mitch McConnell held up President Obama’s last Supreme Court appointment long enough to give Donald Trump the choice. The Court is essentially packed with Judges willing to favor Trump. With the Court on his side, Trump is ignoring just about every rule and limitation that should control him, and the DOJ is sitting on its hands, unwilling to act. As long as Congress remains loyal to Trump, he can be an autocrat. It is up to the voters.
Trump’s campaign to get elected started with an appeal to religious conservatives, who want the recent social reforms reversed and an appeal to White nationalists who want to retain a white majority in the US. And he is delivering an agenda designed to keep them loyal. Trump’s administration killed abortions in many states and his ICE stooges are working towards deporting all undocumented immigrants and some citizens who get in their way, apparently. The tactics of ICE are clearly against the rule of law.
Trump is running into the problem of excess. His tariffs are creating an inflation that is hitting average workers in the pocketbook. His ICE goons are shooting citizens only because the peaceful protests interrupt their rough tactics. Women who need abortions for health reasons are dying. And the poor are losing their government-provided healthcare. If the mid-term elections were held today, Trump would probably lose both Houses of Congress.
Trump is reacting to his dilemma. He is apparently trying to start a war and create chaos so he can cancel the elections. Trump ignores the simple fact that the US has a long history of holding elections during wartime, including the Civil War when there was conflict in the states. Trump is relaunching his claim that the 2020 election was rigged and he is starting with the Georgia elections. Fortunately for now, a judge rejected a lawsuit that claimed election fraud. In dismissing the suit, the Fulton County Superior Court Judge said, “The 2020 election is over.”
The 2026 election is just beginning. In the now uncertain event that the election gives Trump’s push to autocracy the pause it needs, we might be in a position to restore the democratic order, but we also need to ask: How do we fix it?
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