Three things that have me worried and three potential paths out

In our slow march away from democracy over the last seven months, I have gone from worried, concerned I have been overreacting, optimistic, and fatalistic. It is difficult to place events in the proper perspective and determine which ones are important and which ones are mere diversions. I will not get any closer to clarity today, but instead, embrace the ambiguity in list form, as the internet compels. So, here are three things that have me worried (at the moment) about our democracy and three ways other countries have acted in similar situations.

1. Attacks on and acquiescence of media outlets. Trump’s disdain for the media has long been established and many words have been written about the dangers of calling the media the “enemy of the people”. But over the last several months, and especially recently, rhetoric has turned into action. Consider first that the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, owned by billionaires attempting to win Trump’s favor, have, more or less, ordered their newspapers not to criticize Trump.

   More troubling has been Trump’s own actions. Trump sued CBS/Paramount for what he claimed was “deceptive editing” during a 60 Minutes interview with Harris, sued ABC News for “defamation” and has called for ABC News to be investigated for “election fraud” because of their polling, and Congress, with Trump’s approval, has just voted to rescind $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And of course, now Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for their report about Trump’s letter to Jeffrey Epstein on his 50^th birthday.

   ABC settled their lawsuit by agreeing to donate $15 million to Trump’s future library, and CBS/Paramount settled their suit with a $16 million donation. Paramount has also announced that the Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be cancelled for financial reasons, despite the fact it is the highest rated show in its time slot. This has led to speculation that perhaps Colbert’s firing was also part of the deal. Trump’s Truth social post expressing his happiness that Colbert was fired, and suggesting that Jimmy Kimmel should be next, certainly does not tamp down the speculation.

   For students of democratic backsliding this kind of attack on media outlets is a familiar pattern. Russia, Venezuela, Turkey, Hungary, Poland all witnessed similar events. Trump has been laying the groundwork of this for a decade so that most of his supporters will view these actions as legitimate and the media receiving their comeuppance.

2. Attacks on universities and education. Another play in the authoritarian playbook is to go after universities. Turkey and Hungary are especially notable for this, with Central European University, which used to be in Budapest, even moving out of Hungary to escape Orban’s government.

   Trump has unconstitutionally used the power of the purse to target universities. He has focused on larger universities, such as Columbia, Harvard and University of Virginia, but the message is that all other universities must get in line. What are the complaints? It began with anti-semitism on campus related to the pro-Palestinian protests, especially at Columbia. But it has expanded to concerns about DEI and lack of “viewpoint diversity” on campus. To get what he wants, Trump has threatened to withhold, or has withheld, federal funding and foreign student visas.

   Columbia gave in to Trump’s demands, as did the University of Virginia whose President recently stepped down. Harvard has been less willing to concede to Trump’s demands, but is thinking about adding a conservative think tank, and many other universities are making efforts to hire more conservative faculty. The troubling part of all this is that the government, primarily the president, is using the power of the state to force higher education institutions to take actions that he wants.

   The next phase in this will be with university accreditation, as 6 southern states have already moved to form their own accrediting body. Much like the Trump administration has tried to do with tying funding to certain ideological education in K-12 education, accrediting bodies can do this for universities and will allow the government to have influence on what is taught. Again, all of this is very familiar when looking at the experiences of other countries.

3. The expansion of ICE. In the recent bill passed by Congress, ICE’s budget was increased by approximately $75 billion, which includes $45 billion for building new detainment centers. This means that ICE’s budget will be substantially larger than the budget for the Marines in 2024. This is troubling for many reasons, but here are two.

   First, the bulk of the increase is for detention centers, suggesting that the types of raids we have been witnessing are going to continue and increase in frequency. Trump and especially Stephen Miller, were pretty clear in the campaign that they were going to target all undocumented immigrants, not just the violent criminals. There have been so many heart-wrenching stories of people who have been in the country for decades, have not committed crimes, and have been valuable members of their communities get swept up by ICE and detained in awful conditions.

   With $45 billion more, ICE can create more “alligator Alcatraz” type facilities. But just to hammer home the point, there are somewhere between 11-13 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. What we are talking about is building a prison camp system that can hold millions and millions of people. To put that in perspective, during World War II Japanese internment camps held just over 100,000 people. It is difficult to fathom the type of prison system needed to hold millions, but I fear that is where we are headed.

   The second thing that worries me is that this provides what appears to be an unaccountable, national police force for the president. ICE agents are wearing masks and going without IDs, and now their lawyers in court are being allowed to stay anonymous. The role of state and local governments as the primary law enforcement agencies in the country helps prevent authoritarianism by the central government. A president with an unaccountable police force can circumvent local law enforcement. The deployment of the National Guard and the Marines in L.A. are another worrying sign along these lines. I fear that soon, ICE will be used to not only arrest immigrants but perhaps political opponents as well.

   The remaking of the security forces to serve the leader is a common action taken as countries move away from democracy. Watching it occur in the U.S., after reading about it in so many other places, is a surreal experience.

Alright, so where is the optimism? I’m not sure it’s optimism but I’ve been thinking about how countries who have faced these types of threats have attempted to deal with them, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. So here are three possibilities.

1. Prosecution. There are several countries who have gone this route but let’s consider Italy and Brazil. Perhaps the most Trump-like political figure in recent times is former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi. He began in real estate but made his real money as a media mogul. When he died in 2023, he was worth an estimated $6.8 billion. During his business and political career, he was charged with bribery, corruption, embezzlement, extortion, perjury, witness tampering and so on. Most of these prosecutions didn’t result in convictions, with some being overturned by laws passed in the Italian parliament. In 2012, however, he was convicted of tax fraud, sentenced to four years (eventually reduced to 1) of punishment and a five year (eventually reduced to 2) ban on public office. Despite all the illegal and corrupt activities of Berlusconi, he was PM three times and served from 94-95, 2001-2006 and 2008-2011. Even when was not PM he was a prominent player in Italian politics until his death. We’re not off to a good start.

   What about Brazil? Most recently, Brazil prosecuted their former president, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is also a Trump-like figure. He lost the election in 2022, on January 8, 2023 his supporters attacked government buildings to try and keep Bolsonaro as president. Sound familiar? He has been charged with planning a coup (which included a plan to poison his successor) and fraud. The trial is ongoing. Trump has recently threatened Brazil with 50% tariffs unless they drop the case against Bolsonaro. The current president Lula da Silva has refused. But what about Lula?

   He won the 2022 election and succeeded Bolsonaro. He was Brazil’s president from 2003-2011. Lula was also prosecuted for actions he took while president. He was charged and convicted of bribery, corruption, and money laundering. Eventually he was sentenced to nine years in jail, which turned out to be only 580 days. Even after his conviction he was again elected president. Sound familiar? So, it turns out that even prosecuting wannabe authoritarian leaders does not prevent them from returning to office.

2. Elite opposition. Other elite political actors and civil leaders can stand up and oppose the wannabe authoritarian. Consider Honduras and South Korea. In 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya attempted to hold a referendum to change the Honduran Constitution even though the Supreme Court had ruled that it was an illegal action. The Constitution allows the Supreme Court to act in such a situation and they issued an arrest warrant for President Zelaya. He was detained, exiled to Costa Rica and the Congress voted him out of office. The president took an illegal act and the other two branches, the judicial and legislative, acted in a Constitutional manner to remove him. Sounds heavenly.

   South Korea’s President, Yoon Suk Yeol, attempted to declare martial law in South Korea on December 3, 2024. Initially his party, PPP, intended to remove him but after Yoon apologized there was some wavering and the first motion to impeach him was unsuccessful after many PPP members boycotted so no quorum was achieved. However, the second motion was successful with 68% voting to impeach. The arrest and trial was its own drama, but here you have elites, many in the president’s own party, standing up against unconstitutional behavior.

3. Mass demonstrations/protests. Some regimes are stopped because of mass demonstrations. Often how this has played out is that the government has rigged elections, leading to protests calling either for new elections or for the government to be removed. Protests in response to irregular elections are called color revolutions and have been successful in Ukraine (2004), Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (2000) and Georgia (2003). However, they have been unsuccessful in places as well. Russia (2011/2012), Georgia (2024/2025) and Belarus (2020).

   What leads to success or failure is beyond the scope of this newsletter but perhaps a topic for a future one, which also discusses the potential for the 2026 elections to trigger these types of protests.

So, of the three, it looks like elite opposition is the most promising. If only the Supreme Court and the Republican Party would get the memo.

There are many more things that worry me, and many more potential solutions that give me hope. The problem with our current politics is that there are just too many things to write about.