"A coup is underway in the United States, and we must stop pretending otherwise"
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/a-coup-is-in-progress-in-america
"America is in crisis. Our constitutional order is failing in front of us. Rule of law is crumbling as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and a cadre of extremists raid the executive branch for political power and personal enrichment."
https://www.arcdigital.media/p/the-unbearable-normality-of-creeping
"The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation. Now that the oligarchs and their clients are inside the federal government, they are moving, illegally and unconstitutionally, to take over its institutions."
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-destruction
"In its early days, the second administration of Donald J. Trump has disregarded existing laws and regulations. It threatens to undermine the division of powers and checks and balances, hallmarks of America’s constitutional order.
History tells us that actions like these by elected leaders can undermine democracies and destroy the rule of law. We urge the Administration to reverse course immediately."
Political scientists’ statement, February 2025
"There's a peculiar form of blindness that comes from prolonged safety. Like a frog in slowly heating water, people who have known only stability become incapable of recognizing existential threats until they're already overwhelmed by them."
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-comfort-of-sleepwalkers
"DOGE is not about efficiency. It is about erasure. Democracy is being deleted in slow motion, replaced by proprietary technology and AI models. It is a coup, executed not with guns, but with backend migrations and database wipes."
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america
"In gaining the ability to stop payments by the Department of the Treasury, Musk would also make democracy meaningless. We vote for representatives in Congress, who pass laws that determine how our tax money is spent. If Musk has the power to halt this process at the level of payment, he can make laws meaningless. Which means, in turn, that Congress is meaningless, and our votes are meaningless, as is our citizenship."
https://snyder.substack.com/p/of-course-its-a-coup?triedRedirect=true
"If you’ve felt overwhelmed by all the DOGE news, you’re not alone. You’d need too much cork board and yarn to keep track of which agencies it has occupied by now, much less what it’s doing there. Here’s a simple rubric, though, to help contextualize the DOGE updates you do have time and energy to process: It’s worse than you think.
DOGE’s cuts have no apparent regard for civil society or opportunity costs or long-term strategic thinking. Their targets are Elon Musk’s and Project 2025’s targets. They have found no fraud, just democracy at work. They’re apparently eager to see what happens when it no longer does."
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-worse-than-you-think/
"Look no further than DOGE’s deep freeze of the legally mandated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the unilateral canceling of around 10,000 humanitarian aid contracts apportioned by Congress, or the firing of thousands of probationary workers and others—without apparent cause—for evidence that it is executing an agenda outside of any legislative framework. "
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-is-the-deep-state/
"Their weapon of choice? The Unitary Executive Theory—a constitutional interpretation so extreme it might be better termed the Elected Monarch Theory.
Let's be clear about what this means: They're not just trying to change policy or reorganize government. They're attempting to undo over a century of protections against corruption and political manipulation of the federal workforce. This isn't reform; it's a wholesale attack on the very concept of an impartial, professional civil service.
The implications are staggering. If successful, this argument would effectively transform every federal employee into a political appointee, serving at the pleasure of the president. It would turn the entire machinery of government into a personal fiefdom of whoever occupies the Oval Office.
A government where every official from the highest cabinet member to the lowliest clerk serves solely at the president's discretion is not a democracy. It's not even a republic. It's an elected autocracy, with a thin veneer of democratic legitimacy.
It's an attempt to fundamentally rewrite the relationship between the government and the governed. It would eliminate the safeguards that prevent presidents from using the power of the state to punish enemies, reward friends, and entrench their own power."
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/just-another-monday-in-a-dying-republic
"Frank Bowman, a scholar of constitutional and criminal law at the University of Missouri School of Law, told Democracy Docket he believes the executive order is a step toward “an open declaration of dictatorship.”
“In essence, what he’s saying is, ‘I am the law. My will is the law. My view of what the law is the only view that can ever be expressed,’” Bowman said.
"Patrimonialism is less a form of government than a style of governing. It is not defined by institutions or rules; rather, it can infect all forms of government by replacing impersonal, formal lines of authority with personalized, informal ones. Based on individual loyalty and connections, and on rewarding friends and punishing enemies (real or perceived), it can be found not just in states but also among tribes, street gangs, and criminal organizations.
In its governmental guise, patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/
Two "features" of Patrimonialism are Incompetence and Corruption
"Now the [right wing] Supreme Court’s job is to avoid confronting the constitutional crisis before us and let executive power take the reins, permanently demoting the previously co-equal branches. Expanding the President’s executive power, embracing unitary executive theory, striking down laws passed by congress: it was all in service of eliminating administrative agencies, especially “independent” administrative agencies and shrinking Congress’s ability to govern. Now the baton has been passed in service of limiting the rights of individuals, especially minorities and greatly enhancing centralized, unaccountable power. "
"If this happened anywhere else in the world, we would call it a constitutional coup. If another country’s Supreme Court shielded an authoritarian leader from prosecution for an attempted coup, dismantled voting rights, rewrote campaign finance laws to allow unlimited spending by billionaires, etc., we would call it what it is: a constitutional coup, an outright pre-programmed assault on democracy."
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/theres-nothing-supreme-about-the
There are multiple movements keen to destroy our democracy and they have tactically aligned.
Laws are being broken and the constitution violated as never before.
"Canceling contracts without notice violates the law. Mass firing federal employees without cause violates the law. Cutting federal funds for all scientific and medical research violates the law. But most egregiously, Musk’s deletion of entire government departments and Trump’s refusal to spend money as directed by the budget bills violates the Constitution."
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/elon-musk-trump-breaking-laws-democracy
"The goal isn’t just to change who runs government agencies—it’s to fundamentally transform how power operates, shifting it from democratic institutions to technical systems controlled by a small elite.
And yet, the most terrifying part? Donald Trump, the supposed strongman at the heart of it all, is oblivious. He has no grand ideological project beyond his own power. He does not understand the system being built around him, nor the fact that his own presidency is merely a vehicle for forces that see him as a useful, temporary battering ram against democracy."
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america
"Musk may believe he is doing all of this to cut the size of the government. But that is not Trump’s plan. ... He wants the federal government hollowed out of nonpartisan employees so that he can refill it with political cronies and loyalists.
Having sidelined law enforcement, Musk is unchecked. His whim has taken on the force of law within the federal government. Only the courts stand in his way. And so far, they are holding.
In more than 30 lawsuits filed against the new administration — including involving Musk’s activities — the government has not won one on the merits."
https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/elon-musk-hollows-government-so-trump-can-refill-it/
"Congressional Republicans, egged on by Elon Musk and other top allies of President Trump, are escalating calls to remove federal judges who stand in the way of administration efforts to overhaul the government."
Musk and Republican Lawmakers Pressure Judges with Impeachment Threats
"Whether or not the Trump administration knows that these executive orders are unlawful is beside the point. It’s clear that — court order or not— the White House is going to fight to keep these policies in place. But if the administration chooses to defy court orders in order to protect their policies, what happens next?"
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-happens-if-trump-defies-court-orders/
"Never has one trampled on the American Constitution, issued as many illegal decrees, revoked the judges who could stop him, sacked the entire military leadership in one go, weakened all of the counter powers, and taken control of social media."
'The beginning of the seizure of democracy': French politician takes aim at President Trump
"If you do not recognize the mass destruction of fundamental concepts of democracy and the US Constitution happening right now, you are either willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. I can’t put it any clearer than that."
Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)
"It will be easy to get mad at your neighbors who voted for this. But the truth is, nobody voted for this. They voted for things to get better. They just didn't understand how.
The great tragedy of democratic collapse isn't that people choose tyranny—it's that they choose something else entirely and receive tyranny as an unexpected dividend."
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/momentary-weightlessness
"We’re watching what I think might be better named a “constitutional crash,” not in the plane crash or car crash sense, but in the medical sense—we’re living through the sudden, ER-style flatlining of the healthy biorhythms of our 249-year-old constitutional order. Our national system of democracy and shared responsibilities is already dead on the table, waiting to see if there’s a shock large enough and strong enough to jolt it back to life.
The problem is that in effectively a single blink of the historical eye, we’ve seen our entire constitutional system simply … stop.
We need to be honest and clear about where we are. This isn’t a constitutional crisis—this is a constitutional crash.
There are four distinct, different, and fatal signs unfolding at once inside each pillar of our constitutional system:
First, the Founders didn’t envision a scenario where a president would willingly cede power over the executive branch to an unelected, unconfirmed figure outside of government.
Second, we didn’t envision a system where Congress would just … not care … what the president does.
Third, we didn’t envision the capture of the judicial branch by forces ready to rubber stamp the ascension of a monarch.
The fourth distinct and equally troublesome problem unfolding right now is one that exists outside the three branches of government but is still within the corners of our constitutional system: The willing abdication of the First Amendment by the media and institutional cornerstones of American civic life.
This is a constitutional crash.
America’s constitution is functionally dead right now — but it’s not dead dead.
Yet."
https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-s-constitutional-crash