Sunday Morning Wrap Up
We’ve had another week where the news—especially legal news and the press of court hearings and rulings—happened at such a breakneck speed that it was hard to keep up. During weeks like this, it’s essential to take a deep breath and remind yourself: it’s deliberate. Trump’s everything, everywhere, all at once approach is a classic dictator’s tool, designed to overwhelm people so they will get overloaded and turn off. Democracy, as the Washington Post used to say, dies in darkness, and Trump needs to get people to stop paying attention to the details of what he’s doing so he can complete his power grab.
Do not look away. It’s more important now than ever to stay informed and to understand what’s happening to our democracy.
If you missed any of this week’s columns, here’s your weekly wrap-up:
The Week Ahead: Calvinball proceeds on all fronts.
Only Monday: A lot happened for a Monday. But there was a common theme: Trump’s increasing openness about his power grab. For anyone who doesn’t yet understand what’s happening, the details make it undeniable.
Trump Is Trying to Fire Lisa Cook and Purge the US Government. Can The Majority Stop Him: I joined my longtime friend Wajahat Ali to discuss Lisa Cook, the Fed Governor Donald Trump is trying to fire, earlier this week.
No Bill: When a grand jury returns an indictment, it’s called a true bill. On those exceedingly rare occasions when they decline to sign off on an indictment prosecutors present to them, it’s called a no-bill. Not only is this Justice Department getting no-billed repeatedly when it tries to indict anti-government protesters, but it’s happening more than once in the same case. Take heart—this is a subtle, but important guardrail that is asserting itself at a critical moment as the revenge presidency takes aim. You’ll want to read and share this piece with people who think Trump’s success is inevitable. It isn’t.
Revisiting America’s Dark History of Internment: The Department of Homeland Security has constructed a large tent facility on the base at Fort Bliss for ICE to use as an immigration detention facility. Fort Bliss has a lot of history, including the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and it’s not a history to be proud of. Because people who fail to learn history’s lessons are doomed to repeat them, I recount some of it in this piece.
The Audio Version: I was in the studio this week, recording my book for all of you lovely people who have ordered the Audible version. I think you’re going to love it!
Substack Live with Kim Scheppele, our wrap-up of 1984: Kim is a national treasure. A scholar of democracy who capably draws the comparison between what happened in Hungary and other backsliding democracies, and how it informs our assessment of where we are and what we must do to survive. My favorite part of our conversation comes near the end, when we discuss the virtues of federalism, and the ability of democracy at state and local levels to help preserve the Republic.
Trump’s strategy is always to overwhelm and even horrify people, in hopes that it will be too much. That they’ll decide to unplug because they just can’t deal with the constant deluge. Saturday, he “retruthed” this image, which, as many commenters noted, appears to have him holding a “Q+” sign in the palm of his hand. “Nothing can stop what is coming.” It’s just the kind of scam Mr. Trump likes to run, reigniting the Q conspiracy theory that I’m sure we all fervently hoped we’d seen the last of after the 2020 election. Why would Trump do something like this? It’s to ignite controversy, of course. Anything that deflects from his failure to release the Epstein files after he promised he would, anything that allows him to take more and more power without the majority of the country becoming alarmed.
So, when you see Trump doing this kind of thing, know it for what it is. Use it to help others understand what he’s doing and how it underscores the importance of staying focused on the changes he’s trying to make to American democracy. I hope you’ll use this week’s posts to stay up to speed and that you’ll share them widely. Civics education has moved out of our schools and into the mainstream. We can all help spread critical knowledge about the path our country is on, and we need to do it not just once, but over and over again until the people around us finally understand and become as alarmed as we are.
These are complicated legal times, and it’s easy for the truth to get lost in the chaos. Civil Discourse doesn’t just track today’s headlines—I connect them to the legal and political history that explains why they matter. We won’t forget what’s at stake, or let Trump and his allies rewrite the past. Subscribe for clear analysis that helps you see the whole picture.
We’re in this together,
Joyce