As election day nears, the Let's Find Common Ground podcast speaks with two members of Congress, one Republican and one Democrat, who are reaching across rigid partisan divides, recognizing the value of compromise and seeking constructive change.
Nazi troops arrest civilians in Warsaw, Poland, 1943.
The instinct to look away is one of the most enduring patterns in democratic backsliding. History rarely announces itself with a single rupture; it accumulates through a series of choices—some deliberate, many passive—that allow state power to harden against the people it is meant to serve.
As federal immigration enforcement escalates across American cities today, historians are warning that the public reactions we are witnessing bear uncomfortable similarities to the way many Germans responded to Adolf Hitler’s early rise in the 1930s. The comparison is not about equating leaders or eras. It is about recognizing how societies normalize state violence when it is directed at those deemed “other.”
In Germany, the pattern is well documented. Adolf Hitler’s ascent was not inevitable; it was enabled by political elites who believed they could contain him and by a public conditioned to overlook the early targeting of Jews and other minorities. Historian Timothy Ryback, who has written extensively about Hitler’s early political development, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Hitler’s rise was facilitated by rivals and allies who “underestimated him or thought they could ‘tame’ him once in power.” Ryback is explicit that “Trump is not Hitler, by any means,” but he adds that “there are modalities that are very similar,” particularly in how institutions and the public respond to escalating abuses. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum notes that Hitler’s worldview took shape in an environment where “antisemitism and ethnic nationalism flourished,” creating a social climate in which discriminatory policies could be introduced with little resistance. Facing History & Ourselves, an organization that studies the period, puts it more bluntly: “Choices made by individuals and groups contributed to the rise of the Nazi Party,” including the choice to ignore or excuse early acts of state violence.
The United States is not Weimar Germany, but the dynamics of public response deserve scrutiny. Nationwide, residents have documented aggressive ICE operations that include warrantless home entries, detentions of U.S. citizens, chemical agents deployed near schools, and masked federal agents questioning people in parking lots and outside gas stations. Local officials have raised alarms about the scale of the federal presence and the absence of oversight. Amnesty International USA recently warned of “rising authoritarian practices and erosion of human rights in the United States,” with Executive Director Paul O’Brien stating, “We are witnessing a dangerous trajectory under President Trump that has already led to a human rights emergency.” DHS maintains that operations target “the worst criminals,” yet federal data shows that 73 percent of people detained nationally have no criminal convictions, and only 5 percent have violent convictions. The gap between rhetoric and reality is widening, and the public response is following a familiar pattern: some protest, many look away, and others rationalize the abuses as necessary for security.
What historians find most striking is not the presence of state power—that exists in every nation—but the willingness of ordinary people to normalize its excesses. In early‑1930s Germany, many citizens viewed the targeting of Jews as a distant issue, something that affected “others.” Today, civil rights groups report a similar distancing in the United States, where many Americans see ICE actions as justified or irrelevant to their own lives, even when U.S. citizens are detained or when local governments warn of legal violations. Political incentives reinforce this passivity. During the Weimar Republic’s collapse, parties across the spectrum tolerated Hitler for short‑term gain. In the U.S., some lawmakers have expressed concern about ICE operations but stopped short of challenging the administration directly, citing political risk.
Historians caution that democratic erosion rarely begins with dramatic gestures. It begins with the public learning to tolerate the intolerable. Frank McDonough, a leading historian of Nazi Germany, has said that dictators often rise because “people didn’t take them seriously enough.” Ryback echoes this point, noting that “there are lessons learned—and ignored—from Hitler’s rise to power.” The lesson is not that history repeats itself in identical form. It is that democracies falter when citizens and institutions decide that the suffering of targeted groups is an acceptable cost of political order.
The question facing the United States today is not whether it is 1933. It is whether we recognize the warning signs that historians have spent decades documenting. When federal agents operate with minimal oversight, when marginalized communities are treated as expendable, and when the public grows accustomed to scenes that would once have been unthinkable, the issue is not only the actions of the state. It is the silence that meets them.
Democracies are not only defended at the ballot box or in the courts. They are defended in the everyday choices people make about what they are willing to see, to question, and to refuse. The danger is not that America will repeat Germany’s past. The danger is that we will ignore the echoes long enough to discover that the guardrails we assumed would hold have already been worn down by our own indifference.
The current continuing resolution, which keeps the government funded, ends this Friday, January 30.
The current continuing resolution, which keeps the government funded, ends this Friday, January 30.
It passed in November and ended the last shutdown. In addition to passage of the continuing resolution, some regular appropriations were also passed at the same time. It included funding for the remainder of the fiscal year for the food assistance program SNAP, the Department of Agriculture, the FDA, military construction, Veterans Affairs, and Congress itself (that is, through Sept. 30, 2026).
As of Friday, January 23, the House had passed the remaining appropriations for fiscal year 2026. It appeared that the Senate would then pass those bills this week and government operations would go uninterrupted.
Then, this past weekend, Department of Homeland Security agents killed yet another legal observer of their activities in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti's death brings the number of DHS shootings since September to 12. Four of those shootings have been fatal.
Pretti's death seems to have been the last straw for Senate Democrats. Since Saturday, enough of them have said that they will not vote for more funding for the Department of Homeland Security as currently proposed that, unless Republicans find a way to compromise, the government will again be shut down, albeit only partially this time.
At the moment, Senate Republicans say they are unwilling to make any changes to the existing appropriations bills.
Even if Republicans do compromise in some way, perhaps by rearranging the existing legislation to separate DHS funding from all the other agencies, there would still be a short partial shut down at the very least because the House will not return to session before January 30.
So, assuming for now that a shutdown occurs, what would that mean? Well, first of all, this time, no food support would be endangered and the VA would keep running because those agencies were among the ones whose full year appropriations were passed last November.
It might mean interruption in agencies like the Department of State, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Housing and Labor. It might mean some interruptions in the Department of Defense, but like last time, the administration would be looking for ways to shuffle existing funds to continue paying military personnel.
It almost certainly will have little or no effect on the operations of DHS even though that's the agency at the center of the dispute. Why not? Because, like last the last time around, the White House will likely designate DHS as essential and look for workaround funding without regard to the legality of that funding.
The Senate is, officially, in session from the end of the day today through the week. However, due to the big winter storm this past weekend, no votes are scheduled until tomorrow at least. There are 20 committee meetings this week, including one on Wednesday where Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to testify about Venezuela.
It is unclear right now where things will go right now. Our colleagues at The First Branch Forecast explain the political considerations that Democrats are mulling right now. They also provide a fascinating summary of why the Government Publishing Office was established: in short, private enterprise isn't always better or cheaper than public agencies.
See you all on Friday.
Probably Another Shutdown was originally published on GovTrack.us and is republished with permission.
U.S. President Donald Trump on January 22, 2026
One year after Donald Trump returned to the White House, the defining feature of his presidency is not turbulence or rhetorical provocation, but escalation as a mode of governance. Escalation, in this sense, does not simply mean doing more or acting faster. It refers to a sustained pattern of exercising power in ways that bypass, compress, or sideline democratic intermediaries, including Congress, courts, local governments, civil society, and even international partners.
Rather than treating institutional friction as a constraint, the administration has increasingly treated it as an obstacle to be overcome. The result is a presidency that appears more orderly than Trump’s first term, but more consequential in how it tests the guardrails of American democracy.
Unlike in 2017, Trump did not return to office needing time to adapt. He governed from the outset with speed, clarity of intent, and institutional memory. The objective was not consensus-building or repair, but control of tempo and narrative. Decisions were made first, with debate deferred or forced to catch up. That logic has shaped the administration’s relationship with democratic oversight and civic participation across policy areas.
Two democratic vulnerabilities stand out in this first year. The first is the erosion of institutional checks through executive-first decision-making. The second is the constriction of civic space, particularly for communities and actors most reliant on institutional protections.
The episode that most clearly illustrates the first vulnerability was the U.S. operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and his transfer to the United States to face narcotics trafficking charges. The operation was carried out without prior congressional authorization, triggering immediate international backlash. The administration framed the move as a necessary law enforcement action. Critics saw a unilateral use of force that set a precedent for executive action untethered from legislative consent.
The reaction in Washington underscored the shift. Lawmakers from both parties proposed measures to limit presidential authority over military and security operations. But those responses came after the action was complete. The sequence mattered. The executive acted first. Institutions were left to respond later. That pattern has repeated across the administration’s approach to governance.
Congress formally retains its powers, but its capacity to function as a deliberative check has weakened under the pressure of speed and party discipline. Decisions that might once have triggered constitutional crises are now absorbed with political resignation. Conflict has become normalized, not as an exception, but as a governing method.
This institutional acceleration is not only political. It is structural. Jason Breckenridge, a researcher who studies how political movements affect marginalized communities, told The Fulcrum that what distinguishes the second Trump term is the prioritization of ideological velocity over institutional stability. “The administration has adopted a logic of premature implementation of radical change,” he said, “without accounting for the economic and social consequences, including for its own supporters.”
Breckenridge’s analysis highlights a dynamic often missed in conventional political reporting. Speed itself becomes a democratic risk. When policy shifts outpace institutional capacity, communities that depend most on legal protections and due process feel the effects first. “If Trump’s first term was marked by internal resistance from bureaucracy,” Breckenridge said, “this one is defined by an apparatus built around loyalty and execution.”
That consolidation has been accompanied by a shift in narrative strategy. “This is no longer campaign populism,” Breckenridge added. “It is governance designed to preserve power structures and control the narrative, even at the expense of factual or historical rigor.”
The second democratic vulnerability, the narrowing of civic space, is most visible in immigration enforcement. The administration’s first year back has seen an intensification of raids and operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in major metropolitan areas. Enforcement has extended well beyond individuals with serious criminal records to include families, long-settled workers, and people with pending administrative cases.
Arrests at workplaces, schools, and courthouses have re-entered public view. Local governments and civil rights organizations report that fear has discouraged immigrant communities from accessing public services, seeking health care, or cooperating with law enforcement. Immigration policy, in this context, functions not only as enforcement but as a tool of deterrence and symbolic control.
International human rights organizations have warned that this constriction of civic space extends beyond immigration. Marking one year since Trump returned to office, Amnesty International sounded what it described as alarm bells over rising authoritarian practices in the United States.
In a report titled Ringing the Alarm Bells: Rising Authoritarian Practices and Erosion of Human Rights in the United States, Amnesty documented how the administration’s actions, including shrinking civic space and undermining the rule of law, are eroding human rights domestically and abroad. “We are witnessing a dangerous trajectory under President Trump that has already led to a human rights emergency,” said Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, in comments to The Fulcrum. He warned that journalists, protesters, lawyers, students, and human rights defenders now face heightened risk as norms erode and power concentrates.
The administration has defended its actions as necessary to restore authority and enforce the law. Yet the absence of structural immigration reform reinforces the perception that visibility and deterrence, rather than durable solutions, are the primary goals.
Economic policy reflects a similar narrowing of priorities. Deregulation has favored energy, defense, and large corporate interests, while housing, labor protections, and social cohesion have been deprioritized. Inequality has not vanished from public debate, but it has been pushed out of the policy center.
Internationally, the United States has remained engaged, but in increasingly transactional terms. Alliances have become conditional. Predictability has weakened. The contradiction between peace rhetoric and the use of force, highlighted by controversy surrounding the Nobel Peace Prize and Venezuela, has further strained U.S. credibility abroad.
At the same time, Trump’s repeated public hints about a possible third term have tested another democratic norm. While no formal move has been made, the rhetoric itself matters. By questioning constitutional limits, the administration contributes to normalizing the idea that rules are negotiable if political support is sufficient.
Isvari Maranwe, a political analyst and lawyer specializing in technology governance and cybersecurity, told The Fulcrumthat while many of Trump’s moves were anticipated, their speed was not. “Those who listened closely or examined Project 2025 should not be surprised by the direction,” she said. “What is striking is the efficiency.”
Maranwe’s insight points to a different democratic risk. “This term has accelerated institutional change faster than public or institutional response,” she said. “That efficiency has altered the United States’ global position and intensified concern around freedom of expression, ICE enforcement, the welfare state, and escalating global conflicts.”
Taken together, Trump’s first year back does not represent a sudden democratic collapse. It represents something more incremental and potentially more durable: the normalization of executive escalation and the steady erosion of institutional friction.
For civic actors, the stakes are clear. Democratic resilience now depends less on formal rules than on whether institutions reassert their capacity to slow, question, and constrain power. Congress, courts, local governments, independent media, and civil society remain pressure points. Whether escalation continues will depend on whether those actors can reclaim space before speed becomes permanence.
This year has not merely marked Trump’s return. It has tested how much strain American democracy can absorb.
Alex Segura is a bilingual, multiple-platform journalist based in Southern California.
The following article is excerpted from "Citizen’s Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials."
Despite the efforts of high school social studies teachers, parents, journalists, and political scientists, the workings of our government remain a mystery to most Americans. Caricatures, misconceptions, and stereotypes dominate citizens’ views of Congress, contributing to our reluctance to engage in our democracy. In reality, the system works pretty much as we were taught in third grade. Congress is far more like Schoolhouse Rock than House of Cards. When all the details are burned away, legislators generally follow three voices when making a decision. One member of Congress called these voices the “Three H’s”: Heart, Head, and Health—meaning political health.
Heart. People who make decisions that affect others' lives and well-being are usually first guided by their own beliefs and values. When asked how he made decisions, a GOP House lawmaker said, “I’m guided by the values my parents taught me. What’s the most common-sense, ethical way to solve the problem?”
There’s no directory listing which legislators are mostly guided by conscience and which are motivated by other factors. Generally, senators—who enjoy six-year terms—are expected to demonstrate a “leadership” model of decision-making, sometimes bucking public opinion. This is by design: the Senate was intended to be a more deliberative, thoughtful institution, acting as a check on the House, which could be swayed by the public's hot passions.
Head. Working in Congress is a policy wonk’s dream. You have access to every study ever written, every expert in the country, and every federal, state, and local agency. And if that is not enough, the largest library in the world—the Library of Congress—is across the street from your office. Most legislators and staff enjoy researching public policy problems. This is why they chose this career—to analyze complex issues and develop approaches or solutions to improve the human condition.
Legislators are constantly seeking unbiased, independent research to inform their decisions. There are both practical and political reasons for this: in addition to guiding their thinking, independent studies that justify a policy also provide them with political cover. A member of Congress told me he had changed his position on climate change, from opposing mandatory caps on emissions to supporting them. Since he represented a coal-producing district, I asked him what contributed to his change in thinking. “I read the 300-page United Nations study on the topic,” he said.
Health (political). Politics is often considered a dirty word, but what citizens and pundits fail to realize is that when a legislator factors “politics” into a decision, it means they are listening to constituents. Usually, a legislator’s personal beliefs and the general attitudes of his constituency are not far apart—that is why they got elected. Yet most decisions do not affect a majority of the citizenry in a district or state; they tend to impact small groups in significant ways. For example, Medicare reimbursement rates primarily affect doctors, research funding for a particular disease primarily affects those afflicted with the illness, and visa limits for high-skilled foreign workers primarily concern technology companies.
There may be major issues—such as war in the Middle East or immigration—which engender opinions in nearly everyone. But those issues are rare in the day-to-day world of government. Most decisions affect a narrow class of people, which makes the politics easy to assess. When faced with a new issue, one House chief of staff said he first asks, “Who’s for it, who’s against it?”
There are many ways legislators assess the political impact of a decision, but for each, they conduct a political analysis of how it affects voters’ perceptions in their district or state and how it might affect their next election. It’s important to note that even legislators in safe districts are strongly influenced by their constituents’ views. This is for two reasons. First, they feel an ethical responsibility to honestly represent the people who elected them (it sounds corny, but they do). Second, every politician wants to be loved by everyone—that’s part of why they went into politics. One Representative told me, “I sometimes think that every member of Congress is a middle child who is still trying to please his father.”
This collision between cynical popular belief and the reality of public service became clear to me in the most surprising setting: talking to congressional interns. During my 13 years on Capitol Hill, I always supervised the interns in the office. And at the end of their three-month tenure, I always asked the same question: “What belief or stereotype about Washington or Congress was debunked during your time here?” The most common response went something like this: “I was surprised by how much you all wrestle with trying to do the right thing, and how much you worry about the impact of your decisions on constituents.” If you spend a little time in the real Washington—not the one shown on the front pages or in movies—you’ll come to the same conclusion.
Bradford Fitch is the former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, a former congressional staffer, and author of “The Citizen’s Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials."
