Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Democracy’s survival depends on our willingness to act

Navigating the shadows of Trump’s legal saga reveals a growing desire for authoritarianism

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has promised to be a "dictator on day one" if reelected.

Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

In another pivotal moment, the Supreme Court decided Wednesday to take up former president Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. This development, arriving as we edge closer to the 2024 presidential election, fuels further delays and injects a new level of uncertainty, casting a shadow over the electoral landscape. It’s increasingly perceived as a strategic maneuver by Trump to entangle legal proceedings with the electoral timeline, complicating the discourse and deepening the national polarization ahead of a critical election. The scenario is one glimpse into the broader threat of Trump’s 2024 candidacy.

On Monday, Just Security published The American Autocracy Threat Tracker, a new public resource that meticulously catalogs the plans, promises and propositions being developed by Trump and his circle. The tracker amalgamates data from media outlets, resources such as Protect Democracy’s The Authoritarian Playbook, and direct information from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Noteworthy is its inclusion of data from Trump’s campaign website and Truth Social – as well as an always-updating searchable data set of all of Trump’s Truth Social posts.


This tracker is more than a repository; it’s a call for critical engagement, starting with its initial chapters that paint a vision of the beginning of Trump’s potential second term, marked by authoritarian pledges to serve as a “ dictator on day one ” to enforce his plans to “close the borders” and “drill, drill, drill.” It equips citizens and organizations with a unified framework for dissecting the realities of the Republican frontrunner’s campaign narratives, fostering a necessary national dialogue.

Amidst this backdrop, a January 2024 survey conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and YouGov produced a startling finding: a significant portion of respondents showed a perplexing openness to Trump’s authoritarian undertones. This result contrasted sharply with a broader aversion to dictatorship revealed in a separate Economist and YouGov poll from December 2023, potentially indicating a nuanced, though troubling, interpretation of “temporary autocracy.” Such findings continually underscore an alarming dissonance in public sentiment towards the foundational principles of American democracy.

The discourse on democracy’s relevance in contemporary America is reaching an inflection point. Recent polls, including a longitudinal survey by The Democracy Fund, indicate a waning commitment to democratic norms among Americans, a sentiment further corroborated by Danielle Allen’s insights published last week in The Washington Post. Allen’s analysis reveals a generational divergence in the valuation of democracy, posing a stark challenge: The sustainability of democracy hinges on the people’s desire for it.

In my tenure with the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, my underlying quest has been to identify a unifying thread that could weave together the diverse strands of the healthy democracy ecosystem. Our mission is to enhance and amplify the work of those working in civic education, engagement, electoral reform, social cohesion and trusted information. It is intuitive that these spheres of practice enhance one another and are all vital to a healthy society and the institutions that serve it.

However, the collective insight and power of the ecosystem can only coalesce into a movement with at least one specific, shared goal. We must continue focusing on a wide range of work areas to repair our country's social and political infrastructure. Still, it's also essential that we consider our work aligned with the goal of a constitutional democracy supermajority. That means a supermajority of citizens agreeing, as Allen puts it, on “the basic rules of the game.” Inside the bounds of those rules we will disagree, but hopefully we can disagree better within the stability of those boundaries.

The path forward demands more than passive endorsement; it calls for active defense and promotion of core democratic values, including “constitutionalism, the rule of law, inclusivity, nonviolence, and respect for the electoral process”. It is not just possible but imperative for us to rise to this challenge, fostering a culture of dialogue and advocacy that strengthens, rather than erodes, the bedrock of our democratic republic.

Read More

Donald Trump

Trump's reliance on inflammatory, and often dehumanizing, language is not an unfortunate quirk—it’s a deliberate tactic.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

From ‘Obliteration’ to ‘Enemies Within’: Trump’s Language Echoes Authoritarianism

When President Trump declared that the U.S. strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, it wasn’t just a policy claim—it was an exercise in narrative control. Predictably, his assertion was met with both support and skepticism. Yet more than a comment on military efficacy, the statement falls into a broader pattern that underscores how Trump uses language not just to communicate but to dominate.

Alongside top officials like CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump claimed the strikes set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back by years. However, conflicting intelligence assessments tell a more nuanced story. A leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report concluded that while infrastructure was damaged and entrances sealed, core components such as centrifuges remained largely intact. Iran had already relocated much of its enriched uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency echoed that damage was reparable.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump Shows That Loyalty Is All That Matters to Him

Guests in the audience await the arrival of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during the Federalist Society's Executive Branch Review Conference at The Mayflower Hotel on April 25, 2023, in Washington, D.C.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images/TNS

Trump Shows That Loyalty Is All That Matters to Him

Last week, the Court of International Trade delivered a blow to Donald Trump’s global trade war. It found that the worldwide tariffs Trump unveiled on “Liberation Day” as well his earlier tariffs pretextually aimed at stopping fentanyl coming in from Mexico and Canada (as if) were beyond his authority. The three-judge panel was surely right about the Liberation Day tariffs and probably right about the fentanyl tariffs, but there’s a better case that, while bad policy, the fentanyl tariffs were not unlawful.

Please forgive a lengthy excerpt of Trump’s response on Truth Social, but it speaks volumes:

Keep ReadingShow less
Democrats, Gavin Newsom Is Not Your Blueprint

California Governor Gavin Newsom (right) speaks as California Attorney general Rob Bonta looks on during a news conference at Gemperle Orchard on April 16, 2025, in Ceres, California.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/TCA

Democrats, Gavin Newsom Is Not Your Blueprint

Few in American politics are as desperate as California Gov. Gavin Newsom is right now.

Newsom, long considered — by himself, anyway — a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president, has been positioning himself and repositioning himself to be next in line for years.

Keep ReadingShow less
Americans Want To Rein In Presidential Power

Protestors march during an anti-Trump "No Kings Day" demonstration in a city that has been the focus of protests against Trump's immigration raids on June 14, 2025 in downtown Los Angeles, California.

Getty Images, Jay L Clendenin

Americans Want To Rein In Presidential Power

President Trump has been attempting to expand presidential power more than any president in recent history, in large part by asserting powers that have been held by Congress, including federal funding and tariffs. Public opinion research has shown clearly and consistently that large majorities—often bipartisan—oppose expanding presidential powers and support giving Congress more power.

The Pew Research Center has asked for nearly a decade whether presidents should not have to “worry so much about Congress and the courts” or if giving presidents more power is “too risky.” Over seven in ten have consistently said that giving presidents more power would be too risky, including majorities of Democrats and Republicans, no matter which party is in power. In February 2025, 66% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats took this position.

Keep ReadingShow less