Trump’s project 2025 agenda is not one calculated to increase his popularity, which is what politicians usually do in an effort to retain power come election time. Tax cuts always seem superficially attractive until the spending cuts needed are announced. And tax cuts directed towards billionaires are even less likely to boost his poll numbers. I once thought that when the substance of his policies becomes clear, voters would turn against him. After all, the US isn’t a police state. Or is it? Last December I posted on here a link to an article about Trump on Mother Jones: Donald Trump Will Need a Police State to Implement His Agenda. I thought at the time this was an exaggeration, but now I think I was wrong.
It's one thing to have the idea suggested in an obscure news website but a few days ago the highly respected FT had this article by Edward Luce: Trump is halfway to making America a police state
This followed Trump choosing to ignore a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling to repatriate Abrego Garcia, an illegally deported man. Luce says, the US president’s "middle finger to the court was echoed by his attorney-general, secretary of state, vice-president and El Salvador’s vigilante president Nayib Bukele."
A couple of days ago I also noted this:
A co-worker of mine (who is a judge), traveled by train from Montana to North Dakota for work this week. The train made a stop in Havre, MT, where ICE agents—armed and dressed in full military-style tactical gear—boarded the train.— Bruno J. Navarro (@brunojnavarro.bsky.social) 18 April 2025 at 15:29
This happened aboard an internal train travelling between two adjacent US states. It is reminiscent of the Stasi in East Germany.
Trump has frozen civil rights litigations and halted an inquiry into accusations of police misconduct in Louisiana. This inquiry is not dissimilar to inquiries in eight other states:
“All of the probes found a 'pattern or practice' of unlawful behavior that was routine enough that the federal government recommended reforms.
"From Phoenix to Trenton, New Jersey, federal officials investigating the eight agencies found unjustified killings, excessive force, debtors’ prisons, retaliation against police critics, racial discrimination, unlawful strip searches and officers having sexual contact with sex workers during undercover operations.”
The federal government normally oversees state police forces, but they appear to have given up that role. Trump’s Justice Department has ordered its civil rights attorneys to pause such work until further notice.
Note that the Supreme Court blocked the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to deport undocumented migrants but only by a 7-2 majority. Two justices, Allito and Thomas, both Trump appointees and supporters of his agenda, dissented. They apparently think it’s OK to deny legal residents of the USA due process and have them sent to a harsh prison in another country for an indefinite period, potentially for life. This ought to shock but it doesn’t.
The government has filed a note detailing their opposition to the SC’s ruling, arguing that the stay should be removed. The stay originally came in the early hours of Saturday morning and was in response to news of the administration getting ready to ship more plane loads of migrants to El Salvador. The government now wants these people to be deported under legislation other than the AEA.
"This Court should deny the application. At a minimum, the Court should clarify that its administrative stay order does not preclude the government from removing detainees pursuant to authorities other than the Alien Enemies Act."
The government does not intend to stop deporting millions of undocumented immigrants with little or no due process.
Meanwhile, another judge in Massachusetts has granted an injunction preventing the government from deporting anyone without telling them which country they’re going to and allowing them the opportunity to argue they could face a grave risk of being harmed in that country. Up to now this has been quite normal.
Trump and his acolytes have captured the Department of Justice and the FBI, and having bent these institutions of government to the will of the executive, they must realise how much power they are gathering into their own hands. It will be quite obvious to them, that relinquishing power to the opposition will open them up to similar treatment or simply be charged with criminal offences under the Constitution. It begs the question: will they give up power voluntarily?
Professor Timothy Snyder has a piece in The New Yorker magazine, mainly about Trump being a fascist (while accusing everyone who opposes him of being fascist, a trait that’s typical of fascism) but he also says this:
“It was predictable that Trump would deny the results of the 2020 election. It was predictable that his Big Lie would change American politics. It is predictable, today, that he will give free rein to the oligarchs who, he knows, will continue to generate the social and digital bases of a politics of us and them. It is predictable that, in returning to power, he will seek to change the system so that he can remain in power until death.”
Hitler knew what he had created, and almost as soon as he became Chancellor in 1933, moved to take control of the institutions of government to prevent others doing to him what he had already done, and planned to do, to others.
Finally, Michael Fanone, one of the Capitol police officers injured on 6 January, writes a Substack blog post in which he talks about civil rights lectures that he was forced to attend as a serving office:
"As for the Holocaust lecture, I remember thinking: 'This is ridiculous, something like this would never happen in the United States' --- American law enforcement officers wouldn’t actively participate in such an obviously immoral and illegal act as rounding up human beings simply because of their ethnicity and sending them into hell without due process.
"The conversations at the National Museum of African American History and Culture were slightly more difficult to dismiss. But don’t worry, I did. First, I thought: “I wasn’t even alive when this happened. I can’t be responsible for the sins of prior generations of cops. Second, it was the law of the land at the time. Those cops were just doing their jobs”...
He now thinks differently and concludes that the police face a choice:
"You, the American Law Enforcement officer, have been placed in an incredibly difficult situation--- one where you must choose between obeying the immoral and often illegal orders given to you by your President, the Attorney General, your state and federal prosecutors, and even those that lead your respective agencies --- orders that violate our Constitution which we all took an oath to uphold against enemies both foreign and domestic."
I confess a few short months ago I thought it was ridiculous to imagine the USA descending into a police state, but now I think it's a distinct possibility. All the signs are there.
