On October 21, I went to the U.S. Senate chamber to ring the alarm bells about President Trump’s aggressive authoritarian takeover of our republic. I spoke through the night for over 22 hours.
I undertook this grueling exercise to convey that we are at the most perilous moment for our democracy since the Civil War. Authoritarianism isn’t down the street or around the corner—it is here right now.
People think of democracies dying at the hands of men with guns. But in the modern era, they more often die at the hands of elected officials who erode the separation of powers to solidify authoritarian control.
That is the type of “coup” unfolding right now in America. We have all three key ingredients of a strongman state: a rubber-stamp Congress acceding to the president’s desires; a Supreme Court enhancing the president’s powers; and a power-hungry president behaving like a king, disregarding the laws and the checks and balances of our Constitution.
But Americans have never wanted a king. Not at the founding. And not now. The Founders feared that a strongman president would try to seize authoritarian power, so they placed the power to craft laws and the “power of the purse”—the responsibility to decide how much money is spent on which programs—with Congress.
And today, centuries later, the American people still reject the idea of a strongman president. Seven million people made that clear when they came out for the 2,700 No Kings rallies on October 18, in the largest one-day demonstration in U.S. history. Those Americans were standing up for our values, our freedoms, and our democracy against Trump’s attempts to turn government by and for the people into government by and for the powerful.
President Trump is pursuing his strongman takeover of our democracy, utilizing an authoritarian playbook that has been well developed in dozens of nations over the last several decades.
The first rule in the playbook is to fire the government’s referees. Trump began to do that days after being sworn into office, firing 17 inspectors general and members of federal oversight commissions and regulatory boards without cause.
A second rule in the playbook is to pack your government with loyalists. We have seen a host of nominees for critical positions who lacked the character or the qualifications for their proposed positions—folks like Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Kash Patel for FBI director. The Senate is supposed to block confirmation of unqualified individuals, but the Republican majority decided instead to be the proverbial “rubber stamp.”
A third rule is to grab the power over the funding of programs—the power of the purse—that the Founders assigned to Congress. The director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, excels at this task. He has killed programs by slow-walking, freezing, or impounding their funds.
And the president and his team often cancel grants or programs without authority to do so, from the U.S. Agency for International Development, to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to billions of dollars for energy programs in blue states.
The difference between a democracy and an authoritarian state can often be summed up this way: In a democracy, the legislature, representing all the citizens, decides which programs to fund and at what level. In an authoritarian state, the president and his team decide based on his preferences, often to reward friends and punish opponents.
Every time you hear the president or his Cabinet members say that they canceled a grant or program “because it doesn’t align with the administration’s priorities,” you are hearing authoritarian rule in action.
A fourth rule in the authoritarian playbook is to go after centers of power. Trump is doing exactly that when he withholds research grants from universities or security clearances from law firms unless they restructure to his will.
A fifth rule is to exercise influence over the press. Trump is using lawsuits and his power over broadcast licenses and corporate mergers to pressure newspapers and networks over the content of their reports and broadcasts, and even which late-night comedians they employ.
He has destroyed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and defunded PBS, NPR, and even Voice of America, which was created to counter disinformation from authoritarian regimes around the world.
A sixth rule is to disregard due process—the guardian of our freedom that keeps any one of us from being locked up by a strongman. Democracies don’t have secret police. But now, unidentified masked federal agents are arresting people off the street because of their accent or the color of their skin, terrorizing communities, zip-tying children, and disappearing people overseas without a fair trial or opportunity to defend themselves. The president even defied for a time the Supreme Court’s 9–0 ruling that he must facilitate the return of Kilmar Ábrego García from the El Salvador prison to which he was illegally deported. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio has deported hundreds of students without hearings because he doesn’t like their views on Gaza.
A seventh rule is to attack and diminish dissent by weaponizing the Department of Justice. Trump is publicly naming his enemies and pushing the DOJ to go after them: James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, John Bolton. Who will be next? The goal is half revenge against people Trump feels have wronged him, and half intimidation of others who might consider speaking out.
An eighth rule is to use the military to suppress domestic dissent. Trump is activating Title 10 of the U.S. Code, section 12406, to federalize the National Guard and send them into American cities. Title 10 allows the president to do this if there is a “rebellion” or an “invasion.” A district judge ruled against Trump’s effort to federalize and deploy Oregon National Guard members in Portland, finding that Trump’s argument that there is a rebellion in Portland was “untethered to the facts.”
But Trump may yet succeed, because some judges—including the majority on a panel of the Ninth Circuit, which includes my state of Oregon—are arguing that the courts should defer to the president’s discretion. This is incredibly dangerous, since replacing objective standards with the president’s opinion throws open the doors for the president to use the military domestically against peacefully protesting citizens.
A ninth rule is to use the power of the government to spread propaganda, and Trump is doing exactly that: banners with the president’s face hanging off federal buildings; video announcements at airports featuring Homeland Security Secretary Noem blaming Democrats for the government shutdown; federal websites spreading the president’s political messages. These actions violate provisions of the Anti-Lobbying Act, the Hatch Act, and laws that prohibit federal funds from being used to influence legislation before Congress. Taxpayer-funded agencies are supposed to provide nonpartisan services, and they need to stay that way.
A tenth rule in the authoritarian playbook—the most dangerous rule of all—is to rig future elections. Trump is employing three tactics here. First, he is trying to consolidate states’ voter registration files into a national database to make them easier to manipulate in the next election. Second, he is trying to gerrymander states’ congressional districts to increase Republican power in the House of Representatives—a goal that may be aided by the Supreme Court, which is reviewing a case that would gut the remaining section of the Voting Rights Act, enabling states to disenfranchise voters and draw dozens of new Republican seats. Third, he is trying to kill vote by mail. On Election Day, it’s easy to manipulate voter turnout by moving polling places, understaffing locations, and intimidating people in line. But those tactics don’t work with vote by mail.
Experts on how democracies die observe that there are actions that can stop the entrenchment of an authoritarian takeover. One action is strong citizen resistance in the first year. People need to know and show that what is happening is breaking the norms, the laws, and the Constitution, and that it is not acceptable. That’s why I’m so heartened by the No Kings protest.
Another is to have a strong pushback against the president’s takeover in the next election, before the elections can be thoroughly rigged. That is the test that awaits us in November 2026. And it is a test we must not fail if we want to stop authoritarian rule.
Let’s ring the alarm bells loud and clear and pass the election test in November 2026 with flying colors. Together, let’s save our republic.
