Walking In Wide Awake.
Recently, I had to read an article assigned by a professor of mine which detailed how the United States in recent weeks has been ‘sleep-walking’ into an autocracy with the new Trump Administration. The claim itself isn’t too far off in my opinion, I do believe we’re heading for a direct autocracy under the 47th President of the United States.
However, I vehemently disagree that we as a nation are ‘sleep-walking’ our way into it. What is actually happening is rather simple. Half of the nation is walking into an autocracy wide awake and they’re dragging the rest of us along by our ankles while we claw at the ground in desperation for what we once knew to be true, Liberal Democracy. And what’s even more upsetting is that these people don’t even realize they’re walking into an autocracy because the United States hasn’t had to fight for the preservation of it’s own democracy since the founding of our nation.
While I disagree with plenty of political policies and legalities of the American past, I do not believe the prior president's and American political leaders of the past have ever been so openly committed to dismantling democracy itself. There have been abuses of power, grave mistakes, and moments of deep national shame—but never before has a leader so brazenly sought to erode the very institutions that uphold our republic.
Just to name a few things which the newest and returning President has done in the three weeks he’s been in office, by the way; he has gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), halting critical foreign aid and development programs while unlawfully laying off staff. He has slashed the federal workforce with a reckless buyout scheme that was so egregious a federal judge had to step in to block it. He has launched an all-out assault on LGBTQ+ rights, banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports and attempting to strip incarcerated transgender individuals of their medical care and basic dignity.
This is quite literally just a snippet of some of the things he’s done so far. And it’s just the beginning.
Donald Trump isn’t the first American president to be direct political allies with higher financial interests. As a matter of fact, he’s among many of his predecessors in that state. Both Democrats and Republicans. What makes him stand out is his direct government empowerment of multi-billionaires to ‘over-see’ federal spending. Trump has empowered Elon Musk to spearhead a so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” which is nothing more than a front for dismantling federal agencies and gutting government accountability. Along with that, the President has purged key federal officials, including attempting to illegally remove the chair of the Federal Election Commission.
He has signed an executive order prepping Guantanamo Bay to detain tens of thousands of migrants—an unconscionable, authoritarian move; not last seen since the 1940s here in the United States with the internment camps put in place by President [Franklin] Roosevelt; which happened under the guise of a World War. He has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court for daring to hold the U.S. and its allies accountable for war crimes. And, with a single stroke of a pen, he froze all federal regulations, stalling necessary protections and reforms.
This is not a government operating within the framework of democracy. This is a regime consolidating power at the expense of the people and the will of the wealthy.
A friend of mine, Finn, said in a piece of his regarding the 2024 Presidential Election result that “Money controls our media, and through it controls our politics”. He’s right; every piece of evidence coming out of Trump’s second term proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Add that in with his aggressive reshuffling of key leadership positions in key federal agencies, the illegal firings of those who investigated him for crimes he committed while President of the United States, his ramped up threats of prosecution against political adversaries, including efforts to investigate and harass members of the previous administration, the revoking of press credentials for multiple journalists and news organizations critical of the administration, the flotating idea of amending the constitution to only allow Donald Trump to seek a unprecedented third term post-FDR.
It’s as autocratic as it gets. The beginnings of an vanilla-oligarchy, one where the facade of democracy is kept intact just enough to pacify the masses while real power is hoarded by an elite few, orchestrated by a man who craves absolute control. This isn’t some theoretical descent into authoritarianism—it’s happening, right now, in real time. The government isn't just being reshaped; it’s being dismantled.
And yet, so many still refuse to see it. They laugh it off, they call it alarmist, they pretend that because there hasn’t been a single defining moment—no tanks in the streets, no military coup—that democracy is still alive. But authoritarianism doesn’t always announce itself with a dramatic takeover. Sometimes, it creeps in under the guise of efficiency, of “draining the swamp,” of “restoring order.” Sometimes, it comes wrapped in the American flag while it chokes the life out of the very freedoms it claims to protect.
Trump’s second term is barely a month old, and already we are seeing the architecture of democracy being gutted, brick by brick. If this is what he’s done in just a few weeks, imagine what he’ll do in a year. Imagine what he’ll do with a second term unchecked, with a judiciary he’s shaped, with a Opposition and a Congress too spineless to stop him.
And if we don’t stop this now—if we don’t fight like hell to resist this, to expose it, to reject it—we will wake up one day to find that the fight is over. That the Constitution is nothing more than a relic. That elections are hollow performances. That resistance is futile.
And then, it won’t matter whether we saw it coming or not. Because by then, it’ll be too late.
