The text discusses the potential drop of a lawsuit by President Donald Trump against the IRS in exchange for a slush fund, which could be used to fund his MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. It also mentions the decline of global freedom and the US's loss of its status as a liberal democracy.
'A $1,700,000,000 Fraud': Trump Set to Drop IRS Suit in Exchange for MAGA Slush Fund Protesters hold signs as they participate in a"No Kings" protest in Manhattan on March 28, 2026 in New York City.
Two major reports released this year tell a grim story: Global freedom continues to decline and the US has lost its longstanding classification a liberal democracy. But hope lies in the data. The US joins nearly a quarter of the world’s nations undergoing democratic backsliding, and is on its way to joining the three-quarters of the world population, some 6 billion people, who live in autocracies.
If President Donald Trump’s first term “laid the foundation”, according to the report, the second term has seen the backslide quicken. Such a democratic crash is typically associated with coup d’etats. According to V-Dem we are back to the lowest level of democracy since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed theTrump did not create our democratic weaknesses, but he is exploiting them.
Power has been unevenly coalescing in the presidency since at least Andrew Jackson’s administration.could not help but overuse executive orders to overcome congressional gridlock. These precedents emboldened Trump. If the imperial presidency has previously been restricted to despotic rule abroad, it is now directed to the US' own citizens and subjects. Trump is the domestic return of the imperial boomerang, establishing what political theorist Nikhil Pal Singh calls aplan to enact “unitary executive theory.
” By 2026, according to Project 2025 Tracker, half of the 320 objectives have been met. We have entered what former Republican adviser Still, buried within V-dem’s report are two important lessons of hope. The first lesson is that demand for democracy, as both a norm and practice, remains strong. Democracy remains powerful as an ideal, which is why even autocrats rarely reject elections outright and often rely on the appearance of democratic forms to confer legitimacy.
Trump mayThe second lesson is that the first election after a democratic slide is a pivotal moment to reverse the trend. This means the 2026 midterm elections are more than a referendum on Trump. They are a test of whether American democracy can repair itself. Elections remain dangerous to autocrats precisely because they cannot fully control what voters will do.
Nevertheless, autocrats still attempt to tilt the playing field in their favor. To consolidate their grip on power, autocrats engage in what Stephen Levitsky and Lucan Way callOpposition remains legal and elections are still contested. But authoritarians weaponize the executive and judicial machinery of the state to make opposition costly. Taking a page out of the authoritarian playbook, Trump has worked to discipline institutions that might constrain him.
He has filled the administrative state with party sycophants, hollowed out government agencies, and targeted media and universities. He wields violent rhetoric to delegitimize opposition, both antifa bogymen and centrist liberals, and pardons those who illegally act in the administration’s interests, encouraging others to act with impunity. The danger, however, is that Trump is not alone. His impulses have become intertwined with party strategy.
Voting rights are the clearest example of this unified threat. Trump’s SAVE Act has stalled in the Senate, but the Roberts Court has arrived with the cavalry to fulfill the Republican party’s Trump is a political bully. He seeks to whittle us down with near constant reminders that he has the power and we do not. Broadly, this thumb-on-his nose strategy underpins hismessage.
This is its only message: Power begets power. Trump is relying on us to accept defeat that has not yet occurred. But power is not the same as inevitability. Despite the increasingly stacked odds, the upcoming midterm elections are a pivotal moment to repudiate autocracy.marchers” and “ this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.
” Rights were born in struggle. They can be lost in despondency. We must remind ourselves that democratic institutions are not self-executing: We are the guardrails. What I call a “living democracy” builds on the uncertainty and hope that lies within the heart of the democratic project.
The late political theorist Sheldin Wolin named this hopefulness “something fleeting that must be continually renewed. As Wolin writes, “The possibility of renewal draws on a simple fact: that ordinary individuals are capable of creating new cultural patterns of commonality at any moment. ” It is up to us to rebuild hope in our political communities and in such numbers that we can defeat the electoral odds stacked against us.
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Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 20 books, beginning with the acclaimed"Diet for a Small Planet.
" Most recently she is the co-author, with Adam Eichen, of the new book,"Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want. " Among her numerous previous books are"EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want" and"Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life. " She is co-founder of the Cambridge, Mass. -based Small Planet Institute.
Lewis d’Avigdor, PhD, is the managing director of Small Planet Institute. A former lawyer and historian, having taught at Cornell, Harvard, and Wheaton College, his work focuses on American and African-American politics and culture. The US joins nearly a quarter of the world’s nations undergoing democratic backsliding, and is on its way to joining the three-quarters of the world population, some 6 billion people, who live in autocracies.
If President Donald Trump’s first term “laid the foundation”, according to the report, the second term has seen the backslide quicken. Such a democratic crash is typically associated with coup d’etats. According to V-Dem we are back to the lowest level of democracy since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed theTrump did not create our democratic weaknesses, but he is exploiting them.
Power has been unevenly coalescing in the presidency since at least Andrew Jackson’s administration.could not help but overuse executive orders to overcome congressional gridlock. These precedents emboldened Trump. If the imperial presidency has previously been restricted to despotic rule abroad, it is now directed to the US' own citizens and subjects. Trump is the domestic return of the imperial boomerang, establishing what political theorist Nikhil Pal Singh calls aplan to enact “unitary executive theory.
” By 2026, according to Project 2025 Tracker, half of the 320 objectives have been met. We have entered what former Republican adviser Still, buried within V-dem’s report are two important lessons of hope. The first lesson is that demand for democracy, as both a norm and practice, remains strong. Democracy remains powerful as an ideal, which is why even autocrats rarely reject elections outright and often rely on the appearance of democratic forms to confer legitimacy.
Trump mayThe second lesson is that the first election after a democratic slide is a pivotal moment to reverse the trend. This means the 2026 midterm elections are more than a referendum on Trump. They are a test of whether American democracy can repair itself. Elections remain dangerous to autocrats precisely because they cannot fully control what voters will do.
Nevertheless, autocrats still attempt to tilt the playing field in their favor. To consolidate their grip on power, autocrats engage in what Stephen Levitsky and Lucan Way callOpposition remains legal and elections are still contested. But authoritarians weaponize the executive and judicial machinery of the state to make opposition costly. Taking a page out of the authoritarian playbook, Trump has worked to discipline institutions that might constrain him.
He has filled the administrative state with party sycophants, hollowed out government agencies, and targeted media and universities. He wields violent rhetoric to delegitimize opposition, both antifa bogymen and centrist liberals, and pardons those who illegally act in the administration’s interests, encouraging others to act with impunity. The danger, however, is that Trump is not alone. His impulses have become intertwined with party strategy.
Voting rights are the clearest example of this unified threat. Trump’s SAVE Act has stalled in the Senate, but the Roberts Court has arrived with the cavalry to fulfill the Republican party’s Trump is a political bully. He seeks to whittle us down with near constant reminders that he has the power and we do not. Broadly, this thumb-on-his nose strategy underpins hismessage.
This is its only message: Power begets power. Trump is relying on us to accept defeat that has not yet occurred. But power is not the same as inevitability. Despite the increasingly stacked odds, the upcoming midterm elections are a pivotal moment to repudiate autocracy.marchers” and “ this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.
” Rights were born in struggle. They can be lost in despondency. We must remind ourselves that democratic institutions are not self-executing: We are the guardrails. What I call a “living democracy” builds on the uncertainty and hope that lies within the heart of the democratic project.
The late political theorist Sheldin Wolin named this hopefulness “something fleeting that must be continually renewed. As Wolin writes, “The possibility of renewal draws on a simple fact: that ordinary individuals are capable of creating new cultural patterns of commonality at any moment. ” It is up to us to rebuild hope in our political communities and in such numbers that we can defeat the electoral odds stacked against us.
Frances Moore Lappé Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 20 books, beginning with the acclaimed"Diet for a Small Planet.
" Most recently she is the co-author, with Adam Eichen, of the new book,"Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want. " Among her numerous previous books are"EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want" and"Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life. " She is co-founder of the Cambridge, Mass. -based Small Planet Institute.
Lewis d’Avigdor, PhD, is the managing director of Small Planet Institute. A former lawyer and historian, having taught at Cornell, Harvard, and Wheaton College, his work focuses on American and African-American politics and culture. The US joins nearly a quarter of the world’s nations undergoing democratic backsliding, and is on its way to joining the three-quarters of the world population, some 6 billion people, who live in autocracies.
If President Donald Trump’s first term “laid the foundation”, according to the report, the second term has seen the backslide quicken. Such a democratic crash is typically associated with coup d’etats. According to V-Dem we are back to the lowest level of democracy since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed theTrump did not create our democratic weaknesses, but he is exploiting them.
Power has been unevenly coalescing in the presidency since at least Andrew Jackson’s administration.could not help but overuse executive orders to overcome congressional gridlock. These precedents emboldened Trump. If the imperial presidency has previously been restricted to despotic rule abroad, it is now directed to the US' own citizens and subjects. Trump is the domestic return of the imperial boomerang, establishing what political theorist Nikhil Pal Singh calls aplan to enact “unitary executive theory.
” By 2026, according to Project 2025 Tracker, half of the 320 objectives have been met. We have entered what former Republican adviser Still, buried within V-dem’s report are two important lessons of hope. The first lesson is that demand for democracy, as both a norm and practice, remains strong. Democracy remains powerful as an ideal, which is why even autocrats rarely reject elections outright and often rely on the appearance of democratic forms to confer legitimacy.
Trump mayThe second lesson is that the first election after a democratic slide is a pivotal moment to reverse the trend. This means the 2026 midterm elections are more than a referendum on Trump. They are a test of whether American democracy can repair itself. Elections remain dangerous to autocrats precisely because they cannot fully control what voters will do.
Nevertheless, autocrats still attempt to tilt the playing field in their favor. To consolidate their grip on power, autocrats engage in what Stephen Levitsky and Lucan Way callOpposition remains legal and elections are still contested. But authoritarians weaponize the executive and judicial machinery of the state to make opposition costly. Taking a page out of the authoritarian playbook, Trump has worked to discipline institutions that might constrain him.
He has filled the administrative state with party sycophants, hollowed out government agencies, and targeted media and universities. He wields violent rhetoric to delegitimize opposition, both antifa bogymen and centrist liberals, and pardons those who illegally act in the administration’s interests, encouraging others to act with impunity. The danger, however, is that Trump is not alone. His impulses have become intertwined with party strategy.
Voting rights are the clearest example of this unified threat. Trump’s SAVE Act has stalled in the Senate, but the Roberts Court has arrived with the cavalry to fulfill the Republican party’s Trump is a political bully. He seeks to whittle us down with near constant reminders that he has the power and we do not. Broadly, this thumb-on-his nose strategy underpins hismessage.
This is its only message: Power begets power. Trump is relying on us to accept defeat that has not yet occurred. But power is not the same as inevitability. Despite the increasingly stacked odds, the upcoming midterm elections are a pivotal moment to repudiate autocracy.marchers” and “ this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.
” Rights were born in struggle. They can be lost in despondency. We must remind ourselves that democratic institutions are not self-executing: We are the guardrails. What I call a “living democracy” builds on the uncertainty and hope that lies within the heart of the democratic project.
The late political theorist Sheldin Wolin named this hopefulness “something fleeting that must be continually renewed. As Wolin writes, “The possibility of renewal draws on a simple fact: that ordinary individuals are capable of creating new cultural patterns of commonality at any moment. ” It is up to us to rebuild hope in our political communities and in such numbers that we can defeat the electoral odds stacked against us. The 1% own and operate the corporate media.
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