This is an adapted passage from the March 19 broadcast of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
The effort to oppose Donald Trump’s unconstitutional power grab is confronted with two critical questions: How severe are the circumstances at this moment? And when should every available democratic tool be utilized to counter his onslaught?
This is the manner in which democracies perish. When independent voices of authority are eliminated and a diverse civil society is fragmented.
On Tuesday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer appeared on “All In.” The interview provided clarity in numerous ways, but one of my primary takeaways is the stark contrast in how various individuals perceive this moment.
Some believe we are experiencing a constitutional crisis — that there exists a scheme to establish a dictatorship in the United States. In Tuesday’s segment, Schumer indicated he wasn’t fully prepared to label the situation a constitutional crisis yet. While I genuinely hope Schumer is correct, it is incredibly challenging to envision a leader “meeting the moment” if they do not even acknowledge the moment’s arrival.
To me, Trump’s motives are glaringly obvious. He is actively working to dismantle the constitutional republic. His executive branch is striving to dominate the legislative and judicial branches of government, Congress, and the courts, enabling him to act autonomously.
Even within the realm of his executive authority, this president is expelling anyone and anything that doesn’t exhibit unwavering loyalty to him and his political agenda. From the FBI to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, these entities are being purged of career officials who may prefer the rule of law over Trump’s caprices and are being replaced with loyalists.
As reported by The New York Times, Trump is leveraging the extensive powers of the presidency to undermine his political adversaries, including spurious inquiries into Democratic fundraising platforms and threats to shutter nonprofit organizations he perceives as oppositional.
However, it’s not solely the government or partisan organizations that are targeted. Trump aims to dismantle any and all forms of public resistance to his power grab, starting with sources of independent authority. Any institution with credibility must either be coerced into submission to Trump’s will or annihilated.
He has consistently threatened independent media outlets, including this one, for coverage he deems insufficiently laudatory. He is undertaking an unprecedented assault on American higher education, such as freezing $175 million in federal funding for his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. Furthermore, he appears to be openly defying the Constitution as he attempts to deport a legal resident for their protected political speech.
This is how democracies end — by purging independent voices of authority and fracturing a pluralistic civil society. This reality is painfully clear to many of us, including scholars of authoritarian regimes and particularly those who have lived through them.
I believe part of the dilemma, which is a valid concern, is how we arrived at this juncture. Many Democrats perceive that democracy is not a particularly prominent political issue. Throughout the entire 2024 election cycle, Democrats focused their messaging on the threats to democracy and civil society, but voters were more concerned with immediate issues, like cost of living. As a result, some Democrats view democracy as a politically unviable topic, believing we should instead emphasize Medicaid cuts or the impacts of Trump’s trade war on the economy.
While I understand the inclination to prioritize these everyday concerns, I don’t necessarily consider it the wrong lesson to draw from the election. Yet the landscape has shifted drastically since November. Democrats should not be engaging in battles of the past. While that strategy may have been effective eight years ago, it is not appropriate for the current moment. This is a decisive moment.
‘This moment necessitates breaking norms; this moment requires us to embrace risks,’ Sen. Chris Murphy told Jon Stewart on Monday.
Primarily, Trump is already struggling in polls regarding the economy. The state of the stock market is effectively communicating economic issues on its own. More critically: Democrats need not choose one over the other. Everything is interconnected. The threat to democracy has grown significantly more tangible than it was when people cast their votes four months ago, partly because Trump’s entire erratic behavior is causing turmoil in numerous directions.
Given this context, many of Schumer’s Democratic peers believe it’s time to mount a stronger resistance, as Sen. Chris Murphy from Connecticut has indicated.
“This moment requires us to break norms; this moment requires us to take risks,” Murphy stated while speaking with Jon Stewart on Monday. “And I understand that many of my colleagues are concerned that a government shutdown poses a risk; it grants power to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. But how on earth can we expect the American public to take risks for us, right, when we’re facing a five-alarm constitutional crisis and we need them to be on the streets — not just with hundreds, not just with thousands or tens of thousands of people, but with hundreds of thousands of people — if we’re not willing to take risks ourselves?”
Now is the moment to take political risks — before it is too late. Not to oversimplify, but the entire premise of America is that one person cannot have control over everything without checks or balances. That is literally the foundational principle upon which this country was established. No kings. Ever. There is perhaps nothing that embodies the essence of being American more than this.
Allison Detzel contributed.
