Archives
Weekly Lists
Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.
December 04, 2024
Week 4 — The Return
This week we saw a continuation of last week’s theme of pushback against Trump. The amount of resistance to Trump’s whims, and its depth and breadth, I suspect surprised us all, including Trump. There was continued opposition to Trump’s nominees, and his process for advancing them. We also saw bold moves from a government worker’s union, Democratic-appointed judges reversing plans on retiring, and President Joseph Biden granting a historic pardon to his son.
November 27, 2024
Week 3 —The Return
The theme of this week’s list is undoubtedly pushback. For the first two weeks after the election, Trump seemed to be steamrolling through his agenda and desires — threatening and intimidating anyone and anything that got in his way, and encountering little hindrance. This week, in a dramatic shift, guard rails started to appear.
November 20, 2024
Week 2 — The Return
This week opened with President Joe Biden meeting with Trump, after inviting the incoming president to the White House. This transitional meeting had been a normal part of protocol up until 2020, when Trump refused to concede his loss and invite Biden to the White House. Although former President Barack Obama had invited Trump in 2016, it was at best an awkward and visibly uncomfortable meeting. Biden drew criticism for smiling alongside Trump - seemingly acting deferential to a man who had sullied the tradition.
November 13, 2024
The Return — Week 1
Donald Trump is returning to power. These are words I never imagined I would be typing again! This week’s digital cover of Vanity Fair summarizes it best: 34 felony convictions, 1 conviction (criminal), 2 cases pending, 2 impeachments, 6 bankruptcies, 4 more years.
Dear America, how could you? Why would you? Did you not know better?
December 06, 2022
I Look at Elon Musk, and I See a Failing Autocrat
I look at Elon Musk, and I see Donald Trump.
I tracked broken norms and our near descent into authoritarianism during the Trump era, and I find the similarities between these two men astounding.
November 12, 2021
I sounded the alarm for authoritarianism in 2016, and I am sounding it again
On January 20, 2021 we were finally able to exhale, believing our near brush with authoritarianism was behind us, and that with President Joe Biden taking office, our country and political system would return to normalcy. The ensuing months proved otherwise. Elected Republicans continually questioned the 2020 election results, and attempted to rewrite history, including casting the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol as a mere “tourist visit.” Rep. Liz Cheney, a critic of former President Donald Trump, was removed from House leadership and replaced by a loyalist, Rep. Elise Stefanik.
January 20, 2021
AFTER (January)
I am grateful, with all your input, to have continued this project through inauguration. Since I started tracking Donald Trump in November 2016, I have posited that he cared about two things: making money and staying in power; admittedly, events in this final list caught even me by surprise.
December 31, 2020
AFTER (December)
In December, Trump continued to push lies and conspiracy theories about the election, not only failing to concede, but pushing efforts to overthrow the election results. During this month, Trump became increasingly isolated as even loyalists pushed back on his false allegations or resigned, leaving an inner circle composed almost entirely of his family members and conspiracy theorists. Trump continued to avoid the press and the American people, seeming to hide in the White House, other than a brief holiday trip to Mar-a-Lago.
December 01, 2020
AFTER (November)
This section is a list of broken norms from the transition period, starting on November 7, the day fortuitously Joe Biden was declared the president-elect and we reach the four-year mark (Week 208). The AFTER section will have separate lists for what remains of the month of November, the full month of December, and January through Inauguration Day.
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We end the month of November, four weeks after Election Day, without Trump conceding. As Mary Trump’s book aptly warned us, Trump is seemingly unable to admit defeat, and, as has been typical over the past four years, a compliant, cowardly Republican Party quietly continued to enable an unprecedented time in our democracy — one that even the Founding Fathers did not account for. As we end November, only Republican leadership and most of its rank and file, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, have yet to recognize Biden as the 46th president.
November 07, 2020
Week 208
This project could not have ended in a more perfect way (she writes while sipping champagne): Donald J. Trump was defeated shortly before noon on Saturday, the cutoff time each week, and so I was able to gloriously write “THE END” at the end of Week 208 — something I have been waiting to do for four long years.
This week, the U.S. held its election, and it was different than any other due to the pandemic and the resulting record early vote. It took days for the race to be called for Biden, as early votes were counted. Nonetheless, as he telegraphed he would do in the weeks and months leading up to November 3rd, Trump tried to steal the election, declaring victory at a hastily assembled news conference at 2 a.m. on election night.