Archives
Weekly Lists
Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.
May 07, 2025
Week 26 — The Return
The most noteworthy stories this week revolve around Trump’s grift. We’ve been covering Trump’s irreverence around conflicts of interest in the second regime, as well as examples each week of his using the office of the presidency to line his pockets; this week it seemed to all come together with some great reporting by the Times. If you want a good primer on how Trump has pocketed billions from cryptocurrency alone, you can read my article here.
April 30, 2025
Week 25 — The Return
Well the results are in for Trump’s first 100 days, and the reviews are overwhelmingly awful. Polls show his approval ratings dipped into the high 30s, the lowest for any president’s first 100 days in 80 years. Trump has gone net negative on every single issue, including immigration and the economy, the top two issues that he ran on. Nearly half of Americans give him a grade of “F” for his first 100 days. The S&P 500 had its worst performance in the first 100 days of a presidency in 50 years. Even the conservative WSJ Editorial Board summed it up as, “At 100 Days, Trump 2.0 Is in Trouble.”
April 23, 2025
Week 24 — The Return
This is the week it all started to fall apart for Trump. He ended what was a disastrous week for his regime, having to capitulate with a public statement that he did not intend to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and softening his tone on China. His statements came after Wall Street dubbed a broad sell-off of U.S. stocks, U.S. government debt, and the U.S. dollar the Trump ‘Sell America’ trade. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 were also on track for their worst April since the Great Depression. Not exactly the stuff of making America great again.
April 16, 2025
Week 23 — The Return
This week Trump pushed the boundaries of the legal system, flouting a ruling by the Supreme Court on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported. Centering the discussion on this case and other immigration related moves seemed aimed at distracting attention from economic matters, which have dominated the news media after Trump’s so-called Liberation Day. Trump’s polling on trade and fighting inflation are floundering, with 6 in 10 Americans disapproving, while immigration is the one issue on which he is not underwater.
April 09, 2025
Week 22 — The Return
The main theme of this week’s list is Trump’s tariff war declaration and the global disruption that ensued, but before we get to that, I want to recognize the importance of the Hands Off protests which took place on Saturday. The media was not prepared to adequately cover the size and scope of this protest, which took even its organizers by surprise. I wrote more about why the protests really mattered on my Substack, but I also want to highlight, that as millions took to the streets at more than 1,600 locations, we passed an important hurdle. Many who protested were doing so for the first time, and got to see firsthand that they could do so safely and without incident. Ironically, it was Trump who preemptively erected a fence around the White House on Friday night. Protests have been remarkably effective: just ask Elon Musk who has seen his net worth crumble as Tesla stock continued to plummet following mass protests at showrooms nationwide.
April 02, 2025
Week 21 — The Return
This week’s common thread through many of the stories is the involvement of Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. He seems to be omnipresent, in a way that almost overshadows Trump. It is notable that as we discussed last week with Trump making Secretary of State Marco Rubio the face of his regime’s lawless and controversial move to deport migrant Venezuelans to El Salvador, this week Trump is distancing himself from Musk and his DOGE efforts. Remember from the first Trump regime that it is never his fault, and he is always preparing for fall guys and gals to take the brunt of the blame when things go wrong, like in this case of what has become highly unpopular mass firings and haphazard cuts to federal grants and funding.
March 26, 2025
Week 20 — The Return
This week we had two devastating examples of obeying in advance, both of which will reverberate in their respective fields. On Thursday, law firm Paul Weiss reached a settlement with Trump. This comes a week after a federal judge put a halt on a similar Trump executive order targeting Perkins Coie, warning the order could damage the integrity of the entire legal profession, and intimidate lawyers from taking cases that impact Trump or his interests. Shortly after Paul Weiss capitulated, Trump doubled down with an even more extreme order.
March 19, 2025
Week 19 — The Return
This week marks another inflection point in Trump’s pace of breaking norms, and unfortunately a turn for the worse.
For the first few weeks after Trump’s inauguration (Weeks 12–15), his pace of breaking norms was frenetic. The regime used terms like “flood the zone” and “shock and awe” to describe their efforts to overwhelm the system with actions, many of which seemed to be plucked out of the pages of Project 2025.
March 12, 2025
Week 18 — The Return
This week, the country’s angst and anger over mass firings, frozen federal funding, and cuts in entitlement programs converged on Elon Musk and his so-called DOGE. Republican lawmakers, who have encountered such severe pushback from their constituents back home that GOP leaders have advised them to no longer hold in-person events, met with Musk on Wednesday to discuss concerns. The next day, at his second cabinet meeting, Trump announced that cabinet secretaries, not Musk, would make decisions on staffing cuts. It was later reported by the Times that even at that meeting, Musk had heated confrontations with at least two cabinet secretaries.
March 05, 2025
Week 17 — The Return
Undoubtedly the biggest story of this week was a shocking, unprecedented, explosive meeting in the White House, which shook the world order. We have witnessed many stunning events during the Trump eras, but for me, other than Jan. 6, watching Trump and Vice President JD Vance bully and lambaste Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with cameras rolling, was an unimaginable, horrifying scene for the history books. In what Trump said would “be great television,” the event marked a shift in the world order, with the U.S. betraying nearly century-old alliances to chum with one of the most violent and villainous dictators of our time, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Not only did Trump betray Europe this week, he also picked a fight with two other close allies, Canada and Mexico, citing a so-called national emergency to impose tariffs, in defiance of a trade agreement he negotiated and signed during the first regime!