Archives
Weekly Lists
Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.
February 26, 2025
Week 16 — The Return
It’s just one giant grift! Color me not surprised that in this second regime Trump has almost completely blended his personal businesses interests with U.S. interests, as continues in this week’s list. Trump has always pushed boundaries until he faces pushback, and with a largely neutered Legislative Branch, ethics has become an afterthought. The notion of conflicts of interest has seemingly disappeared from our radar, not only for him, but also for his broligarchs.
February 19, 2025
Week 15 — The Return
Another frenzied week, a continuation of Trump’s efforts to flood the zone using Project 2025 as his roadmap to destruction. There were three major themes to Week 15: an error-ridden ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre’ of tens of thousands of federal workers, a remarkable shift in U.S. foreign policy, and a Watergate-like crisis at Trump’s Department of Justice over his effort to dismiss criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
February 12, 2025
Week 14 — The Return
This week several notable legal scholars concurred that our country is already in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Trump and his regime continued a frenzied pace of actions and orders, many of which are unconstitutional or illegal. To wit, this week’s list is full of lawsuits and appeals, and Trump and his regime have found themselves on the losing end of every single one of them!
February 05, 2025
Week 13 — The Return
This is the second week of pandemonium in the U.S., by design. The number of broken norms this week are comparable to well into year two of the first regime. Seemingly following Project 2025 as a script, Trump and his regime are moving at a breakneck pace, testing the bounds of lawlessness, and setting up a myriad of court cases that will ultimately head to the Supreme Court, likely establishing expansions to presidential powers. The importance of writing it all down in this project is more clear than ever — likely in reading this week’s broken norms, you will find you have missed a lot since you were deluged by information, and exhausted by outrage. That is by design — a tool in the toolkit for authoritarians — flood the zone, leave them feeling helpless.
January 29, 2025
Week 12 — The Return
If reading this week’s list feels frenetic, that is because it is capturing the mood of the country. The return of Trump marks the return of his chaos and dysfunction, as if America is living in some frenzied mode awaiting the next eruption. The regime invoked the notion of “flood the zone” and “shock and awe” (we all know how that turned out last time) to describe a daily, all-out blitz of orders and actions. The goal seemed to be to destabilize and overwhelm those who might seek to oppose him. The question for Trump and his acolytes, seemingly drunk on their conceit and grandiosity, will be: have they gone too far, too fast?
January 22, 2025
Week 11 — The Return
In his inauguration speech this week, Trump invoked a new “golden age,” but the reality of his incoming regime is more akin to a return of the Gilded Age. Week 11’s image captures the awkward oligarchs, at the same time heeled and venerated by Trump, as the country bears witness to power and wealth becoming even more concentrated among a chosen few.
January 15, 2025
Week 10 — The Return
This final week before Trump’s inauguration saw the conclusion of two important cases. This week Trump was sentenced in the New York hush money trial, making him the first president in history to take office as a felon. Also this week, the Justice Department released special counsel Jack Smith’s full report on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which firmly stated Trump would have been convicted if the case had gone to trial.
January 08, 2025
Week 9 — The Return
Before we get into this week’s themes, I wanted to stop and take in the enormity and gravity of something that up until Trump was very ordinary: the peaceful transition of power. This week, Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the certification of an election she lost. There is no doubt that if the result of the election had been different, things would not have gone smoothly. Trump had told us out loud — telegraphing his intentions, as he often does — that he planned to challenge the election results as “rigged” if he had lost again.
January 01, 2025
Week 8 — The Return
This week Trump faced a contentious online conflict, on the topic of H-1B visas, between his traditional MAGA base and his new bedfellows, the Silicon Valley billionaires. Once the clash erupted on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, things only escalated on other mediums. This follows a week in which House and Senate Republicans openly defied Trump. Not quite the smooth transition of unchallenged, absolute power that many, especially Trump, were expecting.
December 25, 2024
Week 7 — The Return
This week marked a shift in the perception of Trump’s omnipotence, as Republicans in the House and Senate pushed backed on his efforts to disrupt the government. Seemingly buoyed by Elon Musk, who reportedly is constantly at Trump’s side, Trump tried unsuccessfully to sink a bipartisan spending bill last minute and shut down the government. Chaos, a familiar ingredient of the first regime, ensued. But when push came to shove, House Republicans roundly defied Trump and Musk, delivering a humiliating public blow: 170 House Republicans voted to pass a slightly revised spending bill, while also crossing Trump’s stated red line. This despite Trump’s and Musk’s threat of primary challenges to anyone who voted for the bill.