Is Opposition to Trump a Cult?

Trump's MAGA movement started being called a cult during his first term, and it's only gotten clearer that his base is very clearly a cult. Standard operating procedure for the Trumpists is to accuse their opponents, or enemies, as they like to say, of the same thing they are being accused of. I'm not going to spend a lot of time backing up my assertion that Trumpism is a cult. I have done that numerous times over the years. Just type "cult" into the search bar for this blog and you'll see numerous articles supporting this thesis. I'm interested in examining whether groups who oppose Trump are in fact cultish also.

There is broad consensus among people who study cults that there are clear warning signs indicating whether a church or movement is a cult:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
2. Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
3. Lack of meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget
4. Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
5. A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave
6. Abuse of members
7. Records, books, articles, or programs documenting the abuses of the leader or group
8. Followers feeling they are never able to be “good enough”
9. A belief that the leader is right at all times
10. A belief that the leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or giving validation

Not all of these apply to Trumpism, #3 is a maybe, #6 - probably not, and #8, definitely not (as far as I know), so let's boil them down to the ones that I believe apply, re-number them, and see if they apply to Leftism or even opposition to Trump:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
2. Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
3. Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
4. A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave
5. Records, books, articles, or programs documenting the abuses of the leader or group
6. A belief that the leader is right at all times
7. A belief that the leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or giving validation

Some of these could reasonably be applied to Trump opponents:

#2 - there are some segments of "the Left" that are very doctrinaire about their articles of faith. Some anti-Trump people will never believe that Trump is even capable of doing anything right 

#3 - Trump supporters might characterize Trump opponents' fears as unreasonable

#4 - The hardcore Trump opponents might be adamant that changing "sides" is an indicator of insanity

The rest point to a leader, which "the Left" does not have, and opposition to Trump is definitely diffuse. 

Who is telling Trump's opponents to oppose him? The Democrats, the mainstream media? A good portion of Trump opposition don't like the Democrats any more than they like Trump, and trust in the mainstream media is hardly an article of faith among those on the Left. In my opinion, which agrees with the consensus of those who study cults, a true cult requires a leader, or at least a small oligarchy, that gives the orders and decides what constitutes "truth". Trump opposition does not have a leader, it is therefore, in my view, not a cult.

But is it cult-like, or are cult-like behaviors exhibited? Or is it something else? 

There are behaviors that when viewed in isolation or out of context seem similar to cult behavior, here are a few:

• Succumbing to peer pressure
• Self censorship due to fear of being labeled a bigot, racist, sexist, ableist, etc.
• Lack of relevant education (ignorance about the subject)
• Assuming everything a person or group does is bad based on past performance

One of the defining features of today's political climate is that someone's own political leanings often cause them to identify strongly or even exclusively with one political party. This identification is paired with a strong loyalty, similar to how many people feel for their favorite sports team. Like it or not, there are realistically only two viable options politically. The Democratic and Republican parties, for good or for ill, dominate elections. Even though alternatives exist, for a variety of reasons they never get much traction, especially in national elections. You realistically have only two choices. 

Before I get to whether being opposed to Trump is itself cult-like behavior, let's look at whether Leftist politics in general is characterized by cult-like behavior. 

My observation is that Liberals often are obsessed with purity tests. There is often no room for nuance. Office seekers are often held to a standard of either 100 percent support for a position or are excoriated for seeing some middle ground. I understand that for some issues there is no middle ground. You're either for or against, but many more positions require thoughtful examination of the big picture. While this isn't unique to Liberalism, the loudest voices often carry the most weight; and those loud voices are often the ones that are most eager to pin labels on those they disagree with. The result is often self-censorship. Rather than face the wrath of the mob, many people will withhold their opinions, stifle their own voices, because they know that their take on an issue will likely get them tarred as a racist, a transphobe or a Nazi. Peer pressure plays into this as well. Most people want to fit in; if your social group is overwhelmingly a believer in "A", you might hesitate to speak out about "B". 

The one defining non-cult-like characteristic of Liberals-Progressives-Leftists, despite any groupthink or lemming-like behavior they might exhibit, is fragmentation. While there might be factions that are unbending on their opinions on Gaza, or transgender athletes, or autism, there are other factions that disagree. There are Democratic politicians who are indistinguishable from moderate Republicans and there are those who are Democratic Socialists and everything in between. And there is a constituency for them all! You'd think if Liberalism was a cult they'd get their story straight!

Opposition to Trump isn't quite the same. Virtually all subsets of Leftists unanimously oppose him. I have heard Trumpists claim that this opposition is cult-like. I'll stipulate that some opposition to Trump is by people who don't understand the issues, or why he is a malign element, or who are going along with the crowd. Some people will oppose anything Trump does, even if it would have been supported if someone else had done it. Trumpists are convinced that opposition is due to "propaganda" by the mainstream media, or maybe by George Soros. I'm convinced that unalloyed opposition to Trump is justified simply by reading and listening to his own words and observing his actions. Many opponents (myself included) spend what could be described as an inordinate amount of time focusing on Trump because, as president, he's always there. A day can't go by without him saying or doing something objectively harmful as well as unconstitutional. I'll concede that occasionally he'll make a good decision, but those few are swamped by everything else he is doing to turn this country into a dictatorship. 

Labeling opposition to Trump as a cult is nothing more than an attempt by his supporters to deflect from their own cultish behavior, and to discount any resistance as irrational. 

Militarization of Police Functions (ICE, the Marines and The National Guard)

Do I think that we as a nation should control our borders, including apprehending those who attempt to enter without proper authorization? Yes, I do. There's various reasons, including national security, economics, legal issues and infrastructure. 

At the same time do I think that we should broaden the reasons for which we allow immigration, make asylum applications easier, speed up the process and expand the legal infrastructure needed to process the number of people who want to immigrate here? Also yes. 

Our current system is overwhelmed by the numbers of potential immigrants. Even without increasing the quotas and making the requirements for permanent residence more flexible, there aren't enough Border Patrol officers, there aren't enough immigration judges, and the system is too opaque for most people to successfully navigate. That's one of the reasons why we have so much illegal immigration. People who are so desperate to leave the situation that they're in that they will risk everything to sneak in and live under the radar for the rest of their lives, just so that their children can grow up in a safe environment. I also believe that instead of mass deportations we should be finding a way to integrate the undocumented people who are already here into the legal side of our society. If they've been here for decades, working and paying taxes, raising their children and contributing to the community, wouldn't we want them here? 

Something I hear from anti-immigration voices about the undocumented is that they've been here for years or decades, but have made no effort to legalize their status, so they should be unceremoniously deported. The problem with that stance is twofold: once you've come in illegally, if you make your presence known you run the risk of deportation, so many figure it's safer to just ride it out and hope they never get caught. The other side of the coin, at least in the current climate, is that people who have been "doing it the right way" are still being detained and deported. Legal permanent residents, visa holders, asylum applicants, all have been swept up in the ICE raids. Many of these regularly showed up for ICE appointments or court dates, only to be arrested there and subsequently deported. 

The policy of zero tolerance is bad enough, but the implementation has been compared to a secret police operation, and the comparisons are not too much of an exaggeration. 

On one hand ICE is simply implementing government policy. If the president and the Homeland Security Secretary have decided that the law will be enforced to the letter, they are just doing their jobs. Yet, the methods by which ICE is operating smell a lot like the secret police in a dictatorship. Bringing in the National Guard and the military to assist only strengthens this view. Every law enforcement agency in the country identifies its members to the public. If you're arrested, you know the name and badge number of the police officer or sheriff's deputy. Even the FBI, if executing a warrant or an arrest,  will identify themselves. Not ICE. They are wearing masks, not wearing any kind of uniform, nor anything that identifies them as law enforcement officers. They violently restrain people without verifying that they have the right people, they operate without judicial warrants, they violently attack people who film or protest their actions. (Of course, the promised focus on violent criminals isn't happening, they're going after people who go to work, take their kids to school, and show up for court) They refuse to allow (legally mandated) Congressional oversight of their facilities. They are a shadowy outfit with no visible accountability. Pair this with how the National Guard is being sent in to conduct law enforcement support (or trash pickup and gardening duties) in several cities in addition to their partnering with ICE in California and you can see the beginnings of a national police force, even without squinting. 

It's illegal to use the military for domestic law enforcement you say? Well, the military has been at the southern border all year. Not sure what they are doing precisely, but in theory they are backing up the Border Patrol, which is a domestic law enforcement agency. Illegal or not, Trump is doing it and he isn't being stopped. As for the National Guard, when they are activated, they are active duty military. Even when a court ruled that the use of the military in Los Angeles was illegal, it didn't seem to stop Trump from pledging to use them in other cities. Is it so much of a stretch to imagine that the president who is operating as a dictator would use ICE as the template for a national police force to arrest those engaging in criticism of him?

Dictators gonna dictate. 

NOW Do You Believe We're In a Dictatorship?

Occasionally a Trump sympathizer will tell me, along with a laughing emoji, that I should stop watching CNN, or otherwise suggest that I am regurgitating opinions spread by "liberal media". I came down hard recently on a friend who couldn't believe that any objective viewing of the facts wouldn't lead to the same exact opinions that he had. But anyone who follows this blog knows that, if anything, I have been ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying cult-like behavior and authoritarianism within Trumpworld. Sometimes I wonder what took the New York Times and other supposedly liberal media so long to see the light. 

In Trump's first term, it was obvious that he wanted to rule as an authoritarian. His background, both as the head of a privately owned business and an entitled rich kid, caused him to act with impunity and unaccountability. What kept him from going full dictator was the people he surrounded himself with. While it is true that he had the Republican members of Congress cowed, and there were certainly sycophants in his cabinet, there were enough people in positions of responsibility who would not let him do what he wanted to do if it was illegal or unconstitutional. There were a few "adults in the room". The second term is another story. There are few if any responsible people who are willing to put the country's wellbeing over fealty to Trump. The danger is twofold: in addition to the obvious incompetents like Robert Kennedy and Pete Hegseth, the next layer of officials below those requiring Senate confirmation are conservative policy geeks from think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the creator of project 2025. These people have been planning for decades for the time when they had a president who would be willing to enact their radical agenda of "dismantling the administrative state". They are also architects of the "Unitary Executive Theory" (Some thoughts on those items here: "Dictators Gonna Dictate") 

The second source of danger is Trump's volatile personality. His staff kept him provided with a steady stream of Executive Orders, which despite Trump's insistence that he knew nothing about Project 2025, were straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. But in addition to the precision strikes against the structure of government and the unilateral reversal of decades of Congressional action, Trump is still a loose cannon who makes decisions with little regard, not only for the consequences, but for easily verified facts. His entire tariff policy, for example, is based upon his ignorance of what balance of trade is. 

I first identified Trump's actions as dictatorial on January 20, 2025. The flood of Executive Orders overturned existing laws; virtually dismantled whole departments; fired people he had no authority to fire, including government lawyers and military JAG officers who might be tempted to point out illegality; opened up IRS records to a bunch of computer hackers under the leadership of a businessman with a questionable grasp of reality; nullified the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; in addition to actions that were certainly not priorities, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico. All of this was being done on his sole authority. 

But wait, there's more!

Trump, during his campaign last year, was very vocal about exacting retribution against his perceived enemies. He walked his stance partly back by saying that the retribution would be his election victory, but he and his main aides constantly talked about investigating and prosecuting those who stood against him, including President Biden. His supporters sometimes cheered on this promise of revenge, while elected officials usually downplayed his words as merely campaign rhetoric. This was somewhat believable in that, for all his yelling about "locking up" Secretary of State Clinton for imaginary crimes, he did not follow through during his first term. The second term would be different. 

In the last few months Trump has pushed his Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate anyone who investigated or prosecuted him, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and Special Counsel Jack Smith. At least one prosecutor who declined to continue an investigation due to a complete lack of evidence was summarily fired. Scores of FBI and DOJ agents and lawyers were fired or demoted because they were part of investigations into Trump. His FBI Director Kash "Crazy Eyes" Patel is infamous for publishing a Trump "enemies list" is his book. William Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is using his access to mortgage records to provide the DOJ with potential targets for mortgage fraud allegations. Trump has been very vocal about his reasoning for this push: they investigated him, they indicted him, they impeached him -- it's time for payback. Turning our law enforcement agencies into vehicles for personal revenge is a sure sign that we are in a dictatorship. 

The apparent transformation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into an unaccountable secret police organization is another sign of dictatorship. I haven't spent a lot of keystrokes on that subject yet, but anonymous masked men in unmarked vehicles, deporting people without due process, scooping up legal residents and even citizens in their nets, is turning out to be not what we thought it would be. To give this subject the attention it deserves, I'll devote a separate article to it. 

Finally, the one that blew up this week: free speech. 

I wrote a few words about free speech and the First Amendment in the article The Cost of The First Amendment. In just a few days it has gotten worse. Most of what we have seen is a right wing version of cancel culture. As abhorrent as attempts by private citizens to stifle free speech can be, it's still legal in most cases. What's not legal is the government, or any part of it, abridging freedom of speech. That's exactly what happened in the case of Jimmy Kimmel. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, threatened the network Kimmel was on, ABC, and its parent company, Disney, with "doing things the hard way" if Kimmel was not fired. Kimmel was supposedly removed for "celebrating Charlie Kirk's death", when in reality all he did was criticize "the MAGA crowd" for doing everything they could to convince themselves the killer wasn't one of them, he subsequently mocked Trump for focusing on the ballroom construction when asked about the shooting.  But even if Kimmel had overtly mocked Kirk and celebrated his death, that's not illegal! 

Follow up remarks from both Bondi and Trump are concerning, even frightening. Bondi initially drew a distinction between "free speech" and "hate speech", but changed her tune later, correctly pointing out that there is no legal definition of hate speech, and it's not illegal. Trump and his most vocal supporters are defining "hate speech" as anything critical of Trump. He has stated that critical coverage of him is illegal, and that "...when 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it's no longer free speech". He has been emboldened by several settlements in response to his lawsuits against media companies (falsely claiming to have "won" his suits). He has come out in favor of "canceling" other late night comedians as well. He is mulling over taking away broadcast licenses of companies that offend him. Stephen Miller is calling liberal organizations a "vast terror movement" and vowing to "identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy" them using every resource of Homeland Security and other government agencies. It's no longer a matter of "oh that's just campaign rhetoric", it's happening now. 

Ironically, the only thing that reliably moderates Trump's dictatorial actions is Trump's personality. He is ignorant, incompetent, and inconsistent, and frequently doesn't follow through on his threats. But I wouldn't put too much hope in that. The dictatorship is already in full swing. 

The Cost of the First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

~~ First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The newest craziness coming out of the Trump Regime involves "abridging the freedom of speech". They want to see people who speak or write negatively about Charlie Kirk to "suffer the consequences" of their words. They're on the lookout for anyone who posts anything on social media "celebrating" Kirk's murder and are sending that information to employers, urging them to be fired. As reprehensible as this is, in many places it's completely legal. It's usually perfectly legal in most jurisdictions to fire someone for any reason, as long it's not for being part of a protected class. The federally recognized protected classes are:

• Race and Color
• Religion
• National (or Ethic) Origin
• Sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity - although I suspect the last one will be ended by the regime)
• Age Over 40 (in employment)
• Disability
• Genetic Information
• Veteran/Military Status

The use of the term "protected class" is often misunderstood. For instance, within the "Race and Color" class, it does not mean that a minority race is a protected class of people; it means that race is a prohibited reason for discrimination in employment. Same for "Sex"; it does not mean that women are a protected class, but that the sex of an employee cannot be the basis of discrimination. 

Note that "Political Beliefs" is not a class protected from employment discrimination. Nor is "Saying Offensive Things on the Internet". At one of my past jobs I was written up for some of my internet activity, although it was not for political opinions and I wasn't fired for it. You can be summarily fired in most states for saying things on social media, whether about Charlie Kirk or not, and you have no recourse. Your neighbors can take offense at your posts and alert your employer, and there's nothing you can do about it. 

What I find hypocritical about all of this, is that not long ago the right wingers in the United States were mostly opposed to this kind of behavior. They were dead set against "cancel culture" and were in the main First Amendment absolutists. During the 2024 election I had several discussions with a Trumper friend on his Facebook page. He was very concerned about remarks Vice President Harris had made years before that he interpreted as censorship. The article I wrote about it can be found here. My friend, and people like him, were very much up in arms about this supposed censorship. Right wing Twitter ("X" by then) was overflowing with outrage about how the Democrats would take away our First Amendment right to free speech. Elon's takeover of Twitter was partly fueled by anger over harmful  disinformation being flagged and removed, as well as Trump's ban from the platform. Now, in the aftermath of the murder of one of their own, they have changed their position and are fervent cheerleaders for, not only cancel culture, but government censorship. 

A word about cancel culture:

We mostly heard about people, usually celebrities, being "canceled" because they said or did something that some people found offensive. The offended would spread the word, and before you know it tours get canceled, book sales drop, or in the case of politicians, their career is ended. But the thing is, whatever the motivation of the "canceler", it was just information. I could hear about some stupid thing my Senator did or said when he was in college and decide whether he still had my vote. I could read about the comedy routine from years back that wouldn't fly today and make my own decision whether I could let it slide. I could determine whether I thought that a joke was indeed hateful toward a subgroup of society or not. We could all take that information and act upon it or not. We could choose to give the information credence, resolve to assign it importance or just shrug our shoulders and move on. 

But that's all in the context of private citizens exercising their First Amendment right, even though they're attempting to negate another citizen's First Amendment right. What we have escalated to is the government targeting individuals for their speech. Trump, as well as several members of his dictatorial regime, have announced that they will be identifying anyone "celebrating" the death of Charlie Kirk. I don't know how they decide where the line is when defining "celebrating". If I say that the world is a better place without him, is that celebrating? If I quote his own hateful speech, is that celebrating? If I point out the moral vacuousness of he and his ilk, is that celebrating?  Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi has vowed to crack down on liberal "hate speech". To give an example of how hate speech might be defined this NY Daily News article recounts ABC reporter Jonathan Karl's question to Trump about where the line between "hate speech" and "free speech" lay. Trump's response was “She’d probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly, it’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart.”

There you go. Asking a question of the dictator is hate speech and the questioner will be "gone after". Trump followed up with: “Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech, so maybe they’ll have to go after you,” - in apparent reference to the settlement where George Stephanopoulos described a judgment against Trump as rape, when the judgment was legally defined as sexual abuse, not rape. Vice President J.D. Vance (or whatever his name is) called on people to report their neighbors who "celebrate Kirk's death" to their employers to get them fired. Stephen Miller, another high ranking cog in the regime, called for the dismantling of left wing institutions, calling them a "vast domestic terrorist movement,". 

Funny how Trump's words on and leading up to January Sixth weren't incitement according to the right, but a liberal's or a Democrat's words of opposition are terroristic. 

Sounds like abridging to me.

Dictators gonna dictate.

The Cost of The Second Amendment

"I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."

~~ Charlie Kirk April 25, 2023

 On September 10, 2025, at 12:23 Mountain Daylight Time Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, allegedly by Tyler Robinson. I was on my way home, driving through New Mexico and listening to a podcast about the band Deep Purple, so I was completely in the dark about the killing. When I continued my journey the next day I started to notice that flags were at half mast and assumed that it was in recognition of 9-11. It was not. Trump had ordered flags to be lowered in honor of Kirk. Late in the day I checked messages on Facebook and saw numerous references to the murder. (I won't call it an assassination, which implies the killing of a political leader: a president or other high government official. It is however, a murder).

As of today, we do not know the motive for the killing. It is reasonable to assume that it had something, indeed everything, to do with Kirk's politics and the way that he communicated those politics. Since Kirk was such a prominent voice on the right, is was reasonable to assume that the motivation of the killer was leftist ideology, or at least opposition to Kirk's ideology. 

Reasonable to assume. 

It's nothing more than an assumption.

We don't know.

Right now, everyone is grasping at straws, flailing around, trying to interpret the meager evidence that is publicly available. Certain phrases inscribed on the bullet casings suggest leftist anti-fascist ideology, which alternatively may have been online gaming references; someone suggested that these same phrases indicated that the killer was a supporter of a rival right wing figure. A family member supposedly told law enforcement that Robinson claimed that Kirk was "spreading hate". Robinson was registered to vote, but unaffiliated with any political party and had not voted in any election. He's reportedly not cooperating with law enforcement. 

Summary: WE DON'T KNOW

But what if we did know? What should we do? 

The same thing we're doing now: charge the alleged killer with murder and whatever related pile-on charges they can come up with, and put him on trial. And if he's convicted by a jury of his peers, enact whatever penalty the law requires. Does it matter what his motivation was? Whether he was "radicalized" by "leftist ideology", or by allegiance to another right wing figure, or if he was just a freakin' nut, Robinson was the one who made the decision to pull the trigger and kill another human being and he's the one who should be held accountable. No one else.

But what about "the left's" incitement to violence, to "dehumanizing" the Trumpists? There's a lot of discussion about the proper use of the descriptors Nazi, Fascist, Dictator, and Authoritarian as applied to Trump and his coterie. A friend recently wrote about why what the Trump regime is doing doesn't sink to the level of Nazism, and she had a point. Fascism, includes Nazism, but they aren't identical. I know there are some technical definitions of Fascism that don't fit the current administration either. I have consistently use the term "dictatorship" from Day One. Trump's attempts, sometimes successful, sometimes not, to institute one-man rule over the machinery of government certainly fit even the strictest definition of dictator. Most publicly available comments by progressives range from calling-it-like-they-see-it labeling of Trump as a Nazi or a Fascist to mockery of his disjointed speaking style, to pointing out the harm that his policies bring. Democratic "leaders" don't even do that, still lulled into the dream that "we can all get along". Maybe there's fringe figures calling for violence, but I haven't seen them. 

In contrast, the right, including Republican party leaders and elected office holders and including the President of the United States, have incited violence, mostly ambiguously worded, but in some instances quite overtly. These instances are well documented. Violence against opponents of the regime is well documented also. The attack on Paul Pelosi, which Republican leaders laughed about and mocked; to the assassination of a Minnesota legislator and her husband and the non-fatal shooting of her colleague, which Trump ignored, declining to attend the funeral; the attack on the Capitol in 2021; and the plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. It's quite disingenuous and hypocritical for the Trumpublicans to wring their hands over hate speech. 

Trump is a dictator. Not a particularly effective one, but a dictator just the same. One thing any dictator worth his salt will do is turn a tragedy into an excuse to crack down on dissent, to exert more control. And that's what he's talking about doing. Even before we knew who the killer was, let alone why he did it, Trump and his cult were raging about "dismantling and uprooting" left-wing groups. "Major investigations are underway" into leftist groups supposedly tied to the murder. Supposedly. More assumptions. 

Adjacent to official actions, Kirk stans are mobilizing to expose anyone who publicly speaks disrespectfully of Kirk, calling for them to be doxed or fired from their jobs. In many cases these people are simply quoting Kirk, or pointing out the hatefulness of his words and positions, not celebrating his death. What's hypocritical is that most of these right wingers were First Amendment absolutists until recently. They were in favor of the waves of disinformation on Twitter and were rabidly against any infringement of free speech, at least against their own kind.  Cancel culture was reviled. They even claim that Kirk was killed for exercising his right to free speech. Yet here they are, advocating for  "cancelling" those that they disagree with. 

Charlie Kirk was a horrible human being. Over and above his support for the dictator-in-chief, he showed zero empathy for the people killed in gun violence every year, including the many school children. In fact he claimed that empathy was "harmful and made up". He said birth control made women angry and bitter; 10 year old rape victims should be forced to give birth; he assumed that if the pilot was Black he was probably unqualified; the 1965 Civil Rights Act was "a mistake"; "Jewish money" was ruining America; gay people were destructive and should be put to death; he encouraged his followers to bail out Paul Pelosi's attacker. His so-called campus debates were anything but. He did take questions from people who disagreed with him, but it was usually just a setup for public humiliation of "woke" students not used to public speaking or debate. Like a comedian handling a heckler. 

Despite my belief that he was a loathsome feeder upon hate and divisiveness, he had every right to say what he said, and had every expectation that he wouldn't be murdered for speaking his mind. I'll never celebrate someone being killed like a rabid animal in the street...but you know what? Charlie Kirk thought it was part of the cost of having the Second Amendment.

Dictators Gonna Dictate

Every day brings a new action by Trump that confirms his intentions to rule as a dictator. And to forestall any suggestions that I am simply regurgitating the "media narrative", here's a link to an article I wrote on January 21, 2025, calling his Day One actions dictatorial. My conclusion is not based on the effect of his actions or the rightness or wrongness of his actions, but the very basis of his actions: unilateral actions without respect to existing law or to the other branches of government. One man rule is the very definition of a dictatorship. 

Trump's Heritage Foundation allies have provided him with a framework of legal gymnastics justifying his rule by fiat, specifically the specious "Unitary Executive Theory", but Trump needs no legal basis for his authoritarianism, it's his default method of governing. His style of leadership derives from two sources: (1) Being the head of a family-owned private business and (2) Being a rich kid. 

We Americans regularly fall for the idea that a successful businessman will make a successful mayor, governor, president etc. I wrote about it here and again here. The main difference between the head of a government and the head of a business is accountability. The owner of a privately owned business answers to no one. He can make decisions that will cause the business to lose all its customers, but no one has the authority to stop him. Even in publicly traded companies, boards of directors usually don't get involved in the day-to-day operations. Trump, after pushing out other family members, inherited his father's business and remolded it in his own image. He made decades of bad decisions, bankrupting multiple businesses, but kept on making them because no one had the power to stop him. The idea that as president he would have to cooperate with Congress, defer to the courts, and work within a system, was entirely foreign to him. If he had been a self-made businessman, that would have been bad enough, but he was a rich kid who never wanted for anything, never had to work a day in his life, and had everything in life handed to him. What could possibly go wrong?

The promulgators of the Unitary Executive claim that the phrase in Article II Section 1 -  "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." means that everything related to how laws are executed, how laws are interpreted, how laws are enforced is under the unquestioned authority of one person: the president. I'm sure that this would surprise the nation's founders, who were very specifically against entrusting supreme power to one individual. In fact, Article II Section 3 states that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"...no exceptions are mentioned. Throughout Article II, virtually all responsibility and authority of the president is contingent upon concurrence of Congress. The Constitution lays out the framework where Congress writes the laws and the president executes the laws. It's true that for a bill to become law the president must agree (by signing it) before it becomes law, but it's the Congress where all laws and policies and budgets originate. A president can suggest, a president can send a proposed budget request to Congress, but it's Congress that writes the rules. 

Something not fully anticipated by the founders was the growth of what right wingers call the administrative state. As the country grew, and especially as government took a greater role in protecting its citizens Congress created regulatory and enforcement agencies. Once Congress passes a law, there has to be some mechanism to determine whether the law is being followed and what to do about it if not. It's fine and good to pass a law requiring workplace safety, but it's the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that writes the regulations defining what that specifically means, enforces the consequences laid down in the law. Congress has created and funded all of these agencies, services and administrations, but they are all technically part of the executive branch. This is where is gets a little muddy. Some of these regulatory agencies were set up to be independent, or at least semi-independent, in order to allow them to do their jobs outside of partisan considerations. The president appoints the head of the agency with Senate approval, who usually has a term that includes multiple presidential terms. Most of these agency heads cannot be replaced without cause. The theory of the Unitary Executive rejects that and posits that the president has authority over every aspect of every government department. Trump, latching on to that theory, has eliminated whole departments, fired thousands of employees, cancelled contracts and neutered whole swaths of Congressionally approved programs...unilaterally. 

The problem with these unilateral actions isn't whether or not they're good ideas...okay, whether or not they're good ideas is relevant, but not germane to whether they're dictatorial. Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite authors, put these words into the mouth of Sam Vimes, one of my favorite characters. 

“If you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one. You couldn't say 'We're the good guys' and do bad-guy things.”

It doesn't matter if you believe that the Department of Education should be eliminated, or that there's too many people working for the government, or that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are discriminatory, or if you believe that a trade deficit means we're losing money or tariffs are the best way to balance the budget. It doesn't even matter if Trump is actually right about anything, he is governing by fiat, he is ruling by executive order. What makes it worse is that Congress has abdicated its role out of fear of Trump's ability to end their careers and the Supreme Court has largely acquiesced to his actions. State and local Republicans obey his commands. 

We are not becoming a dictatorship, we have been one since January 20, 2025. 

Freedom of Speech

A clip from a speech that Vice President Harris made in 2019 when she was a Senator running for president was making the rounds on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Typically the tweet starts with something along the lines of: "Kamala: I will censor content on X that I don't like", followed by a clip where she doesn't say anything like that. In the clip she is actually saying:

"We'll put the Department of Justice of the United States back in the business of justice. We will double the Civil Rights Division and direct law enforcement to counter this extremism. We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy. And if you profit off of hate, if you act as a megaphone for misinformation or cyber warfare, if you don't police your platforms, we are going to hold you accountable as a community.”

I have not been able to find a text of the full speech, so I don't for sure what the context is for these remarks. It's also unclear what she intends by "hold them accountable". What is clear is that does not mention censoring social media platforms or shutting them down. I can draw some conclusions based on who she is speaking to and what was going on nationally. 

She is addressing the NAACP, a Black advocacy organization, and there had been a number of killings inspired by racial animus that had been abetted by social media posts. She specifically invokes the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. One can infer from her remarks that she is targeting online incitement to violence. I have seen arguments that what she is saying amounts to de facto censorship, if not censorship de jure. Free speech is not absolute. There are laws making certain narrow categories of speech illegal. Two examples are libel (although libel is more of a civil matter) and the previously mentioned incitement to violence. Individuals can be held to account in a court of law, but social media platforms cannot be. Why is that?

Section 230 of the 1934 Communications Act as amended in 1996 states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In other words, a social media platform is not responsible to moderate their content (except for child pornography and bootleg movies) and cannot be held responsible for what gets posted there, like a publisher of a newspaper or the producer of a television or cable program would. Both Trump and former President Biden were in favor of repealing Section 230. Trump was for this mainly (in my opinion) because Twitter (when it was still Twitter) was fact checking his tweets and was allegedly suppressing conservative and Trump-supporting content. I'm not sure what Biden's motivation were. (Side note: it's funny how the Trumpists were up in arms about how Twitter was "censoring" right wing speech, even though it was a private company that had every right to do so and now they're celebrating Musk who is doing similar things to left wing speech [which he categorizes as "propaganda"] because as a private owner he has every right to do so). In the larger context Harris isn't suggesting anything that Trump or Biden haven't already suggested (she's not really suggesting anything, since the clips that were circulating are from five years ago). What she said in that speech, right or wrong, unconstitutional or not, is mainstream, but as usual, her opponents ignore this and brand her words as that of a communist. 

For all the hand wringing and pearl clutching by Harris' opponents, do they ever consider the anti-free speech actions of their avatar, Trump?

• In 2020, after Twitter began appending fact checks to his tweets Trump issued an executive order that effectively re-interprets Section 230 and involves the government in platforms' moderation policies. In other words, Trump did what his supporters allege that Harris' 5-year old words indicate she would do - if their interpretation is correct
• In 2017 Trump publicly mused about changing the libel laws to make it easier for the government to sue media organization. In effect, to give the government a cudgel to prevent criticism of the president
• In 2020 Trump sued Facebook and Twitter for not publishing some of his posts and tweets
• In 2017 Trump halted whistleblower protections
• Trump aides call the press the opposition party
• Trump repeatedly call the mainstream press the enemy of the people
• Trump campaign calls for holding the media accountable (wording sound familiar?) for trying to rig the election
• Trump has sued a pollster in Iowa who incorrectly predicted that Harris would win Iowa's electoral votes
• Trump is sued CBS over how they edited an interview with Harris
• Trump's administration is deporting people, otherwise here legally, for their speech
• Trump has threatened the tax exempt status of universities whose curriculum he doesn't like
• AP has been banned from covering White House press briefings because they continue to use the term "Gulf of Mexico"
• Trump is in the process of dismantling Voice of America
• John Bolton is under investigation after speaking out against Trump, with Chris Christie threatened with the same
• ABC and NBC have been threatened with fines or license revocations because of their coverage of him

There's more, some more overt than others, but Trump's antipathy toward a free press should not be a surprise to anyone. 

If Harris' 5-year old speech is indicative of her current policy position and it means censorship, of course I'm concerned, (1) I don't believe that's the most logical, reasonable inference to be made and (2) Trump has already engaged in more direct anti-free speech actions.

Trump's actions in his first 100 days have clearly indicated his intention to rule in an authoritarian manner. On his first day he declared that the 100 year old understanding of the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship to anyone who was born here was overturned, revealing his contempt for the Constitution. He has decided that due process is no longer a thing if you aren't a citizen, despite it being provided in the 5th and 14th amendments, with the 4th amendment, securing us from unwarranted searches and seizures next on the chopping block. 

But hey, Harris wanted accountability for Twitter, so we had to vote for Trump.