Category: Politics, Power & Governance
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From Redcoats to ICE: The Return of the Internal Security State
For most of American history, Americans have imagined the threat to our liberty as something that originated from a foreign entity. An invading army, a hostile ideology, perhaps a distant tyrant like Adolph Hitler or Putin. But our founders feared something closer to home: a government that would turn its power inward, using surveillance, force,…
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The Violence Comes From ICE, and It’s Increasingly Deadly
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift Over the past twelve months, a pattern has emerged across the United States, a pattern that is stark, consistent, and deadly. From Colorado to California, from Maryland to Minnesota, ICE agents have shot, wounded, and killed civilians with increasing frequency. This can only be described as an…
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ICE on Steroids: The New Face of Federal Violence
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift The New Normal of ICE Violence We’re all watching something dangerous take shape in real time. ICE is no longer acting like a federal law enforcement agency that has to follow professional rules or answer to the public. It’s behaving like a force that’s been given a…
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ICE’s Nationalistic Enforcement Culture Was Built Under Bush
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift The Bush Years ICE hasn’t really changed since it was created. The agency you see today is the same one that came into being in 2003, and it goes after its goals with the same fire it had back then. If you’re looking for a single thread…
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What Are You Going to Do About It?
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift Renee Nicole Good, a 37‑year‑old American woman, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis yesterday. I’ve watched multiple videos of the killing, different witnesses, different angles, and the experience was numbing. Then I listened to Kristi Noem, who immediately went on the offensive, branding…
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Trump’s Plan for Venezuela Leads Straight to Occupation
It started how these things often do: an early morning post on Truth Social. Trump announced that Nicolás Maduro was gone, seized and flown out of Venezuela. The timing was pure theater, but what he said later that day was deadly serious. At a Saturday press conference, Trump declared that the United States would now…
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Indiana Republicans Embarrass Trump and Expose the GOP’s War on Democracy
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift Indiana Republicans didn’t just blow off President Trump this week. In a 31–19 vote rejecting a mid-cycle redistricting plan, the state Senate embarrassed him. For once, a Republican-controlled legislature refused to bend to Trump’s demand for gerrymandering that would have tilted the 2026 congressional map further in…
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Narco‑Terrorist Rhetoric, Oil‑Driven Reality
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift Until recently, drug interdiction was the domain of law enforcement and the Coast Guard. Smugglers were treated as criminals, afforded due process. That changed on September 2, when the U.S. military carried out a strike on a boat off Venezuela’s coast, killing eleven passengers. In remarks and…
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The Illusion of Affordability: Trump’s Latest Economic Mirage
Donald Trump has once again proven that his presidency is less about solving America’s problems than about manufacturing crises and then peddling snake-oil “solutions.” What was once a growing economy has been sabotaged by his own hand, through reckless tariffs, inflationary policies, and a calculated stripping away of aid from the vulnerable. Families are squeezed…
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Is Trump Using Marijuana Laws to Disarm Blue-State Gun Owners?
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift It’s no secret that Donald Trump rarely acts without a hidden agenda. His latest move, asking the Supreme Court to uphold a federal law banning gun ownership by illegal drug users, including those who regularly use marijuana, raises a deeply suspicious question: Is this about public safety,…