As the Trump regime continues its relentless march toward autocracy…implementing all the key components of Project 2025, you need a scorecard (and a rather big one) to keep track of all the damage they are doing along the way.

As you try to assess just how dangerous the current situation is, bear in mind these words from a trio of political scientists who have studied how democracies come to an end:

“Authoritarianism is harder to recognize than it used to be. Most 21st-century autocrats are elected. Rather than violently suppress opposition like Castro or Pinochet, today’s autocrats convert public institutions into political weapons, using law enforcement, tax and regulatory agencies to punish opponents and bully the media and civil society onto the sidelines. We call this competitive authoritarianism — a system in which parties compete in elections but the systematic abuse of an incumbent’s power tilts the playing field against the opposition. It is how autocrats rule in contemporary Hungary, India, Serbia and Turkey and how Hugo Chávez ruled in Venezuela.” “America has {already} crossed the line into competitive authoritarianism.”

While it is impossible to prioritize the awfulness of all the things Trump is done, certainly one of the worst is the unconstitutional stripping away of the fundamental rights and freedoms of every citizen — and legal resident — in this country. And he does this without any Congressional objection or even oversight. Following along from the Viktor Orbán playbook, Trump is:

“…redefining the rule of law as rule by executive decree” and “eliminating checks and balances and separation of powers by taking over the legislature, the courts, the media, and civil society.”

Trump has been systematically doing this since Day 1 of his second term. Yet, two of the most egregious examples of his lawlessness and authoritarianism have become evident in only the last week or so:

• Gutting the Civil Rights Act of 1964: As noted in The New York Times: “President Trump has ordered federal agencies to abandon the use of a longstanding legal tool used to root out discrimination against minorities, a move that could defang the nation’s bedrock civil rights law” In particular, “Mr. Trump directed the federal government to curtail the use of ‘disparate-impact liability,’ a core tenet used for decades to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by determining whether policies disproportionately disadvantage certain groups.” Slate further explained that prohibiting practices that have a disparate negative effect on certain minorities, regardless of the intent of the law, “is the sort of fundamentally fair, commonsense approach to rooting out systemic racism at which the Trump administration has taken aim through its Orwellian ‘Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy’ executive order.”
• Suspending Habeas Corpus: As reported in Time magazine: “President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller told reporters that the Trump Administration is ‘looking at’ the option of suspending habeas corpus…” Why is this so critical? Because habeas corpus is the legal term for the procedure that guarantee’s due process and whereby “a federal court may review the legality of an individual’s incarceration.” And while Trump and his cronies may believe they can suspend it on a whim, they cannot. Only Congress can suspend the writ of habeas corpus! “This is a question of fundamental constraints on the tyrannical power of people to throw you in jail and throw away the keys.”

The clear and present danger is that, even though what Trump is trying to do is blatantly illegal, he can still get away with doing it — if no one stops him. If Congress doesn’t do its job and exert its Constitutional authority over the executive branch, if the Courts allow Trump to ignore their prohibitory rulings without consequence, and if the people do not act alarmed and assert their strong resistance to the dire threat hanging over their heads — then Trump will assuredly become this country’s first dictator.

There is no appeasement possible. There is no compromise you can offer. As Robert Reich put it: “It’s impossible to appease a tyrant like Trump because tyrants always see appeasement as a sign of weakness, and will demand more and more.”