5
#000000
#FFFFFF
jan 6 insurrection
From Jan. 6th to Maduro Kidnapping, the Threat Trump Poses Is Existential
Trump’s blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the world for a long, long time.
Jan 06, 2026
Trump’s domestic and foreign policies — ranging from his attempted coup against the United States five years ago, to his incursion into Venezuela last weekend, to his current threats against Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland — undermine domestic and international law. But that’s not all.
They threaten what we mean by civilization.
The moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we’d be permanently immersed in a brutish war in which only the fittest and most powerful could survive.
This principle lies at the center of America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It’s also the core of the post- World War II international order championed by the United States, including the UN Charter — emphasizing multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
But it’s a fragile principle, easily violated by those who would exploit their power. Maintaining the principle requires that the powerful have enough integrity to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us hold them accountable if they don’t.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of civilization frays. If such aggression is not contained, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are more concentrated than ever before. This invites the powerful to exploit the weaker because the powerful feel omnipotent.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of civilization frays. If such aggression is not contained, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.
The wealth of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Charles Koch, and a handful of others is almost beyond comprehension. The influence of Big Tech, Big Oil, and the largest aerospace and defense corporations extends over much of the globe. AI is likely to centralize wealth and power even more. The destructive power of the United States, China, and Russia is unmatched in human history.
Trump — enabled by cowardly congressional Republicans and a pliant majority on the Supreme Court — has turned the U.S. presidency into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of American government in history.
Put it all together and you see the threat.
A direct line connects Trump’s attempted coup five years ago to his capture of Nicolas Maduro last weekend. Both were lawless. Both were premised on the hubris of omnipotence.
That same line extends to Trump’s current threats against Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland.
You see much the same in Putin’s war on Ukraine. In Xi’s threats against Taiwan. In global depredation and monopolization by Big Tech and Big Oil. In Russian, Chinese, and American oligarchs who have fused public power with their personal wealth.
But unfettered might does not make right. It makes for instability, upheaval, and war.
History shows that laws and norms designed to constrain the powerful also protect them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth eventually bring them down — along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.
Trump’s blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the world — and civilization — for years to come.
Keep Reading
Show Less
FBI Purge Includes Official Who Tried to Protect Jan. 6 Investigators
"These firings are part of a broader campaign to weaponize federal law enforcement and replace highly experienced public servants with political hacks eager to carry out Trump's retribution agenda," said one coalition.
Aug 07, 2025
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Amid accusations that U.S. President Donald Trump is turning the Department of Justice into his "personal weapon," multiple media outlets reported Thursday that his administration is ousting at least three top officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI purge includes Brian Driscoll, who served as acting director earlier this year; Walter Giardina, a special agent involved in the investigation of Trump's ex-trade adviser, Peter Navarro; and Steven Jensen, acting director in charge of the Washington Field Office, unnamed sources told outlets including The Associated Press, The New York Times, and Fox News.
Jensen was involved in investigating the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and Driscoll—as head of the FBI before Trump's appointee, Kash Patel, was confirmed—resisted the adminsitration's demand that he turn over a list of agents who worked on probes of the insurrectionists, who were promptly pardoned when Trump returned to power.
Highlighting that battle over the list of agents, the AP detailed:
Emil Bove, the then-senior Justice Department official who made the request and was last week confirmed for a seat on a federal appeals court, wrote a memo accusing the FBI's top leaders of "insubordination."
Responding to Bove's request, the FBI ultimately provided personnel details about several thousand employees, identifying them by unique employee numbers rather than by names.
The three men were reportedly told to leave the FBI by Friday. According to Fox, one source described the removals as "retribution," and multiple people told the outlet that "more ousters are expected at the bureau by the end of the week, though the exact number of personnel included, or their roles at the bureau, are unclear."
The Times noted that "the fresh ousters reflect, in part, a long-running effort by senior Trump administration officials to dismiss agents and prosecutors who worked on cases related to the president. Those have included the investigation into his 2016 campaign's ties to Russia during his first term, the investigation into his handling of classified documents after he left office, the investigation into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and the investigations of rioters at the Capitol."
The Not Above the Law coalition's co-chairs—Brett Edkins of Stand Up AmericaPraveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn—issued a statement blasting Trump and Patel.
The reported ouster "shows just how far they are willing to go to punish anyone who they deem disloyal," the coalition leaders said. "The end result will be an FBI that puts settling political scores ahead of combating crime and protecting our rights."
"These firings are part of a broader campaign to weaponize federal law enforcement and replace highly experienced public servants with political hacks eager to carry out Trump's retribution agenda," they added. "The message to remaining FBI personnel is chilling: Bend the knee to Trump, or you're next."
The reporting came on the same day that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced that Patel approved his "request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating" Democratic state legislators who fled Texas to block the approval of a gerrymandered map for the 2026 cycle sought by Trump.
Earlier this week, The Guardian spoke with scholars and former prosecutors who sounded the alarm about the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom legal experts have accused of "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice."
The Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, "is now being used as a personal weapon on behalf of Trump to a degree that is without precedent," said Peter Shane, who teaches constitutional law at New York University. "Trump has a team of sycophants and enablers at DOJ. They're not behaving the way office holders sworn to uphold the Constitution are expected to behave."
Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor now at George Washington University, similarly told the newspaper that "Trump is using the Justice Department to target his perceived enemies and pursue his political goals."
"The guiding principle for any DOJ prosecutor has always been loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law," Eliason added. "Under this administration, it appears that the primary job requirement for any DOJ prosecutor, up to and including the attorney general, is loyalty to Donald Trump."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Alarm Bells Sound as Trump Gets to Work on 'Extreme Authoritarian Agenda'
"Trump isn't king, but if Congress capitulates, he could be," warned the leaders of Popular Democracy.
Jan 21, 2025
Since U.S. President Trump's return to office on Monday—at an inauguration ceremony full of American oligarchs—as the Republican has issued a flurry of executive orders and other actions, progressive leaders and organizers have expressed alarm and vowed to fight against his "authoritarian" agenda.
On his first day back at the White House, Trump issued 26 executive orders, 12 memos, and four proclamations, plus withdrew 78 of former President Joe Biden's executive actions, according to a tally from The Hill. Those moves related to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, the death penalty, federal workers, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, prescription drug prices, and more.
"In the last 24 hours, Trump has passed dozens of executive orders—many beyond his powers," said Popular Democracy co-director Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper in a Tuesday statement. "Yet, not one of them has lowered prices or made life better for Americans. Instead, he's focused on eroding democracy, attacking constitutional rights, and spreading fear, cruelty, and chaos.
"Trump has taken aim at the 14th Amendment's rights of equal protection and citizenship—the fundamental American right to live and participate in our democracy—with an executive order targeting birthright citizenship," they noted, referencing a policy that is already facing legal challenges from immigrant rights groups and state attorneys general.
Announcing one of the lawsuits, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said that "this order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans. We will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration's overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail."
Mejia and Cooper said that "his ineffective and inhumane executive orders targeting immigrants misuse military power and double down on damaging our communities."
The group America's Voice similarly expressed concern over Trump's "authoritarian notions of deploying the military on U.S. streets," with the group's executive director, Vanessa Cárdenas, saying that "this is an attack on American families and our American values. Trump's framing of our nation being 'invaded' coupled with the attacks on birthright citizenship and policies that will throw our immigration system further into chaos show that this is a hateful campaign to justify a nativist agenda that seeks to redefine 'American' and move this nation backwards."
Popular Democracy's leaders also called out various other items from Trump's first day that are expected to face legal hurdles—though the Republican spent his first term working with GOP lawmakers to pack the federal judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court, with far-right appointees, so the effectiveness of such suits remains to be seen.
"Trump's rollbacks of critical climate policy sell out future generations to the profit of oil and gas polluters, and further endangers the poor, Black, brown, and Indigenous people who have been at the frontlines of climate disaster," they said. Trump not only repealed various Biden-era policies but also declared a "national energy emergency" to "drill, baby, drill" for fossil fuels.
Climate campaigners slammed Trump for invoking "authoritarian powers on Day 1 to gut environmental protections," in the words of the Center for Biological Diversity. The organization's executive director, Kierán Suckling, vowed that "no matter how extreme he becomes, we'll confront Trump with optimism and a fierce defense of our beloved wildlife and the planet's health."
"The United States has some of the strongest environmental laws in the world, and no matter how petulantly Trump behaves, these laws don't bend before the whims of a wannabe dictator," Suckling stressed. "The use of emergency powers doesn't allow a president to bypass our environmental safeguards just to enrich himself and his cronies."
The president's attacks on health are expansive. As Mejia and Cooper detailed: "Trump's sweeping changes to healthcare will rip away access for millions, line the pockets of Big Pharma, and undo strides in reproductive rights. They also single out trans Americans, denying them lifesaving healthcare and the right to live freely and authentically."
Imara Jones, a Black trans woman, CEO of TransLash Media, and an expert on the anti-trans political movement, said in a Tuesday statement that "Trump's recognition of only 'two genders' means a war on trans people, as well as any cis person with a gender expression outside of the gender binary."
"This is not political theater, this is the beginning of a potential authoritarian takeover of the United States, one that starts with targeting one of the smallest and most vulnerable groups: transgender people," Jones emphasized. "They seek to erase trans people from public life and want to see if they can get away with it, as a prelude to much more. This should worry all of us."
Another development that provoked intense worry—and even
led the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention to issue a "red flag alert for genocide in the United States"—was Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth and a key Trump ally, twice raising his arm in what was widely seen as a Nazi salute during a post-inauguration celebration.
Trump's Monday night decision to pardon over 1,500 people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, an insurrection incited by the president himself as he contested his 2020 electoral loss, elicited similar warnings.
"By granting clemency to these individuals, who sought to overturn the peaceful transfer of power, Trump is signaling that political violence and the rejection of democratic norms are acceptable tactics in service to his authoritarian agenda," said Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese. "This is a direct threat to the foundations of our democracy and the safety of our communities."
The leaders of Popular Democracy highlighted that "undergirding this extreme authoritarian agenda is a claim that Trump has a mandate to act like a despot—no such mandate exists, much less is acceptable to the American people."
"Trump isn't king, but if Congress capitulates, he could be," they warned, just weeks after Republicans took slim control of both chambers. "Popular Democracy is prepared to push back against Trump's assault on our communities. We will stand up against an unconstitutional power grab, and hold our representatives accountable in this fight."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular