We all just might be boiled frogs
Can we call this fascism yet? Or is it just sparkling authoritarianism?
For the last nine months, it’s been next to impossible for me to tell whether my reaction to the second Donald Trump administration has been appropriate.
On the one hand, the world has kept on turning. He has proven the TACO theory (Trump Always Chickens Out) correct on his worst economic impulses. Perhaps a saving grace of this president being the oldest man ever elected to the office is he retains enough generational memory of 1929 not to want to spark a sequel.
But he’s moved at a quickening pace to take actions that would have been unthinkable in any other administration.
One only needs to look at the events of the past week alone to see the flashing alarm lights.
On Monday, the New York Times broke a story suggesting Trump may have given the United Arab Emirates access to advanced computer chips in exchange for a cryptocurrency investment, even amid national security concerns that the UAE might share the chips with China.
The day after the Times’ story broke, Trump sued the newspaper for unrelated allegations of defamation ahead of the 2024 election.
On Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said on a podcast that Disney, parent company of television network ABC, could “do this the easy way or the hard way” with regards to taking action against late night host Jimmy Kimmel. ABC fired Kimmel shortly thereafter. While Carr and other conservatives had claimed Kimmel made misleading statements about the political ideology of the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, Kimmel’s actual words were not as definitive as they suggest, and certainly were not grounds for the FCC to take action.
After Kimmel’s firing, Trump celebrated on Truth Social, writing: “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.” He later suggested that television stations critical of him should have their licenses revoked.
By Friday, it was reported that the president had been putting pressure on Erik Seibert, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to step down for declining to prosecute two of Trump’s political enemies, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
On Friday night, the federal prosecutor did just that — he stepped down without a fight.
In the span of five days, the Trump administration faced what would have been a monumental corruption scandal under any other president; used its power to effectively silence a critic who the president already publicly targeted months ago; and forced out a federal prosecutor who wouldn’t corruptly press charges against political foes without evidence. And that’s without even mentioning the National Guard troops patrolling our nation’s capital, the masked immigration officers who may now harass Latinos with impunity, or any of the million other formerly unthinkable things this president is doing that are so numerous they have become impossible for anyone to properly focus on.
If you aren’t reading the news, it’s easy to feel like everything is normal. It’s even easy for me sometimes, too. I go out for drinks with friends. I sit on my couch rewatching No Country for Old Men with my cat curled up in my lap. I move my car for alternate side parking on Tuesdays and Fridays. If I don’t check Twitter or open my New York Times app, the world feels perfectly calm.
But danger lurks just beneath the surface. The Trump administration has pledged to use its power to attack left-wing groups, including reviewing the nonprofit status of liberal organizations. I’m sure you can imagine my concern when I work for one.
I try to reassure myself that everything will work out. But I’m increasingly concerned that the water in this pot we’ve all been sitting in has warmed so gradually that we haven’t even noticed we’ve been boiling for months.