To Open The Sky

A year into his second term in the Oval Office, Trump has been moving boldly to consolidate the power of an autocratic Trump Regime. These are some of the major steps he has taken:

• He has pardoned most of the people convicted in connection with the J6 insurrection. He has also pardoned a bevy of white-collar criminals including Juan Orlando Hernandez, a Honduran drug kingpin serving a 45-year sentence for expediting the entry of 400 tons of cocaine into the US.
• He ordered a raid on Venezuela that captured that country's President and his wife and brought them to New York for trial on drug trafficking charges.
• He has ordered his "Department of War" to attack boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that he claimed, without evidence, are bringing drugs to the US. So far, these attacks have summarily killed 126 people.
• He has put out a flurry of Executive Orders, many absurd on their faces.1
• His ICE officers, operating without identification, have detained hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and some 170 American citizens, without due process. Two American citizens have been killed on the streets of Minneapolis by ICE officers, and dozens of detainees have died in ICE custody.
• He has weaponized the Justice Department. Under Pam Bondi, it finds ways to charge his political opponents. These charges often collapse, but they use up time and cost the people charged money for legal defenses.
• He is bypassing Congress, where majorities of Republicans in both House and Senate rubber-stamp everything he tries to do.
• He tends to ignore lower-court orders, which generally go against him. When those courts reinforce their orders, he will appeal. If the matter gets to the Supreme Court, it most often either gives him a pass or issues an unsigned "shadow docket" ruling that allows him to keep going without deciding the substance of the issue.
• His tariffs have raised prices of consumer goods in the US, and his "Big, Beautiful Bill" gives tax breaks to the wealthy while stripping billions from social safety nets.

During the past year, I put together a number of pages on what Trump was doing. Those pages are not especially relevant now, and the links to them are poorly organized. Still, those who have the patience to wade through them will probably find them useful. Start here. I particularly recommend this page as a terse appraisal of where we were a year ago.

So: where are we now, and what can be done?

It is clear that counting on the leaders of the Democratic Party in Congress to take strong action on their own will avail us nothing. However, they will move if pushed. Contact your senators and representatives often and tell them you want them to stop Trump. Use whatever method suits you. (I understand calling works best.) Be polite but firm. Pressure from constituents matters. I also think it would be helpful to give Republicans a piece of your mind.

Second, prepare to vote in the 2026 midterm elections. Make sure your registration is on file and correct; Republicans in some states have been known to take certain people ("urban" people) off the voter rolls. Encourage other people to vote, and if you can help them vote when the time comes, if they have difficulty.

Finally, if you are up to it, protest. Follow the postings from Indivisible on when and where protests will be held, and listen in on some of their online training.

Here are three links to more detailed information.