Lee Morgenbesser

How ICE is becoming a secret police force under the Trump administration The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement meets most criteria that have defined secret police forces in authoritarian regimes. And the worst may be yet to come.

Every example I used in this article from April was ICE. Not only is it possible to have two secret police forces, many authoritarian regimes do.

theconversation.com/how-ice-is-b...

Very much looking forward to that book! I suspect it will be great for my course material

donald trump is speaking into a microphone in front of a sign that says nabtu ALT: donald trump is speaking into a microphone in front of a sign that says nabtu

Just getting out in front of everyone to say that I think Trump will propose building a new capital city by the end of his term (if there is an end).

Washington D.C is a crime-ridden hellhole etc etc, and America needs a big, beautiful city etc etc.

Opinion | In defense of the White House ballroom Donald Trump vs. the NIMBYs

In the transition to autocratic rule, independent media outlets face a choice between (1) resisting and eventually facing consequences; (2) self-censoring and hoping to survive; and (3) becoming a propaganda arm of the new regime.

@washingtonpost.com = 3

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

a bald man is standing in front of a window and pointing at the camera . ALT: a bald man is standing in front of a window and pointing at the camera .

I hereby challenge Alex Dukalskis to a competition: be the first person to published an article on the historical origins of Trump’s authoritarian model*

* article must be peer-reviewed

More seriously, I have wondered whether Trump observed some dictators from afar in his 20s and has since thought ‘this is how you do it.’ It actually explains a lot when you try to make sense of his actions, like transporting a 1960s dictator to rule in 2025…

🔼 Solid hypothesis

Hmmm I am looking at 1960s Central Africa as the relevant reference point 😁

As someone who is writing a book on how authoritarian regimes recruit fake observers to endorse their sham elections, I suspect this will be much worse then actually advertised..

This tactic is used by dictators to fragment the internal security apparatus and consolidate power.

In Zaire, Mobutu kept kept the huge personal fortune he had amassed from pilfering the country’s diamond and copper exports as a ‘rainy day’ fund, which included paying the army’s wage bill.

Congratulations!

Milan Svolik and I are working on a similar project, albeit based on Singapore. We are likewise investigating whether people trade-off democracy (and ignore democratic abuses) for effective governance, which the PAP has long claimed as its trademark.

Be great to chat sometime!

Trump's abuse of democracy is so normalized right now that everything is up for grabs.

If there are not mass protests against forced disappearances, gross media censorship, and overt corruption happening daily right now, there won't be protests against him staying in office in a few years time.

I don’t think anyone will try stop him from staying in office beyond his term.

Huge dumb orange outlier

Marcos: I will award loans to people acting as fronts for my interests.

Yanukovych: I will misuse carbon-emissions allowances.

Suharto: I will create charities for businesspeople to make donations.

Baby Doc: I will take a bit off the top of all foreign aid.

Trump: Just give me the fucking money.

Are there any spontaneous mass protests at the White House yet?

Yes, you can count them on two hands. Although there is a large literature on ousting autocratic leaders, which obviously overlaps

I am submitting a grant app on the “autocrat’s playbook.” Part of its appeal (I hope), is that there are not many practical solutions out there to resisting backsliding

Here is an actual image of the national media cycle quickly moving on from the No Kings protests...

How Trump is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force Trump’s DHS appointees have dismantled civil rights guardrails, protected agents’ anonymity and encouraged them to wear masks, threatened groups that stood in their way, and overwhelmed legal challeng...

“When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement,” DHS’ Tricia McLaughlin asserted, “while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by highly sophisticated gangs.”

By @davidmcswane.bsky.social @hannahallam.bsky.social

I dare you to try get “loose cannon” into a journal article…

The only time those opposed to Trump captured the national media narrative was at the last No Kings protests (14 June). It lasted about two days and then everything defaulted back to the status quo.

A social movement is essential to ousting Trump, but so are several other tactics I am not seeing.

A far larger problem than her indictment is that most Americans could not name the last five "opponents" the Trump administration has targeted using lawfare.

America is so far down the rabbit hole of normalizing abuses against democracy that, sadly, this event will eclipsed by the end of the week.

Nice grandstanding @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social 🙄

My point was that given the range of possible outcomes (continued backsliding, averted breakdown, full breakdown), America went very quickly from the former to the latter. Cases where the autocrat's playbook has been observed have been much slower.

“The bees are in the what now?”

Has America’s descent into authoritarianism gone quicker than I expected? Yes

Did I think Americans would be more resistant to democratic backsliding? Omfg yes

Is written criticism of Trump redundant? Yes

Can expert opinion break through the noise? Maybe

Do I think a fascist regime is next? No

Any spontaneous mass protests happening in front of the Supreme Court? No?

Grand Jury Indicts Longtime Trump Target, Former F.B.I. Director James Comey

The thing about "bad" authoritarianism is the transparent nature of its repression, whereby dictators target their perceived enemies without a plausible justification for doing so.

It is a sign of a weak regime. When you fool no one, you become the fool.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

Crazy or Cunning: The Trump Contradiction Critics’ two big theories explaining Trump are associated with different kinds of autocrats.

If you thought Trump's press conference was filled with incompetence, recklessness, and cruelty, that's because being a "mad king" is part of his persona. I try to make sense of Trump's two-headed autocracy in this @thebulwark.com piece from last week...

www.thebulwark.com/p/crazy-or-c...

Does anyone know if there was a single *spontaneous* mass protest anywhere in the United States on Saturday? This is really important for gauging the level of resistance to democratic backsliding…