The Democracy Index

February 21, 2025

When I first envisioned The Democracy Index last fall, I wrote in my newsletter, Civil Discourse, that I was concerned about Trump “outrage fatigue,” which leads people to shut down because it’s too much to take in. In his first month back in office, Trump more than delivered on the outrage, if little else. This week, we concern ourselves not with single incidents that are troubling—there are many of them—but with the threads we see, the developing lines of anti-democratic behavior that are the mainstays of this new administration.

The deluge came even quicker than Trump’s most ardent supporters could have imagined.

Threats to Democracy

We begin with Trump’s full-throated embrace of autocracy this week. Trump tweeted a quote often attributed to Napoleon (who went on to crown himself emperor): “He who saves his country does not violate any Law.” Official White House social media pages amplified the message. Many of Trump’s high-profile surrogates echoed the sentiment, including Elon Musk. Later in the week, Trump proceeded to call himself a “king” — posting: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” That post was accompanied by the White House’s social media accounts displaying images of Trump adorned with a royal crown.

MAGA claimed this was a perfect “troll the libs” moment from Trump. We think that’s weak sauce, an effort after the fact by Trump’s people to excuse the unforgivable. American presidents don’t joke about wearing a crown and Trump isn’t joking either. He has history here. Trump has talked about wanting to be a dictator on “day one”; has mused about serving more than two terms as president; and has said that Article II of the Constitution means he can do whatever he wants as President.

Trump followed his autocratic rhetoric with action. As he was cosplaying Napoleon, he signed an Executive Order purporting to dramatically increase his share of power at the expense of executive branch agencies established by Congress, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission. Trump is embracing a formerly fringe ultra-conservative plan called the “unitary executive theory,” the stuff of Project 2025, which consolidates near-complete power over the Executive Branch in the president. It’s an audacious gambit that is poised to play out in the courts.

So much for “no man is king.”

Threats of Violence and Retribution

Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman reported this week on Republicans in the Senate: “‘They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,’ a former member of Trump’s first administration tells [Sherman]. According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about ‘credible death threats’ when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Tillis ultimately provided the crucial 50th vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon.” This is but one example of how Trump intimidates members of his own party to get in line. Unfortunately, none of them seem to have the courage the moment demands.

This week, we also got a snapshot of what it means for the Justice Department to be a captive of the presidency; a tool Trump can deploy to both threaten enemies and reward friends. Take the new initiative by Ed Martin, the interim and nominee for U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. Martin, who personally represented Jan. 6 defendants, sent a series of letters to Democratic members of Congress threatening federal prosecution for their criticisms of Trump allies like Elon Musk. We’re also following the ongoing drama of DOJ’s efforts to dismiss the bribery case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, bringing him to heel so he can help carry out their mass deportation plans. It’s nothing short of an intimidation racket.

MAGA is also threatening federal judges with retribution if Trump doesn’t like their decisions. After Trump and Musk attacked judges ruling against the Trump Administration, including Musk’s call for them to be impeached, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (WI) filed articles of impeachment on Thursday against the federal judge who blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury information. Other Republican congressmen have threatened to do the same.

These threats of retribution against public officials may feel far away in the Nation’s Capital, but it’s not much of a leap to imagine what levers a power-engorged and unaccountable administration could pull to enforce compliance with the administration on the rest of us.

Threats To Americans’ Health and Safety

What may have seemed at first like chaos and bureaucratic maneuvers by the Trump Administration and Musk’s DOGE have begun to cause real harm to the American people.

This past week, the Trump Administration fired hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration officials, with plans for more. Yet, as Reuters reports, “The FAA remains about 3,500 controllers short of targeted staffing levels.” Both the firings and the understaffing of the FAA make all air travelers less safe, whether the aircraft inspections are given short shrift or the overtaxed air traffic controllers cannot keep alert.

It’s not just the safety of the planes we fly in, it’s also the food we eat. The head of the Food and Drug Administration's food division, Jim Jones, resigned this week because the Administration’s “indiscriminate” firings and other actions and policies threaten to unnecessarily impede the FDA’s ability to keep food safe, among other risks.

Measles is on the rise throughout the US, with a surge in Western Texas that’s heading into New Mexico. We are experiencing one of the worst flu seasons in over a decade. Anti-vaxxer, anti-science Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is now at the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS and CDC’s success at protecting Americans is one of those things that goes unnoticed until it’s not there any more and there are concerns we could be nearing that moment. There is also news that the Department of Agriculture “accidentally” fired officials working on bird flu as we face an increase in that virus. Physicians and public health experts are concerned about the reliability of the CDC’s public information, especially after websites and public data sets were removed.

Threats Against the Press

Thomas Jefferson once wrote to a friend that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Not so, Donald Trump.

The administration’s ongoing attack on The Associated Press — restricting its access to events and news conferences because the organization continues to refuse to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” — has been met with a letter from the White House Correspondents’ Association. To date, no legal action has been taken to challenge the White House.

Then there was Elon Musk’s threat of retribution for unfavorable coverage. Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist,” betrayed that posture when he lashed out at CBS’s 60 Minutes after the program reported on DOGE — tweeting, “They deserve a long prison sentence!,” referring to its benign handling of a Kamala Harris interview during the campaign.

People who are afraid of books are really afraid of the ideas in them. People who burn books are trying to keep other people from thinking. So it’s a dangerous sign that the administration has forced the State Department to cancel its subscriptions to the Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Economist, and Politico. It’s a transparent effort at thought control. (Notably absent from that list: The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, which, incidentally, refused to run an ad criticizing Elon Musk this week.)

If all of this is making you anxious, that’s their intent. So it’s important to know that you are not alone if you oppose these anti-democratic moves. Americans have been rallying and writing all week, demanding, as voters in conservative Georgia did on Thursday, that their representatives—even the Republican ones—stand up for them. Americans have the right to demand that from their elected representatives, who, after all, work for them.

We are not a nation ruled by kings and princes.

***Shortly after publication, news broke that the AP filed a lawsuit against three Trump Administration officials, alleging violations of the First and Fifth Amendments.