Nov 10
2025
Creeping autocracy under Trump
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The New York Times, in consultation with scholars, came up with a dozen indicators of creeping autocracy to gauge Donald Trump’s impact on our democracy.
“The sobering reality,” The Times wrote, “is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.”
Here are the benchmarks:
- Stifling dissent and speech.
- Persecuting political opponents.
- Bypassing the legislature.
- Using the military for domestic control.
- Defying the courts.
- Declaring national emergencies on false pretenses.
- Vilifying marginalized groups.
- Controlling information and the media.
- Attempting to take over universities.
- Creating a cult of personality.
- Using power for personal profit.
- Manipulating the law to stay in power.
The Times concluded:
The United States is not an autocracy today. It still has a mostly free press and independent judiciary, and millions of Americans recently attended the “No Kings” protests. But it has started down an anti-democratic path, and many Americans — including people in positions of power — remain far too complacent about the threat.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomI guess with Tuesday’s election results we can tone down the talk of Democrats being impotent and in disarray. Not that voters are in love with them. But compared with Donald Trump and the Republicans, they’re looking better. Lesser of two evils, perhaps.
As a New York Times columnist put it:
Tuesday was a Democratic victory. And the party didn’t just win — it won by commanding majorities on virtually every field of play. In polls, in focus groups and now at the ballot box, the public is telling us something very clearly: Trump is simply too much.
You remember Richard Nixon summoning what he called the “silent majority.” In light of Tuesday’s election results, The Atlantic wrote about the “anti-MAGA majority.”
Americans still aren’t sold on the Democratic Party, but the anti-MAGA majority has reemerged.
Finally, here’s a digestible, data-rich analysis of Tuesday’s results.
The best part of the election results for New York City mayor: Andrew Cuomo lost and his political career is all but over. Zohran Mamdani couldn’t resist taking a couple of shots at Cuomo during his victory speech Tuesday night.
A recession is coming. Job cuts in October were the highest in 20 years and rising to recession-like levels. Meanwhile, manufacturing is struggling for reasons that include Trump’s tariffs and ICE enforcement actions. Ditto for the construction industry.
Here’s what the tech bros are up to:
- Meta (Mark Zuckerberg) is flooding users with 15 billion scam advertisements a day and reaping $7 billion a year in revenue. He also appears to be running an illegal school at his compound.
- Elon Musk is using Twitter to boost the radical right in Britain and managed to get the Tesla board to give him an incentive-laden pay package that could net him one trillion dollars. If that figure isn’t obscene enough, consider that it works out to $274 million a day for the next decade.
- YouTube (Google/Pichai Sundararajan) recently deleted more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians.
A Times op-ed makes the case that gambling poses a threat not only to sports, but to America as a whole.
Gambling addiction is quietly growing, leaving a trail of financial ruin, debt and shame. Thirty-seven percent of American adults — and 60 percent of avid fans — say they have placed a bet on sports. Nearly half of men ages 18 to 49 report having an online sports betting account.
We see gambling everywhere now — in our soaring stock market, the booms and busts of Bitcoin, the rise of techno-oligarchs like Elon Musk. The democratic process itself can now effectively be wagered on.
The Washington Post is publishing a readable series on Thomas Jefferson. Talk about a man of contradictions. Fascinating history.
Fresh from NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, a short set from the Doobie Brothers.
