"MAGA: Making Autocracy Great Again"

What we’re witnessing is a calculated, insidious erosion of the very bedrock of American democracy.

What Donald Trump is doing isn’t politics as usual. It’s not just conservative ideology or a hardline take on immigration or economics. No; what we’re witnessing is a calculated, insidious erosion of the very bedrock of American democracy. One radical move at a time. Slowly, deliberately, like a master sculptor of autocracy, Trump is chipping away at the Constitution until all that remains is a MAGA-shaped dictatorship held together by fear, lies, and rage.

Don’t believe me? Let’s start with the story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The man was mistakenly deported under Trump’s administration to a terrorism confinement facility in El Salvador. A federal court; yes, an actual legal authority, not a Fox News opinion panel, ordered his return. SCOTUS agreed. But Trump’s cronies? They shrugged. They played semantics. They did what they always do: delayed, denied, and distorted. Their excuse? That returning Garcia wasn’t “up to them.” Apparently, law and precedent don’t apply when you're wearing a red hat and hiding behind executive privilege like it’s a superhero cape.

This isn’t about Garcia alone. It’s about a pattern. A cancerous, metastasizing pattern of disregard for the rule of law.

Take Trump’s tariff policy. He bypassed Congress; you know, the legislative branch actually empowered by the Constitution to regulate commerce; and slapped tariffs on allies and enemies alike, as if international trade was his personal Monopoly board. And when Congress appropriated funds for specific purposes? Trump simply redirected them like a spoiled trust fund baby who doesn’t want to be told how to spend his allowance.

It didn’t stop there. He’s gone after law firms for defending immigrants. He’s gone after universities for daring to educate the next generation of liberal-leaning, woke-free-thinking youth; whatever the hell that even means. And let’s not forget his favorite punching bag: the media. Trump’s relentless war on journalism isn't just narcissistic; it’s autocratic. Because if you can delegitimize the truth, you can replace it with your own.

But Trump isn’t bludgeoning democracy with a hammer. No, he’s using a chisel. Each individual act might seem small. A deportation here. A tariff there. A gag order, a government contract pulled, a Department of Justice memo rewritten just enough to tilt the scale.

And that’s the point.

He’s not trying to break democracy in one day. He’s trying to reshape it into something that looks nothing like the version older Americans remember. He wants to gaslight us into accepting a new normal; one where the President can deport U.S. citizens, where judges are ignored, where the law is optional for the rich and absolute for the poor.

Don’t believe he’d go that far? Then listen to his own words.

Caught on a hot mic with El Salvador’s strongman President Nayib Bukele, Trump tells him to build five more facilities. Why? Because Trump is already scheming. He’s openly floated the idea of deporting "homegrown violent criminals" to El Salvador. Let that sink in. Deporting American citizens. Let me repeat: deporting American citizens.

Since when is birthplace conditional? Since when is citizenship revocable? That’s not policy; that’s tyranny. It’s one authoritarian whisper away from purging undesirables. And it starts with semantics: “We’re not deporting Americans, we’re deporting criminals.”

Right. And next, we’ll be "relocating dissenters" for "national security reasons." Let me say it again so it really sinks in…next, we’ll be "relocating dissenters" for "national security reasons.

This is how it happens. Democracy doesn’t die in a gunfight. It bleeds out slowly from a thousand little cuts. And Trump’s got a rusty blade in each hand.

Here’s the real kicker: none of this is an accident. Trump isn't stumbling into fascism. He’s marching toward it with glee, flanked by enablers in Congress, the courts, and the media; yes, even the ones pretending to "just cover both sides."

His goal isn’t to govern. It’s to rule. And to do that, he needs to change the rules until we no longer recognize the game.

We’re not talking about a slippery slope. We’re already halfway down the hill, and, picking up speed.

So if you’re still sitting on the fence thinking, “It’s just Trump being Trump,” wake the fuck up. He’s not just being Trump. He’s being the blueprint for a post-democratic America.

And if we don’t fight like hell, we’ll wake up in a country where elections are a show, laws are suggestions, and truth is whatever Trump posts at 3 a.m. in between bites of his overcooked steak and spoonfuls of grievance.

Get active. Get mad. Become part of this conversation and community. Sitting back is no longer an option.

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Tara Setmayer

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