This is How It Starts
Trump is laying the groundwork to ignore the courts. Be ready.
Follow me on Twitter and Bluesky
First off, congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles for winning the Super Bowl. A well-earned victory and, frankly, some much-needed bread and circuses to distract us from the daily live stream of democracy’s slow-motion collapse.
Hey Mahomes, at least you can confidently say you’re not the person who had the worst night of their career.
“This is How It Starts”
“This administration isn’t playing by the old rules. By old rules, I mean, of course, the US Constitution.”
The second Trump administration has, in record time, shed any pretense of being constrained by law, precedent, or even the most basic constitutional principles.
It began immediately, with Trump’s first act upon reentering the White House—a sweeping executive order that purported to repeal birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment for over 150 years. Then came the financial power grab, where the administration, displeased with Congress’s pesky authority over government spending, issued a directive refusing to spend billions in appropriated funds, claiming an invented presidential power of impoundment.
The administration then followed up with a scheme that would have made Richard Nixon blush: allowing the faux “non-government” agency DOGE to access to Americans’ sensitive person information and financial data, all under the direction of Trump’s favorite billionaire, Elon Musk.
And then there was the attempted government shutdown—engineered entirely by the White House—where Trump issued an executive order defunding parts of the federal government, as if Congress’s control over appropriations were merely a suggestion rather than a constitutional requirement. The administration has fired inspectors general at a scale that makes past purges look quaint, turning agencies into little more than personal loyalty clubs.
“It’s not just disregard for the law that Trump and his cronies display; it’s a wholesale reimagining of presidential power as absolute, constrained only by what Trump and his circle can get away with.”
Luckily, the most extreme of these actions—including the repeal of birthright citizenship, the funding freeze, and DOGE’s access to sensitive Treasury information—have been blocked by the courts.
But if you think that means this fight is over, think again. And no, I’m not talking about the far-right Supreme Court eventually swooping in to take Trump’s side. I’m talking about something even more dangerous: a president who simply doesn’t care what the courts say.
This administration isn’t playing by the old rules. By old rules, I mean, of course, the US Constitution. It’s not just disregard for the law that Trump and his cronies display; it’s a wholesale reimagining of presidential power as absolute, constrained only by what Trump and his circle can get away with.
That’s where the right spokesperson comes in—someone to translate raw authoritarianism into something that sounds reasonable, even inevitable.
Enter JD Vance.
Every regime needs its smooth talkers, its intellectualized defenders, the people who stand in front of the bonfire of democratic norms and insist that, actually, this is just a routine backyard cookout.
And Vance is the best in the business. His latest contribution? The claim that the president is unanswerable to anyone but himself, that as a matter of constitutional law, judges cannot tell the president what to do. This isn’t just sycophantic nonsense—it’s a full-throated endorsement of unchecked, absolute executive power. It’s the kind of argument that, in another time, would have been laughed out of the room or brought up charges of treason if uttered in earnest by those entrusted with public power. Now, it’s the governing philosophy of the new presidential administration.
We should be shocked. We should be horrified. And yet, after watching this administration erase one fundamental legal norm after another, all with barely a speed bump of resistance, the only thing left to be surprised by is our own lack of surprise. This is how it starts. The open contempt for legality. The public justifications for lawlessness. The insistence that institutions meant to constrain power are, in fact, powerless. And before long, what starts as rhetoric becomes reality.
I’ll be doing a YouTube video in the coming weeks breaking down exactly this—how the Trump team is laying the foundation to undermine democracy by dismantling the authority of the courts. We need to be prepared for what happens when the previously unthinkable becomes our day-to-day reality. Because the writing is on the wall. And the only question left is whether we’re going to pretend we can’t see it.
What I’m Listening To – This week, I’ve got West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys on repeat. There’s just something about those vocals—cool, detached, effortlessly hypnotic—layered over that beat, which is downright infectious. It’s the kind of track that sneaks up on you, and before you know it, you’re moving. A synth-pop masterpiece that still hits decades later.
Thank You to My Patrons!
A huge shoutout to my Patreon subscribers who help keep this platform alive. Special thanks to Chance McKimmy, a TRUTH SPEAKER, and Deb Benda, a TRUTH KEEPER, for their support. The more this channel is powered by fans like you, the more independent I can remain—free to keep speaking truth without filters, without fear, and without compromise. If you want to support my work and help amplify this message, you can subscribe to my Patreon here.