Sunday, May 4, 2025

Today's update: authoritarianism, the courts, general dystopia, public health, and the economy.

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Authoritarianism Watch

• On April 18, Donald Trump shared a photo on social media of himself holding a photo of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's knuckles with "M," "S," "1," and "3" photoshopped in, presumably to illustrate the Trump administration's contention that Abrego Garcia's actual tattoos were meant to symbolize "MS-13." In a shamefully incompetent interview with Terry Moran of ABC News, Donald Trump falsely insisted that Abrego Garcia actually has "MS-13" tattooed on his knuckles. And he really wouldn't let the issue go. You can access a short clip of the relevant portion of the interview here. I encourage you to watch it. The possibilities here are (1) that Trump truly but mistakenly believes the obvious photoshop is real and that his staff hasn't tried to or has been unable to convince him otherwise or (2) that Trump has decided to commit himself to a comically obvious and stupid lie. I don't rule out either possibility, but I note that blatant lies like this have a long history in fascism, as an exercise of power over their followers, as a display of power over others, and as a means of fostering cynicism and eroding our connection to a shared reality. This is the photo at issue:

• "Trump in a presidential memorandum directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate allegations of straw donations and foreign contributions made through ActBlue, an online fundraising platform that coordinates and processes millions of donations each year for Democrats running for office at all levels of government." This is Trump trying to handicap his political opposition to insulate himself from the democratic process and entrench himself in power, which is a textbook authoritarian tactic.
• About a week ago, a state court judge in Milwaukee was arrested in the courthouse in which she works because she allegedly obstructed an immigration arrest. You can read the affidavit explaining what the judge did here. Federal law enforcement chose to arrest the judge rather than send a summons to appear on court on her own because the point is to intimidate officials.
• In January 2025, just before Trump took office a second time, an ex-FBI informant was sentenced to 6 years in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and lying to the FBI about Joe Biden taking a bribe in an effort to influence the 2020 election in Trump's favor. The Trump Administration has asked that he be released while the case is on appeal and says it will review its "theory of the case." This is Trump saying he will protect you if you commit crimes on his behalf.
• The lawyer Trump nominated to be US Attorney for the District of Columbia--the office that handled most of the January 6 insurrection cases--promoted the Big Lie that the 2020 election was "stolen," spoke at a rally in DC the night before the insurrection, represented multiple insurrectionists in their criminal cases, and is on the board of a nonprofit that has raised $2.5M to support insurrectionists. While serving as "acting" US Attorney as he waits for a confirmation vote, he fired or demoted career prosecutors who prosecuted insurrectionists, and has tried to intimidate targets on the outs with Trump and his supporters. Oh, he's also not qualified, he regularly appeared on Russian state media to push promote pro-Trump talking points, and he presented this guy with an award, calling him a friend and "an extraordinary guy." Any Senator who supports his nomination is betraying his or her country and oath of office. Fortunately, his nomination looks to be in trouble. To be clear, Trump selected this nominee specifically because he will abuse his authority to serve Trump's personal agenda.
• This is dictator shit, and it's fucking gross: "Detailed Army plans for a potential military parade on President Donald Trump’s birthday in June call for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly a couple thousand civilians . . . ." If it actually happens, it is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.

Update from the courts

• On Thursday, a Texas federal judge nominated by Trump ruled that the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) cannot be used to deport Venezuelans as the Trump administration had been doing. The judge held that, while the Trump admin claims the gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) is controlled by the Venezuelan government, TdA's activities do not constitute a "predatory incursion" as required by the AEA.
• A federal judge in DC ruled for Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, invalidating the executive order issued by Trump to punish Perkins Coie for taking on causes and clients he didn't like. This was expected--the executive order was obviously illegal--but the opinion is notable for the strong denunciation of Trump and the executive order in the first few pages. You can read the whole opinion itself here, but here's the first paragraph:

• You may recall that SCOTUS affirmed a district court order requiring Trump to "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration admitted had been erroneously sent to a El Salvadoran torture prison. He hasn't been returned, and the Trump administration has been playing stupid games about whether they can get him back. Well, Trump just said he could get him back but won't. It might take a little time to play out, but it's hard to see how we don't find out one way or another whether the courts are actually willing to check Trump's authoritarianism.
• Reminder: If you're looking for regular, reliable info on breaking news from the courts, I recommend subscribing to Chris Geidner's free newsletter.

Dystopia Watch

• Mark Zuckerberg will make you fake A.I. friends because "the average American has fewer than three friends . . . [a]nd the average person has demand for . . . like 15 friends," which is a deranged way to talk about friendship.
• Breadlines are back, I guess. Food bank demand is up while the Trump administration cuts funding for food assistance.
• As his tariff policy appears increasingly disastrous, Trump more or less makes the argument that just a month ago was this bit of satire in The Onion:

Public Health Update

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is tasked with improving Americans' health and wellbeing, and, in that role, he has ready access to top experts and the best science known to man. Rather than use his position to educate the public and encourage Americans to get the highly effective measles vaccine, he has directed federal health agencies to investigate measles treatments--something that has already been explored extensively with little hope of progress--and tells Americans to "do your own research," giving us what could be another headline from The Onion:

Thanks to the vaccine, measles was a problem that the US had solved:

But now it looks like measles will again become endemic.

The big picture: Not enough people appreciate that we are undoing many years of crucial public health progress that has saved us from immense misery. And it will take many years to undo once we finally realize what we've done to ourselves. When my grandmother was born, roughly one out of every five children in the US died before the age of five, and the country has somehow decided that's what we want to get back to.

The Economy

Similar to what we are doing with public health, I believe we are rapidly undoing the foundations of America's long period of economic prosperity. I continue to think we're quickly heading for economic calamity for reasons that include the following:

• Direct layoffs of federal employees
• Layoffs by and reduced business of government contractors connected to canceled federal grants, funding, and contracts
• Increased prices and broken supply chains caused by Trump's tariffs
• Collapsing tourism to the US from abroad
• A general climate of uncertainty that hinders spending and investment (check out these grim comments from the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)

I'm sure I'm forgetting things. And the medium term outlook doesn't appear any better, with the following factors yet to really manifest:

• Insufficient domestic labor supply if the Trump administration actually deports millions of people
• Hostility to immigrants making the US no longer a desirable place for the world's best and brightest to come to live, work, and start businesses
• The declining status of the dollar as a global reserve currency (this episode of Ezra Klein's podcast does a good job explaining how we benefit from the dollar's dominance among global currencies and how the Trump administration is throwing that away)
• Reduced investment in research
• The deterioration of rule of law that made the US an attractive place to invest and conduct business, which is beginning to be replaced by cronyism

Again, I'm sure I'm forgetting things. I see little added to the positive side of the ledger, though Trump regaining office will likely postpone reckonings regarding what I strongly suspect are speculative bubbles related to cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, with the eventual reckonings likely worse as a result of the delay.

In short, I believe the near-term economic outlook is poor, and medium-term outlook is no better. And the nation is already permanently poorer as a result of Trump's actions in the last several months, even if it won't necessarily be readily apparent.