In her current piece for the New Yorker, Margaret Talbot raises the operative question: “Is the President’s takeover of D.C. a dry run for other cities?”
From Project 2025 to his executive orders to his various pronouncements, Trump has laid the groundwork for an authoritarian solution to how he can circumvent the Constitutional limits on his power that would otherwise restrain him from seizing complete control of the U.S. government.
Congressional Republicans are in lockstep behind him; Democrats are virtually helpless. Some of the courts have tried to restrain him but the legal challenges are slow and ultimately dependent on a compromised Supreme Court, which has issued rulings complicit with and supportive of Trump’s grab for power.
The blue states are fighting back and a few Democratic leaders, most notably Gavin Newsom, are trying to counteract the takeover, but their prospects for halting Trump’s drive are not good.
Trump uses the tired tropes of big-city crime and homelessness as his excuse for the military occupation of D.C., but the idea of using these problems as reasons for a takeover are specious, as Talbot’s piece documents.
In the end, it’s going to be either democracy, with all of its messiness (like gerrymandering) or tyranny. In that context, we will face individual options of whether to speak out or remain silent, so I’m going to recommend a lovely little movie (now on Netflix) called The Penguin Lessons. Set in Argentina in the 1970s, it’s funny, sad and relevant. I laughed, I cried, and I wrote this essay.
HEADLINES:
Is Trump’s Takeover of D.C. a Dry Run? (New Yorker)
Trump Says He’ll ‘Lead a Movement’ to Eliminate Mail-In Ballots (NYT)
More National Guard Soldiers Head to D.C. and Prepare to Carry Weapons (WSJ)
3 states sending hundreds more troops to U.S. capital amid Trump crackdown (CBC)
A night in D.C. after Trump’s National Guard deployment (WP)
European leaders to join Ukraine's Zelenskyy for White House meeting with Trump (NPR)
Europe is sending heavy hitters to Washington alongside Ukraine’s president to bolster Kyiv (Politico)
Putin agreed to let U.S., Europe offer NATO-style protections for Ukraine, Trump envoy says (CBS)
Trump runs into the difficulty of Putin diplomacy and ending a long war (AP)
Mass protests erupt in Israel as IDF readies plans to occupy Gaza City (WP)
What Happened When Hitler Took On Germany’s Central Banker (Atlantic)
The new ChatGPT has some AI fans rethinking when to expect ‘superintelligence’ (WP)
Will AI make language dubbing easy for film and TV? (BBC)
Is AI hitting a wall? (FT)
U.S. Populace Lurches Methodically Through The Motions For Yet Another Day (The Onion)
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