Nearly three months have passed since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, and his commitment to consolidating power remains resolute. Ivy League academics like Jason Stanley — professor of philosophy and expert on fascism — have elected to flee the country, likening Trump’s tightening grip on power and nationalistic rhetoric to that of Nazi Germany.
Though many dismiss the warnings of these scholars out of hand, having been desensitized by knee-jerk comparisons between the Trump administration and historical fascist regimes, it becomes increasingly clear with every executive decision that America’s democratic way of life is under threat and that the country is lurching towards authoritarianism.
In his second inaugural address, Trump marked the beginning of his “restoration of America and the revolution of common sense,” in which inflation is curbed, the border is strengthened and it becomes the official stance of the federal government “that there are only two genders: male and female.”
Soon after, government websites were scrubbed of all health resources pertaining to the transgender community, and the State Department’s passport policy — which had previously allowed travelers to alter their name and gender identity — was changed. A now-legally contested executive order was signed banning trans women from competing in women’s sports. On March 19, a Floridian trans woman was placed under arrest for having used the women’s bathroom; the first recorded case of its kind.
Despotic erasure of the LGBTQ+ community has historic precedent. Prior to the rise of the Nazi Party, Berlin boasted some of the liveliest queer nightlife in the world: gay bars numbered in the hundreds, drag shows bustled with tourists — the city was deemed “the queer capital of the world.” Soon after Hitler took power, these famed nightclubs were morphed into party headquarters, and the city’s Institute for Sexual Research — the world’s first trans clinic — was ransacked, its literature set aflame.
But an authoritarian regime is not solely defined by its treatment of minorities; attention must also be paid to its war waged against the courts. To expedite the process of curbing illegal immigration, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 has been invoked by Trump, a decision which was halted by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg. Boasberg — among other non-conforming judges — has since been subjected to threats of impeachment by the administration.
On March 12, a judge’s order exempting 29-year-old immigrant Abrego Garcia from deportation was ignored when the Trump administration deported him to an El Salvadorian prison. Further undermining the validity of court orders, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has gone on to defend the deportation of Garcia in an April 1 White House press briefing.
“Who does that judge work for?” Leavitt said. “It was an immigration judge who worked for the Department of Justice at the direction of the attorney general of the United States, whose name is Pam Bondi, who has committed to eradicating MS-13 from our nation’s interior.”
In other words, the official stance of the Trump administration is not that it should act within the confines of court rulings as dictated by established checks and balances, but rather that the courts should bend to the will of the administration.
Control of the courts is a prerequisite for weaponizing the legal system, a fact well-understood by tyrannical regimes past and present. It was understood by the Nazi Party, by the Soviet Union and modern Russia, by presiding Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and is a level of authority that Donald Trump has openly aspired to time and time again.
The draconian immigration policies being fought over in the courts are also being used to silence student activism. On March 8, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by plainclothes immigration agents, signaling the start of the Trump administration’s efforts to detain and deport foreign students “alleged to have participated in activities advocating for Palestine.” Since then, roughly 300 students have had their visas revoked, some of whom were never proven to have protested against Israel.
These deportations are part of the president’s larger war on academia, in which schools are being ordered to comply with Trump’s anti-DEI policies, curriculum standards and protest-response procedures, lest they lose their federal funding.
“There are a lot of things there that are reminiscent of the ways that Southern governors used to say that students at Alabama State couldn’t have sit-ins,” said Adam Harris, journalist and education expert, in an interview with The Atlantic, “ otherwise they were going to remove the funding from Alabama State College.”
By utilizing federal funding as leverage, the Trump administration has free reign to shape education in their image: that of a system which reasserts conservative, Christian values and paints the country’s national heroes as devoid of all defects.
Despite the administration’s flagrant disregard for minority rights and its continued undermining of legal and academic institutions, the rationale of the average Trump voter maintains that his stated intentions should not be taken seriously; when he says A, he truly means B.
“He may say things, and then it gets people all upset, but then he turns around and he says ‘No, I’m not doing that,’” said Tom Pierce, a 67-year-old Trump supporter, in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s a negotiation. But people don’t understand that.”
No matter how loud the sirens blare, warnings of encroaching authoritarianism seem to fall on innumerable deaf ears. The paradigm is clear: democracy is in decay and America is in denial.
Nicholas Sherwood is an Opinion Intern for the spring 2025 quarter. He can be reached at nesherwo@uci.edu.
Edited by Rebecca Do and Logan Heine.