If all of this sounds eerily familiar and frightening, it's because Trump is clearly--and enthusiastically--blazing his own infamous trail of authoritarianism that already matches, and in some cases is poised to surpass, the outrageous conduct of those who came before him.
The story it tells is not, unfortunately, an April Fools joke.
The Roman example serves as a cautionary tale: their republic didn't collapse in a single moment but through a gradual erosion of institutional constraints and normative boundaries over decades.
Every week since Trump's return to power, he and his key cabinet-level officials have simultaneously escalated their political retaliatory measures against disfavored individuals, groups, and organizations--in virtually every instance in defiance of the law, the Constitution, and now federal courts.
If an AI can understand how a Republic can be destroyed, why the hell can't everyone else in America recognize the same warning signs as Claude?
What also seems certain is an even more aggressive push by Trump to undo Executive branch internal oversight and accountability mechanisms through further "lawfare."
We are now witnessing, in real time, the price for not taking far more aggressive governmental reform and reorganization measures in the wake of successive presidents’ radical abuses of law enforcement and presidential powers.
Starting today we're going to face a different series of threats, and these won't be courtesy of a foreign bad actor but from an American government under Donald Trump's control.
The explosion of online right-wing, conspiracy theory-centric networks, podcasts, and similar digital sewers has created a permission structure for many Americans to embrace their worst selves and the worst political actors.
Exposing and opposing would-be American authoritarians, regardless of where they fall along the political spectrum, will continue to be at the heart of the Sentinel's mission in 2025 and beyond.
That so many former senior FBI officials refused to cooperate with the IG's investigation is both telling and outrageous. Every single one of them was in a critical management position between November 4, 2020, and the day of the attack.
The demand for absolute obeisance to Trump is well understood by the already GOP controlled House of Representatives.