One hundred days of authoritarian bludgeoning — and what comes next.

I care less about what's already been done and more about what they'll try to do next. Here are some predictions.

Apr 30, 2025

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Now, on to the news…

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Does anyone other than the most hardcore of his supporters care to revisit the last 100 days? I can’t imagine that’s the case. If you’re anything like me, you’re exhausted by all of this. To be bludgeoned every single day with this level of fear, stupidity and hate is quite tiring. At times, it feels like I’m living in an absurdist TV show, where a man who is so stunningly ignorant running the country and, as he believes, the world, seems like a plotline so out-there it’s not believable.

But believe it. It’s been happening. I should know because I’ve been covering just about every minute of it until the last two weeks, when I’ve gone on a diet of my news consumption just to maintain a modicum of serenity. If you want to catch up on all that I’ve reported on since PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP took office 100 days ago, I’ll share some links below. But for now, I thought it would be more helpful to take a look at what’s coming next and what you can do about it.

Journalists love to say they don’t like making predictions. Bullshit. They love it. They just don’t like being wrong about them. I certainly don’t like being wrong, either. But I’d rather put a warning out about what I think is coming so that those of you reading this can be at least somewhat prepared for it, rather than sitting around and waiting for the bad thing to happen. Because by then, it’s too late. Besides, I’ve been more or less correct in my predictions in the last four years, with the exception being that there were no widespread efforts to overturn the 2024 election — but that was only because Trump won. Funny how there didn’t seem to be any voter fraud in that election, isn’t it?

Anyway, here’s some things I’m keeping an eye on that signal further degradation of democracy.

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Arrests and persecution of political opponents

This is already happening, so it’s not that big of a stretch to predict that it will continue. Whether it’s the judge in Wisconsin arrested for allegedly facilitating the (what might be entirely legal) release of an undocumented immigrant or something even more stunning, like the arrest of a Democratic governor, we can expect that the Trump regime will utilize every legal weapon available to punish and silence its foes. We know this because Project 2025 prescribes this — and because Trump’s executive order on elections backs up that prescription with a call to prosecute state and local election officials who don’t run elections the exact way that Trump, Republicans and the election denial movement demand.

If that weren’t enough, a pair of executive orders issued Monday night signal more politically-motivated prosecutions are in our future. The Trump regime claims it will prosecute any officials who don’t abide by their so-called ban on sanctuary cities. That comes from the executive order titled Protecting Communities from Criminal Aliens. Trump also signed an executive order that takes the “political handcuffs” off police — and threatens local officials with prosecution and arrest if they don’t let law enforcement agencies run wild.

The order requires Attorney General Pam Bondi — who is now Trump’s vengeance czar, pursuing all sorts of politically-motivated prosecutions on the president’s behalf — to “prioritize prosecution” of local officials who prohibit “law enforcement officers from carrying out duties necessary for public safety” or pursue DEI policies at law enforcement agencies. Translation: only police should be able to say what police do on a daily basis, and if anyone with civil rights on their minds gets in the way, the Trump regime will try to prosecute them.

This is part of Trump’s long-standing preference for police brutality — but only against those he sees as deserving of a whack of the baton. That means Black Americans, other minorities, and immigrants. This brings me to my next item on this very troubling list of things to watch for.

Emboldened law enforcement and civil unrest

I’ve written about this before, right around this time last year, actually. We saw a glimpse of it during the campus protests of last spring. But thanks to Trump’s executive order on American policing — titled Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and and Protect Innocent Citizens — many of the nation’s police will feel the protecting hand of the federal government hovering over them as they “unleash” themselves on supposed criminals. The order does many things, or purports to do them, because like all executive orders from Trump it’s a list of demands that appears to have no legal basis. But a not-insignificant provision of the order does away with all of the consent decrees that several law enforcement agencies are under.

These decrees were put in place following high-profile police killings or widespread civil rights violations by police departments across the country. The decrees meant that lawyers and other staff at the Justice Department were keeping an eye on police departments that had abused their power. That accountability is now gone.

This sets up a volatile scenario. With police officers nationwide feeling that they’re now more free to rid the streets of dangerous criminals, they could begin acting more aggressive. This will inevitably lead to an unjustified shooting or killing, one that could result in mass protests like the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Trump will then of course react with as much violence as he can muster, exacerbating the problem and leading to widespread civil unrest. Summer is coming, which means more interactions between Americans and law enforcement across the country.

Increased militarization of immigration enforcement and widespread civil rights violations

Whether’s it’s U.S. citizen children being wrongfully deported, babies being ripped from their mother’s arms by ICE agency, targeting of Black Americans and other minorities by law enforcement, or the removal of federal protections for voting rights, we have entered what could be a new golden age for widespread civil rights violations. The Trump regime has made abundantly clear that its Justice Department will play no role in protecting the rights of minorities, and will in fact pursue prosecutions and other policies that cause harm to communities of color.

Carrying out these policies are federal law enforcement agencies that don’t feel remotely accountable to the American public, as they obscure their identities in situations as varied as arresting the state judge in Wisconsin, Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, or donning ski masks to snatch an immigrant away from their own lawyer in Connecticut.

Local law enforcement is getting in on immigration enforcement, adding another battalion or two of shock troops to Trump’s immigration dragnet. These interactions are even more susceptible to violence, as less-trained local cops raid homes, businesses and other locations where frightened immigrants might be trying to stay out of sight.

The third term

Yes, Trump will try to run for a third term. No, it is not hyperbole to say this. He has been saying it. His family has been saying it. Congressional Republicans have been saying it. Constitutional law experts say it’s impossible — it would take a convention of states to achieve it — but have any legal or ethical firewalls ever stopped Trump from doing anything? I’ll leave it to the scholars to argue about whether it’s even possible for Trump to run for a third term, but the mere fact that there’s debate about it all should tell you that it is possible, and further that he will try it.

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