Autocracy Watch Day 7: An authoritarian vilifies marginalized groups

 The New York Times, NO. 7

An authoritarian vilifies marginalized groups. Trump has.

Authoritarians tend to demean minority groups, trying to turn them into a perceived threat that provides a justification for a leader to amass power. Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that marginalized groups are responsible for the nation’s problems.

Immigrants have topped his list. Mr. Trump has blamed them for destroying communities and his administration has tried to dehumanize them by posting mocking videos of shackled immigrants. In response, many Latinos have stopped speaking Spanish in public and started carrying their passports to prove citizenship.

He has vilified transgender Americans and barred them from military service. He has fired women and people of color from leadership posts and ended programs that promote workplace diversity. His administration has attempted to erase aspects of Black history, including by removing books on slavery and segregation from military libraries and pressuring Smithsonian museums to minimize those subjects. At the same time, he has suggested that white people and Christians are victims, which echoes the autocratic habit of claiming that majority groups are in fact oppressed.

The Bottom Line
Mr. Trump is borrowing from the autocrats' playbook by suggesting that some citizens are legitimate and others are second-class.

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Autocracy Watch Day 6: An authoritarian declares national emergencies on false pretenses

 The New York Times, NO. 6

An authoritarian declares national emergencies on false pretenses. Trump has.

Authoritarians often curtail democracy by declaring an emergency and arguing that the threat requires them to exercise unusual degrees of power.

Mr. Trump’s recent predecessors were not perfect on this issue. They sometimes declared questionable emergencies. He has gone to another level. He has used manufactured emergencies to sidestep Congress and impose tariffs, deregulate the energy industry, intensify immigration enforcement and send the National Guard into Washington. Chillingly, he has claimed that a Venezuelan gang invaded the United States to justify the killing of foreign civilians in international waters, in defiance of U.S. and international law.

The Bottom Line
Mr. Trump’s willingness to kill people without due process, through the blowing up of boats that American officials could instead stop and search, represents one of his most extreme abuses of power. It raises the prospect that he may expand the use of emergency power to other areas, including domestic law enforcement.

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Creators: SCOTUS Wants to Hear More on Chicago Troop Deployment

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
November 4, 2025

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a significant case for the future of America's democracy. In the case of Trump v. Illinois, the Court will decide whether the president can federalize and deploy the National Guard in Illinois and Chicago.

Early last month, officials in Illinois, particularly in Chicago, filed a federal lawsuit to block the federal government's plan to deploy National Guard troops within the state. A federal district court judge in the Northern District of Illinois issued a temporary restraining order on Oct. 9, 2025, prohibiting the Trump administration from federalizing and deploying the National Guard within Illinois.

In Los Angeles and Portland, federal district judges issued similar orders blocking troop deployment after determining that protests did not rise to the level of a rebellion and that local law enforcement officials currently were capable of enforcing the law, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed the orders.

The Northern District of Illinois found the Trump administration had "made no attempt to rely on the regular forces before resorting to federalization of the National Guard," and it had not contended "(nor is there any evidence to suggest) that the president is incapable with the regular forces of executing the laws."

The Trump administration argued there is "no reason to believe that courts can, or should, second-guess the President's conclusion" that military force is needed to suppress an emergency. "(T)his case," the brief argues, falls in the heartland of unreviewable presidential "discretion." According to the SCOTUSBlog, even if judicial review is permissible, the government says, a court must be "highly deferential" to the president's decision.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court's order finding insufficient evidence of a rebellion and that the administration was unlikely to succeed at trial. The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting an emergency stay to allow the Illinois deployment to proceed. The high court did not stay the order but agreed to hear the case.

With a ruling pending, the Supreme Court requested supplemental briefs from both parties on a specific legal question: how the term "regular forces" in 10 U.S.C. 12406, the law relied on by the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops, should be interpreted and how that interpretation affects the application of the law.

Congress first delegated its constitutional power to activate state militias to the president through the Militia Act of 1792. Congress renewed that delegation of authority in the Militia Act of 1795. The 1795 Act was a precursor to the Militia Act of 1903. Like Section 12406, the 1795 Act contained a predicate "invasion" condition: "(W)henever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion ... , it shall be lawful for the president of the United States to call forth such number of the militia ... as he may judge necessary to repel such invasion."

According to Democracy Docket, "The (Supreme Court's) question appears to stem from an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court by Martin Lederman, a former DOJ deputy assistant attorney general who's now a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center."

Lederman argued that "regular forces" does not refer to federal law enforcement — ICE, FBI, border patrol— but rather the armed forces within the "Department of War," formerly the Department of Defense.

Lederman noted, according to Democracy Docket, that throughout U.S. history, and specific legal history of 10 U.S.C. 12406, "regular" was often used as a shorthand for the Army — "the regulars" — as opposed to the state militias that evolved into today's National Guard.

The argument goes, since the Trump administration never sent members of the armed forces to assist ICE in Chicago, we do not know if the administration could determine that it was unable to execute federal law with "regular forces" as required by Section 12406 and "therefore lacked the authority to federalize members of the Illinois Guard, Lederman asserted."

With the Supreme Court's new briefing schedule, we can expect a decision as soon as the end of the month.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Autocracy Watch Day 5: An authoritarian defies the courts.

 The New York Times, NO. 5

An authoritarian defies the courts. Trump has started to.

Would-be authoritarians recognize that courts can keep them from consolidating power, and they often take steps to weaken or confront judges.

Mr. Trump has baldly defied federal judges on several occasions. In March, for instance, his administration ignored a federal judge’s order to turn around airplanes that were deporting migrants to El Salvador. More often, the Trump administration has engaged in gamesmanship, going around orders rather than directly disobeying them. One example: After a federal judge blocked his deployment of the Oregon National Guard, the administration moved to deploy National Guards from other states instead.

So far, Mr. Trump has defied no Supreme Court orders and has pledged not to. But the justices have too often played into his strategy by failing to stand up for lower courts.

The Bottom Line
It is a hopeful sign that he has not ignored the Supreme Court, and the court may yet block his most blatant power grabs. Still, the court’s reluctance to restrain him appears to have emboldened him to sidestep lower court orders he does not like.

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Florida executes man who raped and murdered his neighbor in 1998

 The 41st Execution of 2025

Norman Mearle Grim Jr., a Florida man convicted of raping and killing his neighbor decades ago was put to death on October 28, 2025 in a record 15th execution in Florida this year, reported CNN.

Grim was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said.

Grim, 65, was convicted of sexual battery and first-degree murder in the death of Cynthia Campbell. The victim was reported missing in July 1998, and her battered body was found in waters near the Pensacola Bay Bridge by a fisherman.

Prosecutors said Campbell had suffered multiple blunt-force injuries to her face and head that were consistent with being struck by a hammer, as well has 11 stab wounds in the chest. An autopsy revealed seven of the stab wounds penetrated her heart. Physical evidence including DNA tied Grim to her killing.

Since the US Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in 2014. Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, followed by Texas and Alabama with five each.

Two more executions are planned for next month in Florida under death warrants signed by DeSantis.

After a death warrant is signed and an execution date is set, inmates have a last chance to make appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court. But earlier this month, Grim waived any appeals.

On the day of his execution, Grim awoke at 6 a.m. and later had a meal of fried pork chops and mashed potatoes with a chocolate milkshake, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Ted Veerman. The spokesman said Grim had no visitors and did not meet with a spiritual adviser as the execution hour loomed.

A total of 40 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the United States, and at least 18 other people are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year.

Bryan Fredrick Jennings, 66, is scheduled for the state’s 16th execution on November 13. He was convicted of raping and killing a 6-year-old girl in 1979 after entering through a window and abducting her from her central Florida home.

Richard Barry Randolph, 63, is set for Florida’s 17th execution on November 20. He was convicted of the 1988 rape and fatal beating of his former manager at a Florida convenience store.

Florida’s lethal injections are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.

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Autocracy Watch Day 4: An authoritarian uses the military for domestic control

The New York Times, NO. 4

An authoritarian uses the military for domestic control. Trump has started to.

Even democracies occasionally use their militaries on home soil. The military can keep order and protect citizens after a devastating storm. In extreme and rare circumstances, troops can enforce the law when local authorities refuse to do so, as happened in the segregated South in the 1950s and 1960s.

Authoritarians use the military much more frequently and performatively — to suppress dissent, instill fear and convey supreme power. Trump deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles to crack down on protests, despite local officials’ insistence that they had the situation under control. He attempted the same in Portland, Ore., and Chicago, before being restrained by federal courts. He has also begun to treat the military as an extension of himself, firing several high-ranking officials without good reason and summoning hundreds of leaders to Virginia to listen to overtly political speeches by him and his appointees.

The Bottom Line

President Trump’s use of the military for domestic control has been limited. But his willingness to use it as he has — and his threats to expand that use, through the invocation of the Insurrection Act and with troops beyond the National Guard — is extremely worrisome.

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Autocracy Watch Day 3: An authoritarian bypasses the legislature

The New York Times, NO. 3

An authoritarian bypasses the legislature. Trump has started to.

When a democracy slides toward autocracy, the leader often finds ways to neuter the legislature, turning it into a body that rubber stamps his decisions. Congress has started down this path. The Constitution makes clear, in Article I, that Congress alone has the power of the purse. Mr. Trump is undermining this system.

His administration has violated federal law at least six times by withholding funding authorized by Congress for libraries, preschools, scientific research and more, the Government Accountability Office found. He has gutted or dismantled congressionally authorized agencies like the Department of Education and U.S.A.I.D. He has also imposed new taxes — his tariffs — without congressional approval. Since the current government shutdown began, he has used donations from billionaires to pay troops and finance the construction of a ballroom at the White House.

Some of the blame lies with the Republican leaders of Congress, who have failed to fight his power grabs. Their complicity does not change the fact that these power grabs have been illegal.

The Bottom Line
Mr. Trump has defied the Constitution by trampling on Congress’s power of the purse. In full autocracies, legislatures often formally transfer some of their authority to the executive, and some congressional Republicans have proposed such changes.

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