America Is It Too Late To Stop The
Well, that didn’t take long.
On Jan. 20, Donald Trump took the oath as America’s 47th president, having teased on the 2024 campaign trail that, if elected, he would be “dictator,” but only for “one day.” Trump kept the first part of his promise — but not the second. Now, some ten months into unprecedented anti-democratic turmoil, serious observers have concluded that the American democratic experiment that began with our 1776 Declaration of Independence (from rule by Kings) is closer to failure than the public realizes.
“I never thought I’d see fear spread so far and fast,” Oxford University historian Timothy Garton Ash — an enlightened internationalist who once warned of the dangers of then-East Germany’s dreaded Stasi secret police — wrote in the Guardian in September. If the Democrats fail to win back the House of Representatives in the 2026 congressional elections (an uncertain proposition, considering their present disorientation), Ash warned that it may be too late to stop the dictatorial rot in the 2028 presidential election.
It’s nigh impossible to explain the seriousness of Trump’s assaults on democratic norms in one paragraph.
Congress has been politically castrated. Once-proud law firms have knuckled under, promising to devote millions of dollars of free legal counsel to reactionary causes the president favors. Intrepid federal judges who have bravely upheld the rule of law have been demonized (and ignored) — while the Supreme Court has been cowering. Trump (like Russia’s Putin) has well-heeled, unscrupulous corporate allies. Formerly fiercely independent news organizations have paid Trump millions of dollars to settle (frivolous) libel lawsuits. Violent thugs who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6 have been set free, while their dedicated Justice Department prosecutors have been fired.
The previous lump of a paragraph is only emblematic of many moves to undermine our democracy’s institutions. Actions that have been well-organized, Stasi-style.
Our national security organizations are running amok. Reuters’ Washington bureau reported on Oct. 20, convincing details of how “a group of dozens of officials from across the federal government, including U.S. intelligence officers, has been helping to steer President Donald Trump’s desire for retribution against his perceived political enemies.”
The two key figures in Trump’s “Interagency Weaponization Working Group,” operating since May, are Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Other officials come from the CIA, FBI, and other federal agencies, ranging from the Defense and Homeland Security departments to the IRS and more. Their goal: Divert law enforcement- and intelligence tools to dismantle the so-called Deep State. They are operating under the authority of an executive order that Trump signed — you guessed it: on his January inauguration day.
Meanwhile, exactly what are the spooks investigating? American (non-partisan, professional) intelligence officers who participated in preparing soundly documented reports from the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies that explained how Russian intelligence operatives had worked to support Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
One would think commendations would be more appropriate for dedicated CIA officers who did their jobs honorably. Not to mention Tulsi Gabbard’s bizarre idea to prosecute former President Barack Obama for “treasonous” activities!
As a former congressional investigator whose portfolio included probing untoward politicization of intelligence agencies in the 1960s and 1970s, the weaponization group’s leadership by DNI Gabbard, and the involvement of CIA officials, raise red flags: U.S. intelligence officials — unlike, say, their Russian counterparts, who historically have been tasked with clamping down on domestic dissent — are supposed to gather foreign intelligence, not spy on Americans. Stay tuned for expected further revelations.
Meanwhile, in their day jobs, Gabbard and her counterpart at the CIA, Director of Central Intelligence John Ratcliffe, have been fumbling and our allied foreign intelligence partners are paying attention. These partners had respected and benefited from our longstanding reputation for producing and analyzing high-quality intelligence products. “Speak truth to power” was America’s original contribution to the craft of intelligence.
In a sharp turnaround, according to numerous credible public reports, American intelligence is no longer trusted by our most important intelligence-sharing allies. And they are not waiting in hope that things will change anytime soon. The Dutch military and civil intelligence services have curtailed the sharing of certain information with the US over fears that the “Trump administration could use it to violate human rights or assist Russia” and concerns about the possible “politicization of their intelligence.”
The intelligence services of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, and other key allies have reason to fear that, with Trump’s crowd in power, any secrets they might share with Washington could end up in the Kremlin — or on Trump’s Truth Social.
Is it too late to stop the “rot?”
Clearly, our allies are already preparing for the worst, as we lurch towards next November’s congressional election amid America’s political dysfunction.
Greg Rushford is a former congressional aide who conducted intelligence oversight, and a former Washington journalist. He is a member of The Steady State.
Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 340 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.