this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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For these three reasons alone, I consider it highly likely that this regime will now abandon even the pretense of democracy and establish a true autocracy:
Nah, to I much American identity is tied to being a democracy. It'll go the way of Russia and all the "democratic people's republics", with elections and even an opposition, but the opposition will be harassed and prevented from functioning, or the vote will be manipulated, or whatever.
I'm not holding my breath. It would be great if I'm wrong, but my bingo card has the next admin proclaiming "now is the time for healing and unity, not vengeance" instead of actually enforcing the consequences that are supposed to come with actions.
They do have a history of giving clemency to those who try to destroy the will of the people so this would be a predictable outcome.
Instead of the chop chop required.
ICE doesn’t have enough competent men willing and able to pull off a coup.
They're just the backup, after all. Do you really think the military would put up a fight? Or even the police?
I do think local police would intervene if ICE were deployed to disrupt polling stations. Even national elections in the US are run locally, and the police are members of the same community as the poll workers. ICE agents are outsiders. But I don’t think it will come to that.
ICE, from the leadership on down to the agents, have shown themselves to be relatively cowardly. They hide their faces, and try to hide their presence in areas of operation as long as possible. After murdering a couple people on camera and getting major pushback, they changed leadership and have tried to keep a lower profile.
The agents themselves are the dregs of society. They are not intelligent, competent, or brave, and they don’t take good care of themselves. Most wouldn’t be fit for the military or a police force. These are not soldiers with a shared mission and the capability and determination to carry it out. They are insecure misanthropic boys. I don’t think they’d fair well if they tried to prevent normal people from voting, but I also don’t think we’ll ever find out.
I don’t think one can expect even the slightest resistance from the police in a crisis, since their leadership is largely made up of the same people who elected these crooks to the White House.
I believe the circumstances surrounding the military’s current war against Iran - a war that violates both international law and U.S. law, during which they are committing the most serious war crimes - clearly indicate that no resistance is to be expected from them either. Furthermore, all generals critical of the regime have already been removed.
In Short: Both the police and the military are led predominantly by MAGA officials who would benefit from the establishment of a dictatorship. I therefore do not think they would offer resistance in a crisis - they could do so right now given the obvious crimes the regime commits on a daily basis, but they just do not.
I think it will simply turn out however the oligarchs who actually control the U.S. decide. If they want a dictatorship modeled on the Russian one, that’s exactly what will happen.
One thing to consider: They’ve had control of the DOJ for over a year and still haven’t successfully prosecuted any of Trump’s political enemies. And not for lack of trying. For lack of spine and/or competence. Compare to Putin’s Russia, where he can have your plane blown out of the sky if he doesn’t like you.
Yes, that’s true: the methods of oppression in the U.S. are still relatively subtle at the moment. However, that doesn’t change the fact that in the U.S., too, a tiny elite exploits the country while standing above the law - a point proven by the very fact that the current president is, in fact, president rather than serving a life sentence in prison.
What I’m getting at is this: It would be easier for this elite to switch to the Russian model. I consider it likely that they intend to do so, since the current regime demonstrates on a daily basis that the most serious crimes in the US always go unpunished - so why even maintain the facade when it’s already abundantly clear that the law simply doesn’t apply to the powerful elite?
It may be that the Trump administration could get away with just about any crime at this point. But to get away with something, you still have to do it first. Stealing elections is complicated, and surely takes some level of skill, organization, and work ethic to pull off. I just don’t think they have what it takes, and time is not on their side.
Presumably, Trump would be spearheading this effort. Look at how much time he spends thinking about the ballroom. Does he seem focused on the project of seizing the reigns of power permanently?
We’ll see. One thing, however, should be quite clear: it is very unlikely that the living conditions of U.S. citizens will improve significantly, even if the status quo is maintained. The system has already been infiltrated far too deeply for that to happen. The US will therefore remain an oligarchy one way or another - living conditions will continue to deteriorate until US citizens dismantle the system, which I consider virtually impossible. The only question, then, is whether the democracy charade will continue or not, because there is truly no democracy in the U.S. where the system serves the people. The current administration merely makes this clearer than its predecessors.
Manipulating an election while making it look proper free and fair is hard, yes. However, it does not require that much skill if you just want to overthrow it and don't care about the looks, it only needs the low, local levels of bureaucracy being controlled by loyal people willing to pervert the law for the leader and the top judicuary as well and the army to stay out of it. The administration has been working on that since the start. This alone might have been the only reason why Trump's coup against Biden failed. Back then he did not have that.
That's the beauty of it. Trump (and his benefactors) learned in his first term that he needs to get rid of the "deep state", ie functioning, rule and law based, institutions, at his next attempt. The buraucracy gave too much resistance to his push for ignoring laws, ignoring elections. That is why this time his administrstion started dismantling any state institution they could the minute he came to power again. Instutions he needs functioning somewhat have been the target of rapid replacement of people. The main criterion: That the next guy does not care about law and procedures and is loyal to the leader especially when it comes to a complete overthrow of the constitution, at least functionally. That is not hyperbole btw, it's what is actually happening right now. You can guess to the next step or why this is done.
We’ll know pretty soon. They’ll have to organize it before this November, or risk losing a lot of their current power.