The purpose of The Democracy Index is to keep you apprised of the state of our democracy. So much has come at us from every direction this week that it’s a true challenge to distill what’s happening into what you need to know. If the chaos feels overwhelming, remember, that’s their plan. Fight back by getting the information you need, right here, every week.
The public pageantry this week was punctuated by Donald Trump’s interminable address to Congress. Trump spewed grievances, insults, and lies for more than an hour-and-forty minutes. As we have come to expect in these highly partisan times, Congressional Republicans actively participated in the charade.
Congressional acquiescence to Trump is the throughline of the dangerous actions of the Trump Administration that we believe is most crucial to understanding the damage Trump is doing to democracy this week. The White House has all but mandated a loyalty test for Republicans. Trump is trying to absorb congressional power and, instead of fighting back, Republicans are permitting him to roll right over them. As one unnamed senior Trump Administration official said, “It’s pass-fail. You either support everyone or you don’t. The Senate needs to advise and consent, not advise and adjust.”
The Republican-controlled Congress has remained supine as their Article I powers are eroded, allowing the Trump White House to trample over constitutional guardrails.
We quickly caught wind of the collective Congressional shrug when the GOP agreed to confirm the President’s manifestly unqualified nominees — including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
We’ve watched as Congressional Republicans ignored what was happening while Trump and Elon Musk used DOGE to try to shutter multiple agencies such as USAID created and funded by Congress; and, as you’ll recall, the Administration fired inspectors general without cause and without giving 30 days’ notice to Congress, as required by law.
The world has watched the GOP Congress’s acquiescence since the United States’ about-face on Ukraine. After Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, the Trump Administration halted military aid to Ukraine and implemented an aid freeze which includes intelligence sharing used to target longer-range missile strikes inside Russia. Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to stop offensive cyberoperations against Russia, against national security experts’ advice. Republican senators — who happily met with Zelenskyy just before Trump’s meeting last Friday, and until this point have been ardent supporters of Ukraine’s cause — have grown eerily silent; or, in the case of Senator Lindsey Graham, have embarrassingly flip-flopped. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, until a month ago a strong hawk on Ukraine, sank glumly into the Oval Office couch as the meeting with Zelenskyy imploded, then harshly attacked the Ukrainian president while defending Trump and Vance. And, in an especially spineless move, Senator Roger Wicker (MIS) deleted a supportive picture he had posted with Zelenskyy that day. Republican senators remained silent after Trump halted the aid to Ukraine they had voted for.
Worrisome as all that is, it is merely the prelude to the fundamental assault on Congressional authority the Trump Administration is poised to wage. Trump, and his Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought (one of the main architects of Project 2025), are planning to take direct aim at Congress’s power of the purse. The Trump White House intends to assert impoundment — that is, refusing to spend money that Congress appropriated without Congressional approval, even though that is not a power that has been granted to the Executive Branch by the constitution or Congress. In spite of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and Supreme Court precedent affirming that the president does not have unilateral authority to do this, the White House has already started impounding funds — and promises to ramp up.
Congress’s next biggest test may be Trump’s expected Executive Order to end the Department of Education, which has been threatened this week. If Congress cedes its Article I power to allow the agency to fold, the Republican Party will be fully clearing the path for Trump to adopt the very monarchical power grab the Framers sought to prevent.
The lack of a congressional check is not just dangerous to our democracy in concept. It has produced concerning consequences. It is a green-light for Trump to obliterate the rule of law, the Constitution, and any check on its power.
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has taken advantage of that license, barreling forward recklessly, especially when it comes to health and public safety.
With a measles outbreak increasing, Kennedy eschewed forthright leadership, instead fostering confusion by ultimately recommending cod liver oil and Vitamin A supplements over vaccination as a remedy for measles (though he has also acknowledged the vaccine as being effective).
Kennedy also rolled back a major half-century old rule, the Richardson Waiver, which required HHS regulations related to property, loans, grants, benefits, and contracts to go through the formal rulemaking process. His actions eradicated a crucial mechanism for transparency and accountability through public comment and notice.
An internal National Cancer Institute memo indicated the NCI would not attend the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research.
The NIH has been thrown into chaos due to its overhaul, casting doubt on how exactly this administration intends to keep the country at the forefront of global medical research, or whether it even wants to.
CDC firings have affected public health training programs at the already underfunded state and local levels.
The backbone of effective weather forecasting has been undercut by NOAA firings. Inaccurate weather forecasting could affect public safety on a sweeping scale, including having a huge impact on flight safety.
The weaponization of DOJ remains a fundamental threat to the rule of law and our country’s fair administration of justice.
A new DOJ memo suggests that immigration judges can be stripped of civil service protections if they don’t rule the “right” way.
The top agent at New York’s FBI field office was forced out of his job after supporting agents who did not want to turn over the names of the January 6th investigators.
Acting U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. Ed Martin demoted several senior supervisors who had worked on January 6th cases.
Martin is using his position to prove his loyalty to the President. After threatening last week to prosecute Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (an effort that has been stymied, so far, by others at DOJ), Martin sent a threatening letter to Georgetown Law School, asking “if DEI is found in your courses or teaching in anyway [sic], will you move swiftly to remove it?” and informing the school that the DOJ will not hire anyone affiliated with the school if it does “teach and utilize DEI.” This attempt to intimidate a private university and dictate its curriculum was met with a forceful response by the law school’s dean, condemning "the constitutional violation behind this threat" and "the attack on the University's mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.”
No less concerning, Trump and Bondi loyalists are making a bid to take over the D.C. Bar. Bondi’s brother Brad Bondi is running for President, and acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s chief deputy Alicia Long is running for Treasurer. If installed, these two could use their positions of power to both attack law-abiding members of the Bar and to protect Trump allies from sanctions.
It’s all part of the dangerous, mob-like approach to governance we highlighted last week — using the law as a cudgel to help friends and attack foes.
Yet, none of this is inevitable. Congress, in particular, enjoys extraordinary powers under the Constitution, from oversight to legislation. It’s not too late for them to use it and stand for the system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers created. And an even more powerful group is waking up: the voters. The strength of this democratic groundswell is reflected by Republican leaders’ evident fear, as the GOP is now directing its members to stop holding town halls. In this moment, it’s increasingly up to everyday Americans to demand that their representatives stay true to their oath to “support and defend the Constitution.”
Until next week,
The Democracy Index team
Citizens in GOP districts where cowardly representatives refuse to do Town Hall Mtgs should set up their own well-publicized and videoed mtgs, using a classic 'empty chair' in place of their absent representative. Demand facts, answers, and accountability - and invite news coverage.
It was at once revolting, and yet somehow hilarious, to watch the Republican response to that weird, rambling rant Trump performed before a joint session of Congress the other night.
Were they going for a North Korean vibe? Nuremburg? Or something closer to GOP hearts--a Russian vibe?
As the Republicans whooped and fist-bumped and howled and giggled and swooned and cheered the president's lies and inanities, I was reminded of other moments in history, some of them captured in grainy black-and-white.
Consider the spectacle of Soviet deputies, and their curious practice of performative listening whenever Stalin spoke.
Each deputy was desperate to seem more entranced, more adoring, more enraptured, and above all more loyal, than all the others.
It was a sort of competition. Who could laugh the hardest when Stalin wanted laughter? Who could applaud the longest when he expected applause? Who could roar the most ferocious approval when he expressed his bloody-minded madness and told his bloody-minded lies?
Any sign of disloyalty--even just a lack of sufficient enthusiasm--could doom a man. Having betrayed so many of their comrades in order to stay in Stalin's good graces, each deputy lived in constant fear that he himself would be betrayed.
They were afraid for good reason. In an authoritarian state run by a madman, informers abound. When they run out of other people to inform on, they inform on each other. Even a whisper of disloyalty is enough to finish a man
It was true in the USSR. Now it's true in the USA as well. We see it every day as Republican Senators stumble over each other (and trample their constituents, and shred their constitution) to show their absolute, cult-like adoration for the most unfit man ever to occupy the Oval Office.