The Mechanisms and Coordination of an Authoritarian Regime
By: Joshua Nolan
By this point, it has been 3 weeks since Trump’s inauguration, and the smoke is starting to clear on the direction Federal and State governments are taking in conjunction. All roads point to Project 2025.
While there are likely legal challenges to come against each aspect of the broad, all-encompassing plan, at least onlookers are beginning to see what specific areas of government overreach to ring the alarm bells.
The targets are clear:
Scrub any federal and state protections for Transgender care and identity
Establish a long-term quota for deportation and incarceration of predominantly Black and Brown migrant populations
Wipe away any federal support for Abortion care
Decrease our involvement in international aid programs
Intimidate any organization or state that doubles down on their support for DEI programs.
In large part, by the end of the first 100 days, many of these practices will be in place. But what is the legal standing of each of these unprecedented steps?
If reinforced with Congressional bills and Supreme Court decisions, how will they change our government’s relationship with civil rights protections and our role as policeman of the globe?
These actions show a clear intent for the consolidation of power within the Executive branch. And who’s the figure who has been coordinating much of 47’s regime change and PR(opaganda) campaign? The guy who came from Apartheid South Africa.
The Guardrails are Off: The End of Independent Agencies?
One of the biggest threats to federal enforcement of the new executive orders has been, historically, organizations such as the Department of Justice, House Oversight committee, Government Accountability Office, and others like them.
With the recent firing of inspectors general of each of the major independent agencies, Trump and Elon Musk seem to be quickly ridding themselves of any chance of reprisal within the bureaus.
There may be any number of goals achieved by these takeovers, but the only official political signals Trump has made include the intent to privatize all major bureaus.
Looking at a timeline of the data retrieval missions by Washington Post, there seems to be a pattern:
The list is currently over half the total bureaus within the executive branch, and there are recently reports that the Veterans’ Administration has been infiltrated (for lack of a better term) as well.
Notable blind spots appear to be Defense, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, and Agriculture. In terms of size and budget, it’s these are just the biggest hurdles for DOGE to jump, and would cause the most protest.
Preservation of International Hegemony
Geopolitically, Elon Musk is beginning to sway the US government to make political enemies of South Africa and any coalition that threatens Israeli control over Palestine.
While that coalition becoming known as The Hague Group grows by the day, South Africa appears to be a major originator of support to hold Israel accountable and help to establish a working and sovereign government in Palestine.
But what’s Palestine and South Africa have to do with the goals of the MAGA movement? To put it mildly, the interests of the Christian nationalist movement seem to be a key coordinator in lobbying for the benefit of Israel under Netanyahu. The preservation of US global influence rests on the submission of Palestine to the goals of Greater Israel, which top officials within the Israeli government have made clear.
The more that China, Russia, and other members of the growing economic alliance known as BRICS appear to undermine those efforts, the less solid US control over international trade grows.
South Africa’s coalition has successfully appealed to the UN and the International Criminal Court more specifically, managing to push for successful investigations leading to the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. It’s a rising geopolitical recipe to isolate the US, and it seems to be working.
Christian Nationalism, No Longer on the Sidelines?
This also poses an existential threat to the US Christian Nationalist agenda of providing diplomatic shielding for the creation of Greater Israel.
The key leaders now empowered with bureau appointments are Russel Vought, the architect of Project 2025 and currently appointed chair of the OMB; Pam Bondi, who has a mission as AG to eradicate the secular pillars of the government; and Reverend Paula White, who will head the new “Faith Office” within the executive branch.
These ingredients seem to all be writing on the wall for what’s sure to be a hostile corporate-style takeover of the government, which amounts to a bloodless coup, at least for now.
The real victims of this coup, however, appear to be the targets of ICE raids, the various queer communities, and women on a massive, precision-coordinated scale.
The more that the US isolates itself geopolitically, with the greater reliance on our position as permanent member of the UN Security Council to veto UN initiatives, the greater the stakes are rising that a real authoritarian shift becomes inevitable.
The Evangelical right, paired with the biggest consolidation of wealth in the world, just may pull it off.
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