We are living through a remarkable period in both U.S. and world history as this Republican administration carries out a blitzkrieg assault on 250-year old building blocks of American government and governance, and global society as a whole, making major headway at transforming our fuctioning democracy into a full-on dictatorship.

While Hitler’s WWII Blitzkrieg successfully crossed borders and led to the German occupation of most of Europe, the Republican version has erased our basic constitutional frameworks, from the separation of powers to the rule of law. While whining about imagined corruption, the administration has eliminated significant barriers to corruption, from the civil service system to the federal agency inspectors general. The administration is ordering attorneys to defend baseless policy decisions, firing those who decline to lie to judges to make their cases, and then stonewalling by refusing to abide by direct court orders, while simultaneously issuing aggressive calls to impeach judges who have ruled against the administration.

The move that I fear the most is the purge underway within the branches of the U.S. military, the abrupt firing of top admirals and generals to instill fear and obedience among the ranks of those remaining, and erasing decades of institutional memory and, to an unknown degree, the traditional military commitment to the constitution. One scenario is that after successfully declaring bogus “emergencies” to justify policies that trample legal boundaries, the administration will deploy military forces within the country to enforce its dismantling of large swaths of public institutions and services. During this president’s first term, it was top military officers within his orbit that helped to rein in his most dangerous impulses. Now he’s decimating that layer of the officer corps, putting in place those answering first and foremost to his commands, legal or not.

Ditto the purge of officials within the Department of Justice, the groundless attacks on judges who follow the law instead of the administration’s directions, and the firing of senior attorneys based on personal grievances, real or imagined.

All by a convicted multiple felon who immediately pardoned hundreds of January 6 participants convicted of violent crimes.

We are living through a period in which groups of masked men in civilian clothes can assault people walking on public streets in broad daylight and take them off by force without any semblance of due process, and deliver them to foreign prisons without recourse despite being legal residents or even citizens of this country.

For perhaps the first time in my long life, I am genuinely scared about the future, of the damage being done daily to essential institutions, the assault on and attempt to rewrite history, the crippling of science and medical research, and the progressive defunding of the web of programs that have made up the public “safety net.”

Meanwhile, life at a personal and community level goes on, just as life under other dictatorships goes on despite the outrages, hardships, and personal suffering.

I’m starting to appreciate two old friends who grew up in coal mining communities with parents involved in the labor movement when communities were divided between us (coal miners and their families) and them (mine owners and their goons). Then they lived through the red scare and McCarthy Era. Even as senior citizens, David and Diva would pull the shades and lower their voices to whispers when speaking with us about politics in “what do we do now?” conversations, telling us that they didn’t want to risk delicate conversations overheard by neighbors. “Just in case,” I suppose. You never know.

I now wonder if we’re destined to go forward as a failed state.

Here’s another anecdote from a different federal courtroom, as recounted by Ben Wittes of LawfareMedia.com. His full column can be found here.

On April 3, in a courtroom in Washington, an unfortunate soul named Drew Ensign—on behalf of the Trump administration—appeared in front of Chief Judge James Boasberg to explain why someone in the government should not be held in contempt for violating the judge’s order to turn around planes deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador pursuant to the president’s proclamation under the Alien Enemies Act.

Judge Boasberg began by getting Ensign to admit certain things the administration is denying out of court:

The order in question didn’t require the release of any gang members.
It didn’t prevent the detention in immigration proceedings of any additional gang members.
It didn’t prevent the deportation of any gang members pursuant to normal immigration procedures.
In fact, the administration had done just that with respect to Tren de Aragua members.

All the temporary restraining orders did was to prevent the government from “summarily deport[ing] in-custody noncitizens who were subject to the proclamation without a hearing.”

“So if anyone in the administration continues to make statements that are contrary to what I have just said, those statements would not be truthful, isn’t that right?” the judge asked. “Those facts that we have just agreed on, they wouldn’t be true?”

Ensign responded tautologically: “Yes, Your Honor. To the extent that it’s contrary to things that are true, they would be false.”

“They would, indeed,” said Judge Boasberg.

A classic. “To the extent that it’s contrary to things that are true, they would be false.”