How NOT to Speedrun a Dictatorship

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Next Comes What

Episode: "How NOT to Speedrun a Dictatorship"

Host: Andrea Pitzer

Date: July 3, 2026

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Overview

This episode explores the failures and missteps of Donald Trump’s second administration (since January 2025) in their attempt to consolidate authoritarian power in the U.S.—especially through immigration crackdowns, clampdowns on dissent, and efforts to entrench undemocratic practices. Andrea Pitzer draws lessons from authoritarian regimes of the past to illuminate both the dangers Americans face and the reasons resistance has so far checked the most severe efforts. The central theme: dictatorships rarely succeed by moving too quickly or failing to neutralize political opposition before ramping up repression.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Initial Overreach and the Strongman's Miscalculation

• Trump and his allies assumed too much support and moved quickly to dismantle democratic norms, using Congress and the Supreme Court's compliance to their advantage.
• [00:00] Andrea Pitzer: “Sometimes you need a dictator with a supine Congress… and a Supreme Court showing near continuous deference.”
• Despite initial harm (“a shocking amount of harm since January 2025” [00:23]), the administration underestimated the power and speed of public resistance and institutional inertia.

2. History of Authoritarian Consolidation & Critical Missteps

• Pitzer, alongside a historian guest, compares Trump’s methods with historic dictatorships (Lenin’s Bolsheviks, Hitler’s Nazis): in the past, suppression of dissent always preceded mass roundups and terror.
  • [06:14] Andrea Pitzer: “Authoritarians are able to rise to power by using propaganda relentlessly against the scapegoats they've targeted.”
  • [07:24] Andrea Pitzer: “They have to end the broad ability to publicly dissent in order to establish the capacity to round people up at will.”
• Trump’s administration prematurely attempted mass detentions and crackdowns before fully neutralizing opposition, a move which backfired as “millions hit the streets” in protest [04:32].

3. Escalation of Repression and the Scale of Pushback

• Trump’s presidency focused initially on expanding immigration enforcement (e.g., ICE becoming “the single largest federal law enforcement agency” [03:43]), mass deportations, and brutalized raids, but resistance intensified—especially after highly visible violent incidents.
  • [04:49] Investigative Journalist: “It begins with one. One frog who refuses to bend the knee.”
  • [16:14] Andrea Pitzer: “Shootings and assassinations of U.S. citizens on the street… shocked the country and Americans pushed back…”

4. Intra-Administration Divisions: Ideologues vs. Mercenaries

• The presidency is divided between ideologues (like Stephen Miller pushing racist, openly violent agendas) and “mercenaries” (like JD Vance and Marco Rubio, focused more on power consolidation).
  • [13:53] Andrea Pitzer: “JD Vance and Marco Rubio seem to me to both be mercenaries without any real ideology… They seem more interested in accumulating political power."
• Ideologues acted quickly, believing in the urgency of their mission, while the “mercenaries” encouraged legalistic cover and gradualism.
  • [15:14] Investigative Journalist: “He believes that the presence of undocumented immigrants… is an urgent immediate threat on a par with 9/11 or Pearl Harbor.”

5. Legal Crackdown and Flailing Enforcement

• Administration has relied on both headline-grabbing prosecutions and more strategic legal intimidation:
  • Some cases, like the “Sandwich Guy” (protestor charged with assault for throwing a sandwich, acquitted), backfired and appeared ludicrous [18:52].
  • Others, like the prosecution of Spokane protesters for “conspiracy,” signal more targeted, dangerous tactics [20:07 – 20:53].
  • Long sentences for Texas protestors accused of supporting terrorism or making zines demonstrate a more calculated suppression of First Amendment rights [21:00].

6. Role of Courts and Media

• Lower courts have sometimes blocked or reversed administration actions, forcing recalibration.
• Meanwhile, media environments have become increasingly compromised: newsrooms are bought and gutted by Trump loyalists; anti-administration content is suppressed on social platforms owned or influenced by regime backers [24:28].

7. Current Risks and the Road Ahead

• As November elections approach, the administration is making “desperate moves” to shut down dissent, evidenced by increasingly aggressive prosecutions and attempted expansions of presidential power (e.g., Supreme Court decisions favoring executive branch).
  • [25:18] Andrea Pitzer: “Those who want to stand up for their rights will need to be more careful about protecting themselves and one another.”
• Pitzer notes that, while the administration’s incompetence and overreach have exposed their agenda, “it doesn’t mean they won't do tremendous damage while they can” [25:43].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Early Overreach:
  • [00:32] Andrea Pitzer: “But they got one thing nobody expected that what might turn out to be the most important thing.”
• Historic Perspective:
  • [07:24] Andrea Pitzer: “But traditionally they have to end the broad ability to publicly dissent in order to establish the capacity to round people up at will.”
  • [09:58] Andrea Pitzer: “Even the Nazis took five years before launching mass arrests of German Jews…”
• On Dissent and Resistance:
  • [16:14] Andrea Pitzer: “Shootings and assassinations… shocked the country and Americans pushed back… publicly shot in the back and left to die in the street without even the decency of our lawless government investigating their deaths.”
• On Prosecution Strategy:
  • [19:24] Investigative Journalist: “I am so happy that justice prevails in spite of everything happening.”
  • [21:00] Andrea Pitzer: “Targeting those who make zines is a much greater threat than those who throw sandwiches.”
• On Media Capture:
  • [24:28] Andrea Pitzer: “More and more people get their news from social media, which is also predominantly owned by Trump allies and backers…”
• On What’s Next:
  • [25:43] Andrea Pitzer: “…this is really important. That also doesn't mean we can assume that they will fail. It just means that now the possibility of success for us exists.”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Rise of Trump’s Second Administration and Initial Moves - 00:00–03:31
• Comparisons to Historical Dictatorships; Lessons - 06:08–11:34
• ICE Raids, Mass Detentions, and Pushback - 03:43–05:48, 11:34–14:08
• Internal Factions: Ideologues vs. Mercenaries - 13:07–15:14
• Protests, Legal Crackdowns, and Backlash - 16:00–21:00
• Media Control and Censorship - 24:15–25:06
• Looking Forward: Risks, Opportunities, and Advocacy - 25:06–28:46

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Action Items & Closing Arguments

Andrea Pitzer urges listeners to:

• Resist normalization of abuses; maintain public presence and solidarity.
• Support legal defense funds and on-the-ground journalism exposing repression.
• Pressure officials, attend hearings, and defend free speech.
• Stay vigilant: “It’s critical that the opposition keep pushing back on these illegal power grabs.” [26:48]

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Final Note

Pitzer concludes with a call for vigilance, collective action, and hope—acknowledging that while the regime’s overreach has exposed its intentions, its remaining time in power remains dangerous and the coming months are pivotal.

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Transcript

[Andrea Pitzer]

Today I want to look at how Trump and his allies screwed up their strategy in trying to end democracy as we know it when they assumed power last year. Sometimes you need a dictator with a supine Congress.

[Investigative Journalist]

I run the protection program. I'll take care of you.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And a Supreme Court showing near continuous deference.

[Investigative Journalist]

Thank you again. Thank you again. Don't forget so good.

[Andrea Pitzer]

They have managed to do a shocking amount of harm since January 2025.

[Investigative Journalist]

Hundreds of thousands of global deaths, possibly millions.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But they got one thing nobody expected that what might turn out to be the most important thing.

[Investigative Journalist]

We were shot wrong. Nobody can believe it.

[Andrea Pitzer]

After Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, administration officials came in, guns blazing to block Muslims from entering the country and aiming to get as many immigrants, or at least the brown skinned ones as possible out of the country as soon as they could get away with it. Resistance was quick out of the gate. In fact, so many people showed up, the protests had to move outside. Some of those looking to build institutional power for themselves or for the Republican Party, that includes some key officials as well as the courts, didn't always buy Trump's argument.

[Investigative Journalist]

All of us who are seeing these images of children being pulled away from moms and dads and tears were horrified. This has to stop.

[Andrea Pitzer]

More importantly, there was real revulsion from everyday Americans over the family separation policy. In particular, I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children. The second time Trump ran in 2016,

[Investigative Journalist]

I declared, I am your voice. Today I add, I am your warrior. I am your justice.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He seemed to want to build support for what he hadn't been able to get away with before.

[Investigative Journalist]

I am your retribution. I am your retribution.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And so he ran specifically and openly on bellicose racism and foreigner bashing. They're not Yemens, they're animals spreading calumny about refugees.

[Investigative Journalist]

We have a new form of crime. It's called migrant crime.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And lashing out at Haitians in particular.

[Investigative Journalist]

I just want to clarify here. You bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I've seen people on television, the mass deportation now placards at the Republican National

[Investigative Journalist]

Convention, you may wonder, is that where the Republican Party is today for the

[Andrea Pitzer]

last presidential election were horrific.

[Investigative Journalist]

The answer is absolutely yes.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And although he just squeaked by, he pretended he'd won in a landslide.

[Investigative Journalist]

There are several of the wealthiest men in America lined up Right behind the president while he's taking his inaugural oath.

[Andrea Pitzer]

When he returned to the presidency in January 2025, he took government by storm.

[Investigative Journalist]

Seems like it happened in another universe, but there it is, just over a year directing the slashing of jobs and programs throughout the federal government.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He smashed and dismantled much of the functioning federal apparatus.

[Investigative Journalist]

To add insult to injury, at the end of the day, Doge likely cost taxpayers $135 billion due to paid leave for federal workers, lost productivity and the costs of rehiring mistakenly fired workers while

[Andrea Pitzer]

seeking vastly larger amounts of money for armed forces that were loyal to him.

[Investigative Journalist]

He sees it as a way to bribe the officers, as a way to bribe the soldiers, such that when he tries to stay in power forever as some kind of military dictator, they will

[Andrea Pitzer]

be on his side. With a special focus on immigration law

[Investigative Journalist]

enforcement, you will see ICE now being the single largest federal law enforcement agency in the history of the nation, potentially with enough funding to hire more law enforcement agents than the FBI and more detention, potentially than the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The government started a secret police effort run like a brutal but clumsy military crackdown on immigrants nationwide.

[Investigative Journalist]

Chaos and clashes on the streets of US Cities amid intensifying ICE raids. Yo, yo, yo, yo, chill out of here, man. She's not even doing anything. She's not even doing anything.

[Andrea Pitzer]

They either thought they had already intimidated their opposition, that they could shut it down easily if dissent appeared, or perhaps that they just thought not enough people would care to make a difference. Have some of these raids gone too far?

[Investigative Journalist]

No, I think they haven't gone far enough.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And they found out that none of the above were true. Millions hit the streets on Saturday for the third time in less than a year. They got out over their skis and trying to do a massive expansion of concentration camps and put target groups in them before they had shut down their political opposition.

[Investigative Journalist]

It begins with one. One frog who refuses to bend the knee.

[Andrea Pitzer]

They have since found that that approach can't succeed in the country at this time.

[Investigative Journalist]

Who dares to say no kings, no crowns? Not here, not ever.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So today I want to what's happening right now, why it's the most dangerous moment for us in decades, and how Trump's allies are trying to course correct clamp down on dissent as they run out of time to make sure that Trump is violence and the current attempt to undo civil rights achievements and human rights in the US won't end in 2028. I've been saying now for more than a year that the administration has overshot what it could get away with for now.

[Investigative Journalist]

You almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried, did his best to cancel me. Instead he forced millions of people to watch the show that backfired bigly in

[Andrea Pitzer]

order to entrench concentration camps in society in such a way that they eclipse the legal system. Typically there are opponents and there are scapegoats.

[Historian]

The dictatorship started right after Lenin's companions took power in October 1917.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Authoritarians are able to rise to power by using propaganda relentlessly against the scapegoats they've targeted.

[Historian]

The Bolsheviks are a minority in such a huge country, and so they begin early on to use violence and coercion to strengthen their domination.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But their main obstacle in their political rule is their opposition.

[Historian]

Lenin believes that power can't be shared. The repression is based on the conviction that the new regime has the right to remove mercilessly all its opponents, called

[Andrea Pitzer]

enemies of the people. Sometimes they crush the opposition immediately before coming to power, or in the midst of seizing it, such as a coup.

[Historian]

In order to implement such terror, the Bolshevik government created in December 1917 the Cheka. The Cheka, which means extraordinary commission, is the party's sword and shield and exists and acts beyond the law.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Just as often they suppress dissent soon after taking power.

[Historian]

It's a state within the state, with its own network of informers, special troops and intelligence services. In short, a political police of more than 200,000 people.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But traditionally they have to end the broad ability to publicly dissent in order to establish the capacity to round people up at will.

[Historian]

Following an attack Against Lenin on 30 August 1918 by an anarchist, the Checker is in charge of implementing the Red Terror. The number of victims of the Red terror of autumn 1918 is estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 people.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But when Trump came back to power this time, the US had already learned to tolerate roundups of a group of people. The larger population had acclimated to being removed from society and even from the country.

[Investigative Journalist]

Look, under President Obama, I was the head of enforcement removal operations. When I was there, we overs removal of just shy 3 million illegal aliens.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It was already acceptable to target immigrants for violence.

[Investigative Journalist]

Now I'm the I'm borsar under President Trump. I have a direct report to the President.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So they charged ahead and upped the ante, turning targeted arrests into mass operations to terrorize immigrant communities outside churches, in hospitals, or even for people showing up to court mandated hearings.

[Investigative Journalist]

The overwhelming force and heavily armed agents storming work workplaces. I think that's a really new and kind of uncharted territory.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Masked men sees adults, pregnant women, children. But this was unusual in the history of concentration camps.

[Investigative Journalist]

The vast majority of the amendments in the Bill of Rights are being trampled right now. In Minnesota.

[Andrea Pitzer]

When there is a coup or an immediate collapse into civil war after an authoritarian seizure of power, the mass detention will sometimes begin overnight.

[Investigative Journalist]

The First Amendment includes the right of freedom of speech, but outside of those

[Andrea Pitzer]

examples, when a country wants to present itself as the continuity of steadiness and law and order authority, the second Amendment

[Investigative Journalist]

gives people the right to possess firearms consistent with state and local laws. Alex Preddy was doing that.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The era of street sweeps in broad daylight tends to take place well after an initial period of entrenchment.

[Investigative Journalist]

This is a critical moment for the second Amendment community, for the people who are honestly motivated by the right of self defense and not crazy extremist stuff, but honestly motivated by that to come together with the First Amendment community, with the aclu, with the civil rights community to stand up for American rights across the board.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And as I've said on here before, even the Nazis took five years before launching mass arrests of German Jews that targeted whole communities.

[Investigative Journalist]

While his supporters formed paramilitary groups and fought protesters in the streets, Hitler raised fears of a communist uprising and argued that only he could restore law and order.

[Andrea Pitzer]

They spent the first two years of the Third Reich solidifying their political power, establishing a dictatorship and sending their political opponents into exile camps or an early grave.

[Investigative Journalist]

Dachau was established by Heinrich Himmler March 21, 1933, an entire six years before the start of World War II. In the times before the war, the prisoners consisted mainly of the German people, enemies of the regime, along with the clergy and Jews.

[Andrea Pitzer]

After seizing power in 1917, the Bolsheviks in Russia likewise had to seal military control of Russia.

[Historian]

During the summer of 1918, the first concentration camps called Konzlager, a name derived from German, are created. They are here to protect the Soviet Republic against its so called enemies and

[Andrea Pitzer]

spend years after that war had ended, squashing their political opposition before the Gulag could be established and entrenched, holding anyone they wanted to round up.

[Historian]

The concentration camps are managed by the Cheka and gather people that have been arbitrarily arrested because they belonged to a category the regime didn't like. Upper class nobles, social dangerous elements.

[Andrea Pitzer]

All of this is not to suggest that the Trump administration ignored dissent entirely in the year and a half since January 2025, that would not be true at all. Attorney General Pam Bondies ordered the FBI to compile a list of what the Justice Department is calling domestic terrorist organizations. But officials seem to think that they could make terrorizing immigrants and mass detention on the basis of ethnicity their main focus, while conducting more of a drive by attack on those speaking up about ICE detention.

[Investigative Journalist]

Amid the protests, the masked and heavily armed federal agents, sometimes backed by the military, had also arrested hundreds of US Citizens, routinely portraying them as domestic terrorists or extremists.

[Andrea Pitzer]

They tried to do this through haphazard cases against protesters that would make it clear that anyone who registered their objections to mass roundups, the denial of due process, and concentration camps for immigrants would wind up targeted, too.

[Investigative Journalist]

With my colleagues at ProPublica and Frontline, we analyzed the arrests of more than 300 protesters and bystanders caught in the crackdown. While there have been some successful prosecutions, over and over, cases have been falling apart, contradicted by video evidence and witness testimony.

[Andrea Pitzer]

How did this happen? I think it was because you kind of have a split camp in the Trump administration. In the second administration, you have amoral con men, grifters, and you also have the profoundly racist white supremacists.

[Investigative Journalist]

You have a right to want a country that is of, by, and for Americans and only Americans.

[Andrea Pitzer]

To be clear, several officials belong to both categories, including the President himself. We know that Trump is falling asleep at meetings and barely there. But at the next level down from Trump, one priority or the other tends to dominate. There's somebody who is actually calling all the shots here, and his name is Stephen Miller. As an ideologue, Stephen Miller's priority is the racist and ethnic purging of the country.

[Investigative Journalist]

Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash? We have plenty of janitors,

[Andrea Pitzer]

while JD Vance and Marco Rubio seem to me to both be mercenaries without any real ideology.

[Investigative Journalist]

Vice president's involved in everything and he's been great. And Marco has been really, I think you're born for this job.

[Andrea Pitzer]

They seem more interested in accumulating political power, a long term authoritarian project.

[Investigative Journalist]

What I worry about is when people say you can't ever do immigration enforcement. And if it produces a bad video clip, what they're really saying is you can't ever actually do immigration enforcement.

[Andrea Pitzer]

In both cases, the end vision is similar, but how to get there is different.

[Investigative Journalist]

I don't think you should ever run for another officer. I don't think you should really. You're so good at this. He is so good and everybody likes him.

[Andrea Pitzer]

While they seek to maximize political power, the mercenaries often encourage using legal tools and couching their true ambitions. The New York Times is reporting Vice President J.D. vance wanted to use the Insurrection act to respond to escalating ICE protests in Minneapolis last January that would have allowed the federal government to use the military against demonstrators. The true believers, on the other hand, say exactly what they mean and they're ready to spend all their political capital today foaming at the mouth and leaning directly into the violence of their project.

[Investigative Journalist]

He believes that the presence of undocumented immigrants in this country and really of anyone who doesn't conform to his image of Americans is in an urgent immediate threat on a par with 9, 11

[Andrea Pitzer]

or Pearl harbor coming out of the gate. On the second Trump administration, the ideologues won.

[Investigative Journalist]

These people chose to invade us.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Think of Stephen Miller and Gregory Bevino, the chief Border Patrol agent who led and encouraged so much violence in Chicago and Minneapolis before being pushed out.

[Investigative Journalist]

Bavino defended the officer who killed her. A 4,000 pound missile is not something anyone wants to face, especially in a split second decision making process in a very already inhospitable environment. Hats off to that ICE agent.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But resistance rose too quickly and too steeply in the face of the ideologues operations.

[Investigative Journalist]

This past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis. Well, they picked the wrong city.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Shootings and assassinations of U.S. citizens on the street as part of a deliberately violent project carried out by immigration and enforcement agents shocked the country and Americans pushed back, publicly shot in the back

[Investigative Journalist]

and left to die in the street without even the decency of our lawless government investigating their deaths.

[Andrea Pitzer]

When the move came to expedite the expansion of detention by co opting existing warehouses.

[Investigative Journalist]

Less than one week after the purchase of this massive warehouse was formally announced, hundreds of Salt Lake individuals showing up to show out and give their opinions about what they think about this deal.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Every people also push back tremendously against the plan to put the next deco in their backyard. The agency plans to offload several warehouses. The reporter of the story posted on X the locations, some in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the one in Salt Lake City. Lower level courts have been backing immigrant rights in many cases during the second Trump administration, demanding due process.

[Investigative Journalist]

Another move making headlines. A federal judge blocking ICE arrests at immigration court hearings.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And in the wake of brutal policies and the economic effects of an inane war launched on Iran, Donald Trump has also become phenomenally unpopular, which further fuels dissent. Some angry fans posting Trump cursed the Knicks sharing video of the president appearing to nod off during the game. As a result, the ideologues have lost some of their control over the current priorities for the Trump administration. They have been forced to recalibrate. It's clear that the administration moved too quickly, thinking that political victory meant a majority of US Citizens were somehow behind their platform of hate and violence. They seem to be realizing that they overshot their mark. They've been trying to prosecute people from

[Investigative Journalist]

the Beginning, of course, NSPM 7 directs the FBI to go through its past half decade or so of intelligence on Antifa and on some of these other groups I've been talking about, and tells them to make criminal cases around those and to circulate intelligence about it.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Think of the arrest of Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ross Baraka at Delaney hall in May 2025. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is calling for the immediate closure of the private immigration detention facility. Think of the Broadview Six in Chicago who were charged over a demonstration last September.

[Investigative Journalist]

Yeah, the Broadview 6 is really the most egregious example of misconduct by the U.S. attorney's office that we've seen in terms of the misconduct in front of the grand jury.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Then, of course, there's the sandwich guy from last August. He's become a symbol for some of D.C. s resistance to federal law enforcement in the city. But even those prosecutions were too ambitious. About an hour ago, a jury found the man known as DC's sandwich guy not guilty of a misdemeanor assault. They haven't yet stealed a dictatorship in any way that would let them jail, for instance, elected officials over free speech. And with the guy charged over throwing a sandwich, the prosecution was neither valid nor strategic.

[Investigative Journalist]

I am so happy that justice prevails in spite of everything happening.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Even bringing the case made them look like idiots and would not help them going forward.

[Investigative Journalist]

And that night I believe that I was protecting the rights of immigrants.

[Andrea Pitzer]

There are no brigades of people throwing sandwiches. But some other attempts at prosecution undertaken in the same window have been more targeted, more successful, and more dangerous. We end today's show with President Trump's escalating crackdown on First Amendment rights. Three Spokane, Washington, protesters who were alleged to have blocked a bus transferring immigrant detainees.

[Investigative Journalist]

There was a Facebook post by the former president of the Spokane City Council about two Venezuelan migrants who were going to be, according to him, unlawfully deported,

[Andrea Pitzer]

were convicted of conspiracy and are awaiting sentencing with possible jail sentences of up to six years and fines of a quarter million dollars.

[Investigative Journalist]

A federal judge ended up freeing one of those migrants, saying his arrest was unconstitutional. A number of demonstrators showed up. Bajan was one of them. He went home. He was going about his life. And then a month later, the FBI showed up at his door and a number of other demonstrators and arrested them for conspiracy.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And when some protesters turned to vandalism and one fired a weapon after a policeman drew a gun last year, several others, at least some of whom had left the scene earlier when told to disperse, were charged with material support for terrorism in Texas over their production of zines. A group of protesters received unusually long sentences after the Justice Department accused them of being members of the far left movement. Antifa sentences of 30 to 100 years were handed down last week, longer than the harshest sentence handed down to any of the convicted rioters in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol in 2021. Targeting those who make zines is a much greater threat than those who throw sandwiches. Working to try to link nonviolent protesters legally to those who commit violence is a much more strategic approach to suppressing dissent. Sympathetic judges giving maximum sentences along with lectures about eradicating free speech, I expect we're going to see more of that. We're seeing a broader attempt at intimidation as well. Trump has launched a campaign against the supposed saboteurs of the reflecting pool on the National Mall, claiming citations and arrests. If anyone attacks any of them, they get as much as 10 years in jail, though it seems clear that the bulk and perhaps the entirety of the damage to the pool was inflicted by the very contractor that Trump had hired.

[Investigative Journalist]

We've never done a pool, but the water is relatively the same as the water that you would see out in a regular lake somewhere, right?

[Andrea Pitzer]

And earlier this week, we learned about a father recently stalked more or less by the FBI and tracked down at a hotel over an angry letter he had sent in January that threatened no violence.

[Investigative Journalist]

She said, why are you looking for my husband? And the agent said he may or may not have sent an email threatening the director of ice.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Poll worker Paige Lynn Ghania in Minnesota found herself ordered to take down a five month old Instagram post on social media criticizing the killing of Renee Goode and naming her shooter. They told me if I didn't take it down, I could face state and federal prosecution.

[Investigative Journalist]

And I'm leaving it up because I

[Andrea Pitzer]

am firm on my right of free speech. And what they are claiming I did does not fall under the definition of doxxing. To be clear, when I talk about this shift of emphasis toward public intimidation of protesters by the federal government, I'm not talking about something entirely coordinated. It's partly intentional. As with some prosecutions and Certainly, as with the removal of Bovino, the US

[Investigative Journalist]

Border Patrol commander at large has been demoted amid the fallout. Greg Bevino would quickly be dismissed.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It's also that goals for some people, such as prosecutors, begin to shift when those early efforts fail. And it's partly that authoritarian systems develop their own momentum as they manage to further degrade democracy and coalesce. We've seen an example of the latter. With censorship increasing in the US major news institutions, one after the other, have been bought and gutted or diminished by owners who now pay fealty to Trump.

[Investigative Journalist]

The most prestigious television journalists in the country who work all for 60 minutes are coming out and saying there was bias that they were trying to inject behind the scenes on my show. And that is why I have to get out of here.

[Andrea Pitzer]

More and more people get their news from social media, which is also predominantly owned by Trump allies and backers. Algorithms downplay political or anti administration content. And at legacy outlets, stories honestly describing what is happening in the country are harder and harder to get produced or printed. So going forward, I expect to see a more aggressive assault on free speech overall, and particularly charges involving any ties to physical presence at demonstrations and protests.

[Investigative Journalist]

A show of support outside federal court today, while inside more than a dozen people pleaded not guilty to federal charges. They're accused of conspiring to violently oppose law enforcement during the ICE surge.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Those who want to stand up for their rights will need to be more careful about protecting themselves and one another. If you read the charges that people are receiving that, then you're gonna have to arrest all of us, you know, because we've all kind of done some of these things in support of our community. My sense is that in the midst of war and rising economic chaos, it is too late for Trump and his allies to correct their too early unleashing of their ideologues by becoming more strategic because they've already given away the game about what they're up to and because they're incompetent. But that doesn't mean they won't do tremendous damage while they can, and that also, this is really important. That also doesn't mean we can assume that they will fail. It just means that now the possibility of success for us exists. The administration's best hope for continuing their gruesome atrocities and campaign against everyday people is to shut down dissent before the November elections. Mr. Attorney General, when it comes to these, these violent groups, the President has said that he wants these groups to be investigated. Can we expect to see more accountability? There's a good chance that if Blanche is confirmed, we're going to see some big shifts once again.

[Investigative Journalist]

You see what's happening on TV in New Jersey. You saw it in Minnesota. This, that's not who we are. Those are not peaceful protests.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So these next four months are likely to reveal even more desperate moves from Trump's allies. It's critical that the opposition keep pushing back on these illegal power grabs. And this week we saw the Supreme Court try to expand Trump's authority over executive branch agencies. The court upended 91 years of its own precedent, which is no small feat. And this is going to fundamentally reshape the way that presidents have power. Yet even with the allowances that they are making almost as quickly as they can find cases to do, so much of what the president is doing is still illegal. The corruption continues to expand daily. Here's a guy who dumps, you know,

[Investigative Journalist]

tens of billions of dollars into a Trump family cryptocurrency firm, the securities and Exchange Commission, then mysteriously halts its fraud

[Andrea Pitzer]

investigation and settles with the guy who just gave the Trump family all the money. So keep resisting all this, becoming normal. President Trump reported more than $1 billion in income from his family's crypto ventures last year. Show up for one another. Give to legal defense funds such as the one on chuft for the 15 anti ice organizers recently arrested in Minneapolis. Pressure your elected officials to speak on behalf of those detained, whether they're immigrants, protesters, or both. Support publications that report on the rising oppression with real shoe leather reporting on the ground about what is going on, who's getting arrested, who's getting charged, who's getting detained. Speak out with friends and family at public hearings, online and in person, and at demonstrations to show that the right to do so isn't negotiable and won't be surrendered. Thanks for listening to Next comes what? Please share this with one person who's

[Historian]

looking for ways to survive this mess.

[Andrea Pitzer]

To support this podcast, please become a paid [e-mail] and consider giving Next Comes what? A five star review where you get your podcasts and that's it.