Politics

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... and what steps civil society can take now to save democracy

PICTURE THIS: It’s March 2025, and Donald Trump is back in the White House. [...] The presidential transition was peaceful. Kamala Harris conceded defeat, Biden vacated the White House, and although there were protests around the country and sporadic clashes between protesters and counterprotesters, the nation hasn’t descended into chaos or civil war. On television, the talking heads are having a good laugh: All that talk about existential threats to democracy looks so silly in hindsight! The core institutions of American democracy are still there, same as ever.

At least, that’s how it looks from the outside. But on the inside, the norms and institutions that constitute the U.S. democracy are crumbling.

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The Democracy Futures Project organized five large-scale, nonpartisan simulation exercises. They were looking for insights into what might happen if a second Trump administration follows through on Trump’s autocratic threats.

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In one exercise, they posited a narrow Trump win and a GOP-controlled Congress; in the others [...] with a closely divided Congress. In two of the exercises [they] explore potential moves in any arena, while in the remaining three were focused on narrower issue areas: immigration, potential domestic use of the military, and how Trump might use federal regulatory, investigative, and prosecutorial powers.

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None of the simulations devolved into mass violence or civil conflict, and Team Trump found it difficult to fully execute its most ambitious plans. For instance, in one of our exercises, Trump’s efforts to detain millions of undocumented migrants floundered; the money and infrastructure for such a massive operation proved too challenging. In another, red state governors joined blue state governors in resisting efforts to federalize their national guard units and send them to quell anti-Trump protests in major U.S. cities.

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Overall, the simulations suggested that we should worry a little less about the extremes, such as mass detentions, large-scale organized political violence, or the mass-scale domestic deployment of active-duty military forces to suppress lawful protests. But our exercises also suggested that if Trump’s second administration proves more careful and competent than his first, most Americans may simply remain unaware—or aware but passive—as a quiet autocratic revolution takes place.

Imagine, for instance, something like this in spring 2025:

• On the surface, America seems stable. For nearly all Americans, life continues as usual. But at the Pentagon, top generals are being forced out for objecting to Trump’s cozy relationship with Russia and his plans to use active-duty troops to round up migrants.

• At the CIA, the Justice Department, and other agencies, civil servants are being reassigned or fired for raising concerns about the politicization of intelligence and the pressure to launch ideologically motivated investigations.

• High-profile nonprofit groups are undergoing IRS audits, forcing their senior staff to spend most of their time huddled with accountants and lawyers.

• More university presidents have resigned in the face of investigations, audits, and threats to yank federal funding over curricula and the actions of student protests.

• Meanwhile, a number of high-profile journalists are the targets of leak investigations. The owners of several major media outlets are under investigation for specious criminal tax code violations, and the FCC is considering revoking the broadcast licenses of a dozen television stations. Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, and retired Gen. Mark Milley are under investigation for allegedly mishandling classified materials.

• The nation’s streets are largely peaceful. But around the country, numerous civil servants, reporters, teachers, librarians, election officials, and other community leaders are being doxxed and threatened.

The nation’s streets are largely peaceful. But around the country, numerous civil servants, reporters, teachers, librarians, election officials, and other community leaders are being doxxed and threatened.

[...] Most people will see the writing on the wall: Speak out, and life becomes unpleasant. Your address and children’s names will be posted on social media. You’ll get a nasty letter from the IRS. Perhaps your brother’s undocumented girlfriend will go to work one day and never come home, and you won’t know if she’s been detained or deported. Your pregnant niece might be stopped by police as she drives from Texas to New Mexico, and grilled about whether she’s heading to an abortion clinic. Maybe the FBI and Homeland Security will use undercover agents—or even government surveillance capabilities—to spy on organizations from school boards to church groups, in search of “illegals,” “Christian-hating communists,” the “woke,” and other “vermin.” 

The chilling effect on our politics would be intense. Ordinary citizens would self-censor. Many federal, state, and local leaders, rightly worried about the effects on themselves and their families, will quietly step down from their roles.

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Our exercises suggested that the greatest imminent threat to democracy isn’t civil war or mass detentions but age-old human weaknesses: lack of courage and imagination; difficulty overcoming collective-action problems; our desire to hope for the best instead of planning for the worst.

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BUT SIMULATIONS DON’T PREDICT the future. On the contrary, they can serve as powerful wakeup calls, highlighting weaknesses before it’s too late to address them. Isolated and leaderless, defenders of democracy will struggle to effectively counter autocratic actions if Trump wins, but we still have time to create the communities and structures that enable people to stand firm in the face of abuses—if we start planning now.

• Isolated individuals can be doxxed, harassed, and intimidated. But well-organized groups, whether churches, unions, or networks of community activists, can provide one another with support and help ranging from money and legal assistance to communications assistance, cybersecurity support, and physical protection for those facing threats to their safety.

• At the state and local levels, governors, attorneys general, legislators, and mayors can coordinate across state and municipal lines, sharing information on how to protect their populations and enforce their laws in the face of abusive federal overreach.

• Nonprofits can start developing contingency options in case their tax-exempt status is lost. Donors can create pooled funds to move money quickly in emergencies.

• Business leaders and influential public figures can coordinate to decide on actions if various red lines are crossed. And political leaders who may find themselves on the outside can lay the groundwork for an opposition leadership structure, one in which figures as diverse as Kamala Harris, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and Barack Obama can help provide direction, coordination, and inspiration to the millions of Americans who don’t want to see the nation slide quietly into autocracy.

Rosa Brooks, who co-led the simulation project at Democracy Futures Project:

Our exercises made it clear that if we want to keep our democracy from fading away after a potential Trump win, we can’t wait until November to start organizing. There’s no deus ex machina to save us. We can’t rely on hope, and we can’t assume someone else will do the hard work while we keep our heads down.

Those much-vaunted “guardrails of democracy”? We the people are the only guardrails we’ve got.