The government is now reacting to us: How America is flipping the script on authoritarianism
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Dear Friend,
Thank you for your continued engagement and support during another exhausting week in Trump’s America. Even for us at Lincoln Square, tracking the sheer volume of authoritarian policies enacted by the Trump administration has been a challenge. We recognize it’s even harder for the politically aware but time-constrained American public to keep up.
This week has been a perfect storm of actions deliberately designed to create overload and encourage public disengagement. To safeguard our democracy, we have a collective responsibility to communicate these events to others. When the American public is properly informed, they are empowered to take action.
How we respond to these actions is critical. How we talk about these events and how we act could mean the difference between forcing the federal government to react to us, as opposed to us reacting to what the government wants for America.
They want to normalize the fear and chaos. It’s up to us whether we will let them.
The moves we’re watching in real-time
These incidents are connected, part of a strategy to maintain control over an increasingly angry public that is actively standing up against this new wave of authoritarianism.
Indictment of Former Official: The DOJ’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey was immediately condemned by critics as an act of blatant political retribution and a grotesque abuse of presidential power following years of public demands for his prosecution.
Targeting of Political Dissent: The President issued a memorandum authorizing broad government-wide investigations into non-profits, activists, and donors under vague “domestic terrorism” labels, raising widespread concern over the chilling effect on First Amendment rights.
Betrayal of American Farmers: The administration greenlit a $20 billion bailout for Argentina while U.S. soybean exports to China have ceased due to tariffs. China is now buying from Argentina, leaving up to a third of American soybean farmers facing bankruptcy with no domestic relief.
Politicized Appointments: A career prosecutor resigned in protest following the appointment of a former White House secretary with no prosecutorial experience to a top U.S. Attorney role, citing a failure to uphold his constitutional oath.
Questionable FBI Investigations: Under Director Kash Patel, the frequent discovery of suspiciously clear evidence (e.g., engraved casings, ideological texts) explicitly linking political violence to the left has led Americans to question the trustworthiness of FBI investigations and fear the findings are being leveraged for political incitement.
Gaslighting and Framing Political Opposition: The administration is executing a coordinated strategy to frame Democrats and the political left as the primary source of organized violence, with examples including a Secretary attempting to shift blame for anti-ICE violence onto Democratic rhetoric.
Lack of Health Expertise Poses Risks: Ignoring scientific consensus, the President and HHS Secretary RFK Jr. used cherry-picked data to create a scientifically disputed link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism, then used this flawed claim to unconventionally approve an old drug for “autism symptoms” without proper clinical trials.
The Good News
When we stand up to bullies, we win. Our collective efforts prove that our resistance is effective. The government is now reacting to US, the American people. Take a look at how our actions are delivering setbacks to the administration’s authoritarian actions:
TACO Trump strangely walked back his public support for a complete takeover of Gaza and flip flopped on his support for Ukraine.
Trump and FCC Chair Carr’s attempt to gut the First Amendment using Charlie Kirk’s death as a pretext to limit free speech protections blew up in their faces.
Right-wing influencers, MAGA loyalists, and pro-democracy advocates all rose up, uniting against the attack on American rights to free speech. The public mobilized fast: boycotts and a wave of Disney+ cancellations forced ABC to listen. It’s a huge victory, capped by Sinclair Broadcasting announcing they’d resume airing Kimmel’s program. When we speak out, the impact is huge, and it worked here.
Similarly, Attorney General Bondi was instantly shut down after declaring that criticism of Trump and Kirk would be prosecuted as “hate speech.” The outrage from across the political spectrum—even from conservative pundits—was so intense that she was forced to walk back her dangerous claim.
Kristi Noem was laughed off of Twitter after accusing the pro-democracy movement of ‘dehumanizing’ ICE agents while we spent years listening to Trump dehumanize immigrants with vicious language like ‘vermin,’ ‘rapists’, ‘they’re sending only the worst.’
Americans are widely questioning the FBI investigations into the Charlie Kirk assassination and the attack on the ICE facility in Dallas. Kash Patel is becoming a joke in the rolling eyes of Americans.
The severe backlash, centered on the fact that Argentina’s subsequent actions immediately hurt U.S. soybean farmers, forced the administration to partially walk back its initial rhetoric, with the President saying “maybe Argentina doesn’t need a bailout after all.”
The administration clearly lacks the support for its actions, resorting to desperate measures to distract from scandals, like the Epstein files, and to justify deploying federal forces nationwide.
It’s Working. But We Can Do More Together
Our pushback is working. We refuse to let these tactics erode our constitutional rights or control the narrative. The administration is creating crisis after crisis and provoking conflict because they are desperate to maintain power, but their desperation is only turning the tide against them. We must keep building this resistance now—we refuse to capitulate to these threats.
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Why is this tactic so important? An informed citizenry is a powerful one. When people know the truth, they rise up….and that is exactly why Trump is working so hard to restrict what we can say about him, what we can learn about him, and what his policies are doing to America.
When Americans truly understand what’s happening, they will rise up, speak out, and take to the streets. This is the information needed to mobilize a mass movement and make the October 18 protests the biggest response to Trump’s actions yet. You have the power to help make that happen.
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Thank you for being a part of our community. Every day is a good day to resist.
Sincerely,
Lincoln Square.
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