The Authoritarian Playbook: Three Years Later, the Warning Lights Are Flashing Red
By Lawson Brooks III
Intersection DC — October 2025
Three years ago, I wrote an essay titled “The Disturbing Similarities Between Germany in the 1930s and America in the Era of Trump.” I argued then that the MAGA movement’s rise echoed the conditions that allowed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to seize control of Germany: economic fear, social resentment, and a systematic dismantling of democratic norms.
At the time, some readers found the comparison provocative—alarmist, even. They assured themselves that “it can’t happen here.” But as we approach the end of 2025, that comforting illusion is harder and harder to maintain. We are no longer in the warning phase. We are in the throes of an attempted democratic breakdown.
In 2022, my premise was that Trump had borrowed from Hitler’s playbook: demonize the press, scapegoat minorities, exploit economic anxiety, and convert grievance into power. I wrote that the MAGA movement was less a political faction than a proto-authoritarian cult, intent on capturing and corrupting every institution that stood between it and total control.
Three years later, those observations feel less like commentary and more like prophecy fulfilled. What we’ve witnessed since 2022 is a sustained campaign to erode the rule of law and remake the presidency into an instrument of personal vengeance.
The 2025 iteration of Trumpism no longer hides its intentions. From the public embrace and implementation of Project 2025, an openly authoritarian policy blueprint, to the rhetoric of “retribution” and “total immunity,” the agenda is clear: dismantle checks and balances, neutralize the judiciary, and punish political opposition through state power.
And while the faces of the movement still wear red hats, its spirit is far darker. The myth of democratic coexistence is fraying, replaced by the drumbeat of permanent grievance. We are witnessing what historians of the Weimar Republic described as “normalization through decay”—the process by which people adjust to outrage, accept the unacceptable, and treat institutional sabotage as politics as usual.
Authoritarianism rarely announces itself with tanks in the streets, but when forces, from federalized National Guard troops to ICE agents, are dispatched into predominantly Democratic-run cities against local wishes, it signals something just as ominous: a government daring the public to object.
Consider what has unfolded in recent years:
Judicial capture has accelerated. Federal courts—once the last refuge for constitutional restraint—are now stocked with ideologues who view loyalty to a leader as more sacred than loyalty to the law.
Legislative paralysis has become an asset, not a liability. Congress, led by Republican majorities in both houses, has normalized gridlock and, like true cultists, enables executive overreach through inaction.
The Department of Justice, once a symbol of impartial justice, faces the prospect of being weaponized as a political enforcement arm.
Civic education has been all but erased. The corporate media, business titans, and elite universities have been brought to their knees in submission to power.
State and local education systems and school boards are being purged of discordant voices.
This is not a coincidence. It is a strategy.
When citizens are too confused, too exhausted, or too distracted to resist, authoritarians thrive. That’s why Trump’s greatest victory has not been electoral—it’s psychological. He has convinced millions of Americans that truth is relative, that corruption is strength, and that democracy itself is a partisan scam.
In the wake of the January 6 insurrection, we saw temporary prosecutions, fleeting condemnations, and empty promises of “never again.” But the truth is that the forces unleashed that day never left. They rebranded, regrouped, and re-armed—waiting for the signal. That signal came this year.
When right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was killed in a politically charged incident, the MAGA machine immediately weaponized the tragedy. Without evidence, Trump and his allies painted it as proof of a left-wing “war on patriots.” Within hours, extremist channels were calling for “revenge,” echoing the strategy of manufacturing martyrs to justify violence. Experts now warn of a “vicious spiral” of retaliatory political attacks—a descent into what political scientists call anocracy, the gray zone between democracy and dictatorship.
The most chilling development has been the normalization of intimidation. From armed protesters surrounding state capitols to online death threats against judges and legislators, the message is unmistakable: loyalty will be rewarded, dissent will be punished. That is not democracy. It is coercion in the guise of freedom.
The information ecosystem that once informed citizens now manipulates them. Disinformation flows from social media feeds into cable news, then into the mouths of elected officials, and finally into policy. Lies about immigrants, crime, and “rigged elections” are no longer campaign rhetoric—they are governing principles.
The effect has been corrosive. Millions now inhabit alternate realities where truth depends on tribal affiliation. In those spaces, there is no shared moral universe, no common set of facts—only enemies and allies. This collapse of a shared reality is how authoritarian regimes maintain power without overt violence. When citizens cannot agree on what’s real, they cannot unite to resist what’s wrong.
The courts were once the last bulwark against democratic collapse. But even that institution is teetering as the guardians have morphed into collaborators. A neutered Supreme Court has allowed voter suppression, weakened civil rights protections, and declined to enforce clear ethical standards among its own members. Lower courts, populated with partisan appointees, have enabled gerrymandering and curtailed reproductive rights under the pretense of “states’ rights.”
The lesson for aspiring autocrats is simple: you don’t need to burn down the courthouse if you can own the judge. In 2025, America’s version of that threat comes cloaked in executive orders and judicial interpretations that hollow out rights from within. The method is quieter—but the result could be just as devastating.
And yet, amid the despair, there is resistance. The No Kings movement, which began as a series of campus rallies and city-wide protests, has become the largest pro-democracy mobilization since the civil rights era. Over the summer and more recently this month, millions of Americans marched in more than two thousand cities, carrying signs that read “We the People Are Not Subjects.”
These demonstrations, overwhelmingly peaceful, represent more than outrage. They are a reminder that democracy, while fragile, is still alive. They echo the courage of past generations who faced their own tyrants, from Bull Connor to Joseph McCarthy.
But protests alone will not save the Republic. The authoritarians are counting on fatigue. They know that outrage burns fast and cools quickly. Sustaining a resistance movement requires something less glamorous but more enduring: organization. As one protester told a reporter during the October marches, “We don’t just need a moment—we need a movement that outlasts theirs.”
History is full of people who thought they could outwit or outwait authoritarianism. Many German elites in 1933 believed they could “control” Hitler once he was in power. They saw him as a clown, a populist useful for breaking the left and taming the masses. Within a year, he controlled them instead.
Since his return to power, many Americans outside the MAGA fold have made the same mistake — believing the President’s excesses could be contained, that institutions would restrain him, and that reason would prevail. But in just ten months, the machinery behind Trump has proved otherwise with chilling alacrity. Each unchecked abuse hardens into precedent, and the stunned national silence that follows begins to look a lot like complicity.
And let’s be clear: the MAGA crusade is not about policy differences or cultural grievances. It is about power without accountability. It is about erecting a government where law enforcement serves the ruler, not the law. That’s why the attacks on immigrants, minorities, journalists, and educators are not side issues—they are central strategies. They’re designed to create permanent enemies, justify permanent control, and keep the populace divided.
If the MAGA movement has its playbook, so must the resistance and the opposition party. Anyone standing against this tide cannot be reactive; it must be strategic, disciplined, and united. That means less hand-wringing and more planning, fewer hot takes and more hard truths. The autocrats aren’t winging it—they’ve got a spreadsheet, a strategy, and a sermon. Outrage just can’t be tweeted, it has to be organized..
Authoritarianism feeds on apathy. Democracy survives on engagement. The sheer size of the problem has the ability to paralyze dissent. No one person alone can dismantle an authoritarian movement. But each concerned American can chip away at its foundations by performing daily acts of citizenship.
Support one local news outlet this month.
Donate to a voting-rights organization.
Mentor a young activist or student journalist.
Write a letter to your representative demanding protection for civil rights and press freedom.
If you can do none of that, then at least speak the truth at your dinner table, your church, your workplace. Silence is surrender.
These may sound like small things. But democracy endures through small acts, multiplied by millions of willing hands.
Lawson Brooks, III is the publisher of Intersection DC and author of the mystery novels, From the Waist Up and No Room in Paradise, and the voter guide, Don’t Be Fooled Again: How Government Works in America—And Why Voters Should Care. He writes about politics, history, and the fragile intersection between power and principle.