While Donald Trump’s first term could be seen as an anomaly in U.S. democracy, his second term resembles a systemic upheaval. Fueled by apocalyptic fantasies, society is experiencing an authoritarian shift. This shift is accompanied by Trump’s vindictive politics of retribution, in which ‘the others’ are blamed for societal problems. Could such creeping fascism exist in a democracy that has lived up to its ideals? Siobhan Kattago searches for answers.
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Building on the apocalyptic image of ‘American carnage’, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “I am your retribution” was a dark promise of revenge. As Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write in “Regime Change” (2026), Trump 2.0 is “unprecedented” because “he has commanded a display of brute force” on “the global stage.” Having survived felony charges and two impeachments, Trump’s second term is defined by a bold expansion of presidential power, disregard for checks and balances, dismantling of state institutions, upending of international law, and jaw-dropping corruption.
Since taking office in January 2025, Trump’s emphasis on grievance and revenge has resulted in a spectacle of violence. Every day, he posts new insults and angry tweets on Truth Social. Members of his administration belittle allies, impose tariffs, support far-right parties in Europe, and invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to arrest and deport migrants without due process. They also deploy the National Guard to American cities, extradite Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and seize the country’s oil, disregard commitments to NATO and the UN, threaten to annex Greenland and Canada, and wage war on Iran.
From the moment that CEOs from Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon, Palantir and OpenAI flew to Mar-a-Lago, it was clear that Trump’s second term would be a dark performance of powerful revenge. With his second inauguration and subsequent appointment of Elon Musk to the Department of Governmental Efficiency or DOGE in January 2025, the tone of politicians, industry leaders, universities, law firms and media institutions shifted. Big Tech no longer banned Trump on their platforms. Loyalty replaced expertise, and institutions quietly pivoted towards accommodation, compliance, coordination, and self-censorship.
It may be too early to know if the Supreme Court’s decision to grant a twice-impeached sitting president presumptive immunity is comparable to the Weimar Republic’s Enabling Act of 1933. However, the metaphors of immunity and enabling are uncanny.
From presidential immunity to autoimmune disease?
Trump 2.0 does not disregard the US Constitution; on the contrary, his administration consistently applies the unitary executive theory to expand presidential power. In Trump v. The United States, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have “presumptive immunity” for “official acts” while in office. As Chief Justice Roberts concluded in 2024: “The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive. The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.”
In granting “presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” the Supreme Court legitimized an expansive interpretation of presidential immunity over the separation of powers. In the June 2026 case, Trump, President of the United States et al., v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court struck down a federal law prohibiting the President from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission. Writing on behalf of the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts concluded: “Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.”
In observing how prominent law firms, universities, media and surveillance companies are aligning with Project 2025, Arjun Appadurai compared Trump’s second term to an autoimmune disorder. As Appadurai wrote in 2025: “Trump has hit upon an original formula: to reverse-engineer the liberal institutions designed as guardrails against people like him.” DOGE demonstrated how quickly liberal institutions can be dismantled as civil servants were fired and long-standing institutions such as USAID were shuttered. The non-profit US Institute of Peace was hollowed out, re-allocated to the State department, and cynically renamed the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace. The legislative and judicial branches have not simply failed to limit presidential power; they have enabled its expansion.
Unlike autoimmune disorders, where the body attacks itself, members of all three branches of government are deliberately ceding legislative and judicial power to the executive branch. Trump 2.0 thus goes beyond the rollback of democratic norms because legal-administrative decisions intentionally turn liberal institutions against themselves. As Appadurai suggests: “The very distinctive pillars of American democracy are being turned into fifth columns. Trump and his allies have created a massive autoimmune disorder – one in which the features of American democracy turn on themselves, re-engineering democracy to kill democracy.”
Although Trump’s administration may exhibit features of an autoimmune disease, the comparison downplays the accountability of politicians, civil servants and citizens. An autoimmune disease is a failure of the immune system to protect the body from destroying its own tissues. However, politicians, judges, lawyers, university presidents, civil servants, Big Tech CEOs, and ICE officers could have refused to comply.
The culture industry and post-truth
Unlike his chaotic first term, Trump 2.0 is enabled by a conservative Supreme Court, a compliant but disciplined Republican Party, and a divided Democratic Party. Supported by Big Tech and large corporations, Trump is a master of reality television and social media. As Haberman and Swan underscore: “Trump has always endeavored to author his own reality and then force others around him to submit to his version of events.” In favor of facts, he promotes alternative facts and post-truth. Refusing to admit that he lost the election in 2020, his 2025 Presidential Pardon of convicted January 6th insurrectionists in the name of “national reconciliation” demonstrated a calculated strategy of expanded presidential power under the legal cloak of “presumptive immunity.”
In December 2016, at the dawn of Trump’s first administration, New Yorker columnist, Alex Ross looked to the Frankfurt School to shed light on US politics. In his article, “The Frankfurt School knew Donald Trump was Coming,” Ross writes: “With the election of Donald Trump, the latent threat of American authoritarianism – identified decades ago by German intellectuals – is on the verge of being realized.” Ten years later, this “latent threat” of populist anger, anti-migrant vitriol, and nativism was mobilized to break up governmental institutions. For Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno “The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry.”
Although individuals see through the corruption, falsehoods and lies, Trump eludes removal from office. Social media and generative AI usher in a brave new world of algorithms, echo chambers, and surveillance capitalism. In language foreshadowing Trump’s ‘American carnage’ and desire for retribution, Adorno argued that right-wing extremism stems from “apocalyptic fantasies” and “feelings of social catastrophe.” Moreover, Adorno compared fascist movements to “wounds, the scars of democracy that to this day, have not yet lived up to its own concept.”
Resisting lies and cynicism
Vilifying reporters as “fake news” and silencing criticism, Trump’s barrage of posts and AI generated clips are exhausting. Compared to his first term, there are fewer protests on the streets and on university campuses. Instead, Trump 2.0 demonstrates the narcotic power of the culture industry, and what Neil Postman described as a preference for amusing ourselves to death: “Orwell warned that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”
In the 21st century, television and video games are a soothing distraction, while notifications, breaking news, entertainment, reels, gifs, social media posts and AI amplify conspiracy theories and disinformation. A digital version of bread and circuses silences dissent and erodes our “capacities to think.” Echoing Hannah Arendt’s 1967 New Yorker essay, truth and politics have historically clashed with one another. However, unlike traditional lies that are intended to deceive the enemy, modern lies distort the fabric of shared reality. “Modern political lies are so big,” she wrote, “that they require a complete rearrangement of the whole factual texture – the making of another reality.”
Given the surge of far-right parties in Europe and the US, how can one resist what Arendt calls the “peculiar kind of cynicism” and feelings of powerlessness that attract voters to Trump’s vortex of disinformation and politics of retribution? A recommitment to the ideals of democratic governance is necessary to resist the dismantling of liberal institutions and upending of international law. As Appadurai says: “To resist Trump, we need to rewire democracy to revive democracy.”
While legal cases take time to make their way through the courts, peaceful protests, freedom of the press, free elections, a strong civil society, and the courage to stand up to authoritarian bullying are the first steps against Trump’s vindictive regime change and the United States’ autoimmune disorder.