Distance helps. You begin to notice how much of the chaos points in the same direction.
On November 3, Americans will elect a Congress that can demand an accounting from this president—or hold his coat while he gets on with it.
Trump owns this. Fortunately for him, there are people happy to handle the paperwork. Project 2025 planners, wealthy donors, immigration hard-liners, religious nationalists, and partisan mapmakers bring their own ambitions to the enterprise. They have discovered a common convenience: a government with fewer independent people able to say no.¹
Fear does much of the work. Make civil servants wonder whether an honest answer will cost them their jobs. Make university presidents calculate how much principle their research budgets can withstand. Make lawyers consult the political weather before accepting a client. Eventually, people start anticipating what will offend the administration and adjusting themselves accordingly. Intimidation doesn’t have to survive judicial review to work. A favorable ruling months later is a poor substitute for the independence you surrendered while waiting.²
Then there is the question of what an American is supposed to look like. In Los Angeles, Stephen Miller’s immigration machine has been stopping people based on some combination of where they are, what they do, what language they speak, and what they look like. Some were American citizens. Apparently citizenship is less convincing than a face.³
The masked agents and unmarked cars come with their own message. Reuters found agents collecting information on protesters and following observers home. Nothing encourages civic participation like knowing the government may follow you home.⁴
And then there is Hegseth’s Pentagon. While the administration was dismantling DEI, it removed prominent Black and female military leaders, including General C.Q. Brown Jr. and Admirals Lisa Franchetti and Linda Fagan. ‘Merit’ is the explanation. Conveniently, the people defining it are also the people doing the firing.⁵
The details differ. The direction doesn’t. Make people afraid of the government. Make institutions dependent on it. Make enough Americans wonder whether they still belong. Eventually, you don’t have to tell people to shut up. They know better.
From Canada, Trump’s territorial ambitions have a particular charm. Canada, Greenland, Iceland: other people’s countries keep appearing on his presidential real-estate wish list. To Trump, the people who live there are an inconvenient zoning issue.⁶
Courts have blocked important abuses. Institutions have fought back. But courts can only deal with the cases that reach them. Congress can make the president answer for the whole damn thing.
We are electing a branch of government. We should insist that it behave like one.
Here in the Îles de la Madeleine, America seems very distant. This place feels more French than many parts of France, a restaurant menu is more likely to include seal sausage tucked into a bakery bun with cranberry ketchup than chicken-fried steak or grits. The food, the language, the wind sweeping across the dunes—all remind us that there are other ways to live, other rhythms by which to measure a day.