Is Donald Trump’s Power About To Collapse?

On Friday, aboard Air Force One, the President of the United States, unable to maintain even the bare minimum of composure, turned toward a female reporter, pointed at her face, and snarled, “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy.”

She had asked a question that any functioning democracy should welcome: Would the newly released Epstein emails, where Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls” at Mar-a-Lago, carry legal consequences?

It was clear. It was necessary. It was the kind of question a free press exists to ask. And instead of answering it, the President of the United States chose to degrade her.

This wasn’t a throwaway insult. It was calculated humiliation. It was the full weight of the presidency bearing down on a woman doing her job. And it wasn’t the first time. When Trump feels cornered, especially by a woman, he doesn’t argue. He attacks.

But if you look underneath the noise, the insults, the shouting, the constant stream of outrage, the cracks are showing. And he is terrified that we’re starting to notice. Authoritarian leaders often appear untouchable until they’re not. Mussolini’s grip on Italy looked solid until the military started to turn, and he was arrested by his own king. Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines under martial law for years, but a popular uprising forced him into exile. Nicolae Ceaușescu ruled Romania with an iron fist until he lost control of a public speech, broadcast live, and was executed by his own people days later. These leaders didn’t fall because they lost all their power at once. They fell when the illusion of total control began to fade and the public stopped being afraid. That’s the moment we’re entering now. Trump still has power, but he’s no longer in complete control. And he knows it.

Let’s start with his speech today at the McDonald’s summit.
Trump stood before a room of fast-food executives, franchise owners, and suppliers and declared, “You are so damn lucky that I won that election, I’m telling you.” He bragged that inflation was the highest in U.S. history when he took office and that he had fixed it. He boasted that Thanksgiving dinner at Walmart was now cheaper. He claimed prices were dropping across the board. He took jabs at Kamala Harris multiple times, casually mentioned military attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, rambled about his personal devotion to McDonald’s products, and even said he had renamed the Gulf of Mexico.

Every bit of his “facts” was false, and the rest were the ramblings of a madman.

Inflation peaked in June 2022, under Biden, at 9.1%. But in 1980, it hit 14.6%. The worst inflation in recent U.S. history happened decades ago. And even now, with inflation slowing, prices remain painfully high. A Big Mac costs over six dollars. Grocery bills are pushing families to the edge, and Thanksgiving is going to cost more.

This is how authoritarianism works. It’s all smoke and mirrors, lies dressed up as victories, propaganda sold as truth. You manufacture a crisis or make an existing one worse, then claim credit for solving it, even when the so-called solution causes more harm. In the Soviet Union, leaders praised “record harvests” while people stood in bread lines. In Venezuela, stores posted fake prices while shelves sat empty. And in America today, Trump is following the same playbook, pretending everything is great while millions are barely holding on.

That’s one crack.

Here’s another crack: New York City. During the campaign for mayor, Trump targeted Zohran Mamdani, calling him a radical, a communist, a threat to America. He warned that if Mamdani won, New York would lose federal funding and face “big problems.” But Mamdani won by nine points. And now, suddenly, Trump says he wants to meet with him. Says they’ll “work something out.” Says he “loves New York.” This isn’t a change of heart. It’s a strategic retreat. Trump talks tough until the pressure doesn’t work. He threatens governors, mayors, and entire states, but when voters push back, when people hold the line, he folds. That’s the pattern. The lesson here isn’t that he’s soft. It’s that resistance works. Not in a single knockout, but by dragging it out, slowing him down, and jamming the gears. Authoritarian movements thrive on speed and fear. They hate delay. They hate friction. Because the longer this drags on, the more people start paying attention, and waking up.

Another crack: the Epstein files. For months, Trump and his Republican cronies buried any effort to release the Department of Justice’s Epstein records. He called the investigation a hoax. House leadership refused to bring it to the floor. MAGA loyalists fell in line. But everything shifted after the recent special elections. Republicans saw the writing on the wall, MAGA’s grip is slipping. A bipartisan group filed a discharge petition, a rarely used procedural move to bypass leadership. They reached the magic number: 218 signatures. The bill had to move forward. So Trump flipped. Suddenly, he wanted transparency. Suddenly, he encouraged Republicans to vote yes. Claimed he had “nothing to hide.” But that’s not true.

Behind the scenes, he directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to open a new investigation, not into Epstein’s circle as a whole, but narrowly focused on Democrats. He used legal language to hint that an “ongoing investigation” could prevent full disclosure. It’s not transparency, it’s preemptive sanitization. He wants to scrub the files before they ever see daylight.

And looking at the facts, the accusations peaked between 2002 and 2005. This is important because this new “investigation” is only targeting Democrats. And during that time, Trump himself was a registered Democrat, from 2001 to 2009. So if Democrats are to blame during that window, by his own logic, he’s included. And we already know he’s involved. His name appears in the flight logs. Victims say he attended parties. Emails mention him by name. We don’t need the files to confirm the connection. The only remaining question is: how deep does it go? And if these files are released, don’t expect clarity. Expect redactions. Expect missing pages. Expect a carefully managed show. Because Trump doesn’t want the truth, he wants control of what truth is released. If it hurts an enemy, it’s fair game. If it hurts him, it’s a Democrat hoax or his old favorite “fake news”.

Then there’s the courts. This is where we are seeing big cracks, too. Since Trump took office again in January, he has treated the Department of Justice not as an independent institution, but as a weapon for personal revenge. Trump has a personal vendetta for James Comey, and he has been desperate to punish him using the legal system. He wants Comey humiliated just like Trump himself was. And the DOJ, under pressure, delivered.

But this week, a federal judge pushed back. He questioned the entire foundation of the case, suggesting prosecutors indicted Comey first and investigated later, a complete reversal of how law is supposed to work. In a rare move, the judge ordered the release of grand jury materials to the defense, raising serious concerns about abuse of process. That almost never happens. This wasn’t just a procedural rebuke. It was a warning flare that this whole case could be thrown out.

What the DOJ under Trump did is exactly how autocracies operate. They don’t need facts. They need targets. In Nazi Germany, the judiciary swore loyalty not to law, but to Hitler himself. In Putin’s Russia, courts exist to silence dissent, jail journalists, and erase political rivals. In Turkey, Erdoğan responded to unfavorable rulings by jailing judges and reshaping the bench. Trump has praised all of these leaders. He has studied their playbooks. And he’s using the same tactics here, demanding prosecutions of his enemies, attacking judges who rule against him.

We have not lost our judiciary. But the pressure is mounting. What’s holding the line right now is not the system; it’s individuals. Judges who still believe in their oath. Their courage is what stands between democracy and collapse. But courage is not permanent. It doesn’t last forever. It’s a window. And if we don’t act while it’s open, it will close. We need them to hold the line.

And then, the final crack. The one Trump fears the most. Us pushing back.

Not in Washington. Not in a courtroom. Not even on a ballot.

On the streets of Chicago, immigrant street vendors continue to be hunted. Under “Operation Midway Blitz,” ICE raids have swept through neighborhoods, leading to more than 3,000 arrests. Vendors are disappearing. Food carts are gone. Entire blocks have gone quiet. The threat is real, and it is relentless. But even in the shadow of fear, the community is fighting back.

Every weekend, a group of cyclists rides through Little Village, Brighton Park, and other immigrant neighborhoods. When they find a tamale vendor, they don’t just stop to eat. They buy everything. Every tamale. Every bottle of juice. Then they send the vendor home with cash, safety, and dignity. The food? Donated to shelters, to families who need it most.

Because as much as some of these individuals would love to shelter away from the modern day Gestapo, they can’t afford to not work. What these cyclists are doing is a grassroots movement that is making a difference.

This is resistance.

The Street Vendors Association has raised over $300,000. Their work has kept hundreds of people off the streets, out of ICE vans, and in the arms of their communities. They are not waiting for legislation. They are not waiting for elections. They are not waiting for heroes. They are the heroes.

This is what resistance has always looked like. In 1943, Danish citizens risked their lives to ferry Jewish neighbors across the sea to Sweden. In Selma, Black churches scraped together donations to bail out jailed marchers. In Poland, shipyard workers cooked in secret to feed entire neighborhoods under occupation. Resistance doesn’t always look like a protest sign or a headline. Sometimes, it looks like people working within the law to save each other.

Trump doesn’t fear Congress. He doesn’t fear subpoenas. He doesn’t even fear the truth. What he fears, what all authoritarians fear, is the people who refuse to be intimidated. The ones who say no. The ones who organize, protect, and hold the line.

And so tonight, as we watch the strong man weaken and crack before our very eyes, we need to take comfort and strength in knowing everything we are doing is working. We might not see it in every headline and news cycle, but the momentum is building. We have a very long year ahead of us where we are going to have to use every ounce of grit and every tool we have to slow and derail Trump’s sinister plans, but I can’t think of anyone better than Americans to get it done. We’ve fought strong men in the past, and we’ll get it done this time, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, chances are we see things the same way. You can help keep this work going by subscribing to my Substack; there’s a free option, or you can become a paid subscriber for just $5 a month. Paid subscriptions help me reach more people, cover more ground, and keep telling the truth about what’s happening to our country.