Is Trump’s hold on America starting to break?

Just before 7 p.m. tonight, the President of the United States declared he was granting a “full pardon” to Tina Peters, the Colorado election official convicted on charges involving tampering with voting machines. There’s just one problem: Tina Peters was convicted in state court, not federal. So has no authority to pardon her. But when has that ever stopped him? He incited an insurrection, stole classified documents, and now he’s issuing fake pardons. This is power-testing. This is how dictators signal what’s coming. And what’s coming is worse than most people are ready to admit.

He’s not just trying to rewrite the rules daily; he’s daring the system to stop him. Every move he makes now is a challenge: to the courts, to Congress, to the Constitution itself. And the silence that follows is the answer he wants. He knows he can’t pardon a state conviction. He knows this isn’t legal. That’s the point. It’s not about law. It’s about declaring power where none exists and watching who follows his orders anyway. Because if no one pushes back on this, what happens when he tries it with something bigger?

He is also daring the state of Colorado and its governor to disobey an “order.” Gov. Polis is unlikely to care beyond a curtly worded statement, if anything at all, but the fallout could have serious repercussions the next time Colorado faces a wildfire, a flood, or any crisis where federal help is needed. Because that’s the threat beneath the surface: obey or be punished. This is how authoritarianism creeps in. Not through sweeping declarations, but through moments like this, when the unimaginable is met with a shrug, and the rule of law becomes a suggestion instead of a standard.

Because it’s not just Colorado. This is how he treats every state, every official, every agency that doesn’t bow. Just ask California. Governor Gavin Newsom was recently in Washington, D.C., trying to get wildfire recovery funds and couldn’t even get Trump to meet with him. Why? Because Trump doesn’t believe blue states deserve even his time of day. California voted against him, so he thinks the whole state should suffer. He also thinks withholding aid will make Newsom look weak. But Trump forgets that California is a donor state; we give more to the federal government than we get back. That imbalance could eventually lead to his downfall. For now though, he is focused on inaction and abandonment for any person, place, or institution that doesn’t treat him like a king.

And his sabotage goes even deeper. Trump has installed an election denier and conspiracy theorist inside FEMA’s leadership, while also allowing a plan to move forward that would dramatically downsize the agency. He’s not eliminating FEMA; that would cause outrage. He’s doing what autocrats do best: hollowing it out from the inside. The Handbasket was first to break the story of Gregg Phillips’ appointment to lead the Office of Response and Recovery, one of the most critical divisions FEMA operates, and said it best: “This is not a game. Americans will lose their lives because this administration refuses to put in competent leadership,” the unnamed FEMA staffer said of Phillips’ hiring. “There is no genuine effort to make sure that we can help people in their time of need, and instead they are making it impossible for experienced emergency managers to do their job.”

And when we talk about Trump’s core motivation for everything he does as president, at the top of that list isn’t national interest or economic stability or public safety. It’s punishment. His mission isn’t to govern. It’s to settle scores. Reuters published an investigation showing that Trump has retaliated against at least 470, and counting, people and institutions since taking office again. That list includes prosecutors, judges, former intelligence officials, journalists, scientists, and career civil servants. These are part of a coordinated purge and message to the rest of the country that disobedience will not be tolerated.

And even though most of these attacks haven’t gone anywhere legally, they’ve left wreckage behind. Finances drained. Careers derailed. Lives upended. Because when the President of the United States, even one who is corrupt and a convicted felon, singles you out, it doesn’t matter whether his claim holds up in court. Your life becomes a target. And the mob he commands doesn’t wait for due process.

And as bad as that all was, there was a lot more that happened just today. Let’s talk about the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare (and maybe the main reason the GOP and Trump have hated it from the beginning is because of its commonly used name).

Early this afternoon, Congress had the chance to extend the critical subsidies that keep health insurance affordable for millions of Americans. According to Politico, the vote fell mostly along party lines, with four Republicans crossing over to support the Democrats’ plan to extend the subsidies for another three years, but it still failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to advance. Now those subsidies are set to expire at the end of the month. The result? Premiums are about to skyrocket, not by a little, but by thousands of dollars a month. This is what people will wake up to in January: no coverage or crippling debt. That is the choice this administration is forcing on them.

And here’s the thing: people are going to get sick. They’re going to put off care. They’re going to skip their medications. Some will die. And Trump does not care. He doesn’t care if people lose their insurance. He doesn’t care if Republicans lose their seats over this vote when their constituents learn they could have kept their coverage if their representatives had done the right thing. If anything, Trump sees it as a win. Because it causes chaos and pain. And that pain, in his mind, makes people more desperate, and desperate people are easier to control.

What makes this even more twisted is that, at the same time these costs are exploding, Trump is out on the campaign trail testing his new message: affordability, after seeing how well the messaging worked for Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City. That’s the word he’s trying out ahead of the midterms. Last night at a rally in Pennsylvania, he pretended to be the champion of working families, even as his policies bleed them dry. His staff handed out propaganda signs that read “Bigger Paychecks” and strategically placed them just behind him so they’d be caught on camera while he spoke. Meanwhile, real data shows that Trump’s economic policies are actively raising household costs. Since he returned to office, tariffs alone have cost U.S. families an average of $1,200 each.

And now he’s working to make sure we don’t even know how bad things really are. According to a report released this week by the American Statistical Association, the ranks of U.S. government statisticians have been gutted over the past year, mostly due to the failed and corrupt actions taken by the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Through layoffs and buyouts, one agency lost 95% of its staff. These aren’t minor roles. These are the people responsible for collecting and analyzing the very numbers that tell us what’s happening with inflation, poverty, wages, unemployment, and demographics. In the words of former U.S. Chief Statistician Nancy Potok, “Things are getting a lot worse. It’s kind of dropping off the cliff there and in a really dire situation.” Trump isn’t just ignoring the truth; he’s firing the people who calculate it.

Still, there are people who refuse to give up, even as polling shows many in their generation have been swayed by fear and misinformation. I want to take a moment to recognize one group in particular: older Americans.

I know this has been one of the hardest seasons of your lives. Many of you are carrying grief from the pandemic, fractured relationships because of politics, and anxiety about what kind of country your grandchildren will grow up in. And still, I see so many of you stepping up. Protesting. Donating. Writing letters. Sharing the truth of what is happening every single day. You are not invisible. You are not alone. And you are making a difference.

Your dedication and commitment matters more than ever, because right now, the numbers are tight. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday, 46% of voters aged 50 and older say they plan to vote Republican, while only 38% say they’ll vote Democrat. That gap may seem small, but among a group that consistently turns out in the highest numbers, making up 60% of the 2022 midterm electorate, every single vote carries enormous weight.

This means that older Democratic voters are more important than ever. Because in a demographic where Republicans hold an edge, every Democrat who stays engaged helps close that gap. And there are reasons for hope: older Americans prioritize democratic values and immigration more than younger voters, and 60% say they’d deeply regret not voting next year, far more than the 40% of younger voters who said the same.

To flip Congress, Democrats need people like you to stay in it, not just politically, but personally. Because in an election that may come down to just a few thousand votes in key districts, your voice doesn’t just count. It could be the one that tips the balance.

But it wasn’t all bad news today. According to the Associated Press, the Department of Justice has failed for the second time to secure a reindictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James. After constant politically motivated attacks against her for doing her job and holding Trump accountable in civil court, the grand jury refused to be manipulated. The case is over. She stood her ground, and justice held.

And in Indiana, something extraordinary happened. Republican lawmakers defied Trump by blocking his effort to redraw the state’s congressional map in his favor. In a rare break with the president, they chose fairness over party loyalty. And while the fight isn’t over, it was a meaningful act of resistance. As Pete Buttigieg posted afterward on the Threads App: “The clear takeaway from today is that Donald Trump is not unstoppable and you are not powerless.”

And before I go tonight, I want to say one more thing. MAGA might have hijacked the words “patriot” and “freedom,” twisting them into weapons to divide us, to excuse cruelty, to justify power grabs that have nothing to do with love of country. But real patriotism isn’t about flags in profile pictures with red hats or rage in a rally crowd. It’s about shared purpose. Shared responsibility. Patriotism is about building something stronger together, not tearing each other down. We are the United States, not the divided ones. And no matter how loud the voices of hate become, they do not get to define us. Real patriotism isn’t isolationism. It’s showing up. It’s caring for your neighbor. It’s believing that this place can still be better than what it’s become. And that belief, even bruised, even tired, is how we carry hope forward.

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.