Rule by Crisis: Trumpism and the Attack on Democracy, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. June 19, 2026

Rule by Crisis: Trumpism and the Attack on Democracy

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

June 19, 2026

Link to article

Darrell M. West’s 2022 Brookings Institution essay, “Trump is not the only threat to democracy,” upon which I build from yesterday's blog, reads today less like a warning than a framework for understanding what has now come to fruition. 

Written in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, West’s central point was that Donald Trump represents an existential threat to democracy, but not the only one. The deeper danger lies in the political ecosystem—and echo chamber—that has learned from him, copied him, enabled him, and built governing machinery around authoritarian impulses (West, 2022).

West identified several interlocking threats: "copycat candidates, legal coups, a toxic information ecosystem, the decline of authoritative institutions, and the widespread prevalence of counter-majoritarianism in our political system" (West, 2022). Since Trump’s return to office, these dangers are no longer theoretical. They have become governing strategies. 

As The Washington Post reported, Trump’s first week back in power was designed to “flood the zone,” moving rapidly through executive actions, pardons, security-clearance revocations, and a detailed policy blueprint that reflected a far more organized operation than his first administration (Arnsdorf & Morse, 2025).

This is where Project 2025 matters. Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership gives institutional form to this anti-democratic project. It translates grievance into governance by pairing policy proposals with personnel pipelines, executive-branch restructuring, and a theory of presidential power that would make dissent within government difficult (Dans & Groves, 2023). The level of planning is all still quite chilling.

Even as Trump and his advisers attempted during the campaign to distance themselves from it, The Washington Post reported that several top officials in the incoming administration had ties to the Project 2025 coalition, including Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, and Tom Homan (Arnsdorf & Morse, 2025).

What we are witnessing, then, is not simply Trump’s personal grievance politics. It is the institutionalization of those grievances into executive action, budget policy, personnel decisions, ideological discipline, and attacks on the very institutions that make democratic accountability possible.

West’s warning about “legal coups” is especially important. The danger is not always dramatic. It can arrive through emergency declarations, executive orders, manipulated funding streams, attacks on courts, and legal theories that stretch presidential power beyond democratic limits. 

Trump’s executive order attempting to restrict birthright citizenship effectively placed a long-settled constitutional guarantee under direct challenge (Sacchetti et al., 2025). The Post has also reported that emergency powers have become central to Trump’s governing style, with critics warning that the administration is invoking crises to justify extraordinary executive authority (Bendavid, 2025).

The ill-fated Iran War—as we must all surely know by now—is another manifestation of this same anti-democratic pattern. This is not simply a foreign policy issue. It is a constitutional issue. Congress, not the president alone, holds the power to declare war. 

Yet Meyer & Alfaro (2026) reported that the House passed a war powers resolution seeking to push Trump to end a conflict that Congress had not authorized, while the Senate considered similar measures amid growing impatience over the administration’s unilateral conduct of the war. Days later, the Republican-led Senate rejected a resolution that would have blocked Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, underscoring the degree to which congressional checks on war-making power have weakened under partisan pressure (Meyer, 2026).

That matters because democracy is not only about elections. It is also about whether constitutional limits mean anything when the executive branch claims emergency authority, bypasses Congress, and then dares the other branches to stop it. 

War concentrates power. It disciplines dissent. It shifts public attention away from domestic accountability. These are useful ploys for tyrants as these can be used to rally obedience, punish critics, and normalize rule by crisis. In this sense, the Iran War fits West’s warning about legal coups and emergency powers: authoritarianism often advances not by openly abolishing democracy, but by hollowing out the institutions that restrain executive power.

The attack on higher education fits squarely within West’s concern about the decline of authoritative institutions. Universities, news organizations, nonprofits, courts, think tanks, and professional associations are essential to democratic life because they produce knowledge, preserve evidence, hold power accountable, and teach people to think critically. That is precisely why they are under attack.

Notwithstanding Trump's Compact for higher education (Austin American-Statesman Editorial Board (2025), the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against universities makes this clear. 

Columbia University’s compliance with federal demands under threat of losing $400 million in federal funding generated widespread concern over academic freedom, shared governance, student protest rights, and government intrusion into curriculum (Powers & Brown, 2025). Columbia later reached a settlement with the Trump administration: the university agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government and $21 million to resolve related employment claims, while regaining access to much of its federal research funding—a resolution critics viewed as a dangerous precedent for federal coercion of universities (Office of the President, 2025; Reuters, 2025)

Harvard, by contrast, publicly resisted federal demands that reached into governance, hiring, admissions, DEI programming, student protest policy, and the intellectual life of the university. Federal officials responded in April 2025 by freezing billions in research funds. Although U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs later ruled the freeze unlawful and the administration reinstated grants and contracts previously awarded to Harvard, the Trump administration appealed the ruling and continued its broader legal campaign against the university (Raymond, 2025; Raymond & Stempel, 2026; also see Guardian Staff and Agencies).

The Widener Library at Harvard University, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Cambridge, 

Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) via Associated Press

For those of us in Texas, none of this feels distant. We have already witnessed the state-level version of this same project through attacks on DEI, tenure, shared governance, ethnic studies, gender studies, and academic freedom. What is happening nationally under Trump is connected to what we have seen in Texas, Florida, and other states: the effort to narrow what can be taught, who can belong, which histories count, and which institutions are permitted to challenge power.

West also warned about attacks on the information ecosystem. Here, too, his concerns have been borne out. Trump’s escalating lawsuits against media organizations—including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and others—must be understood not only as legal actions, but as intimidation strategies aimed at independent journalism (Wagner & Nover, 2026). A democracy cannot function when journalists are chilled, universities are threatened, lawyers are punished, and public servants are expected to demonstrate loyalty to a person rather than to the Constitution.

The attack on law firms is similarly alarming. The Washington Post has reported on executive orders targeting major law firms, including measures affecting contracts, security clearances, and access to federal buildings. These actions strike at the independence of the legal profession and the right to representation—both foundational to the rule of law (Berman & Stein, 2026). When lawyers fear representing disfavored clients, democracy itself is weakened.

Finally, West’s point about counter-majoritarianism remains crucial. The United States already has political structures that allow minority rule: the Electoral College, the Senate, gerrymandered districts, voter suppression, and a judiciary shaped by presidents who did not always win the popular vote. Trumpism exploits these structures. It does not need majority support to govern aggressively. It needs institutional leverage, fear, disinformation, and compliance.

This is why West’s essay remains so urgent. Trump is dangerous, but Trumpism is larger than Trump. It is a political infrastructure. It is a governing style. It is a movement that seeks to discipline universities, intimidate journalists, weaken courts, punish dissent, restrict voting, erase histories, bypass Congress, and turn public institutions into instruments of ideological control.

The work before us, then, is not only electoral. It is educational, institutional, legal, cultural, and moral. We must defend academic freedom, public education, independent journalism, voting rights, civil rights, Ethnic Studies, DEI, congressional war powers, and the right to dissent. We must refuse the normalization of intimidation. And we must insist that democracy is not simply the act of voting; it is the entire ecology of institutions, rights, knowledge, and public trust that makes self-government possible.

Darrell West warned us in 2022 that Trump was not the only threat to democracy. Today, we can see the full force of that warning. The threat is not only a man. It is a machinery. And naming that machinery clearly is part of how we begin to resist it.

References

Arnsdorf, I., & Morse, C. E. (2025, January 25). Trump’s first-week strategy: “Flood the zone.” Repeat. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/25/trump-week-one-flood-the-zone/

American-Statesman Editorial Board. (2025, October 30). Trump’s compact would put UT’s academic excellence at risk, Austin American-Statesman. https://www.statesman.com/opinion/editorials/article/editorial-trump-s-compact-put-ut-s-academic-21126977.php

Bendavid, N. (2025, June 9). For Trump, seizing emergency powers has become central to governing, The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/09/trump-emergencies-protests-deportations-tariffs/

Berman, M., & Stein, P. (2026, March 2). Justice Dept. abandons defense of orders targeting law firms. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/02/trump-law-firms-appeal/

Columbia University Office of the President. (2025, July 23). Resolution of federal investigations and restoration of the University’s research funding, Columbia University. https://president.columbia.edu/news/resolution-federal-investigations-and-restoration-universitys-research-funding

Dans, P., & Groves, S. (Eds.). (2023). Mandate for leadership: The conservative promise. Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation. https://www.mandateforleadership.org/

Guardian Staff and Agencies. (2025, April 14). Trump officials cut billions in Harvard funds after university defies demands,The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/14/trump-harvard-funding-freeze

Meyer, T. (2026, June 16). Senate rejects resolution to block Trump from further strikes on Iran, The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/16/senate-rejects-resolution-block-trump-further-strikes-iran/

Meyer, T. & Alfaro, M. (2026, June 4). House votes to block Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran, The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/03/house-passes-war-powers-resolution-push-trump-end-iran-war/

Powers, M., & Brown, C. (2025, March 24). Fallout from Columbia capitulation fuels fears about academic freedom, The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/03/24/fallout-columbia-capitulation-fuels-fears-about-academic-freedom/

Raymond, N. (2025, December 19). US appeals Harvard court victory on $2 billion funding freeze. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-appeals-harvard-court-victory-2-billion-funding-freeze-2025-12-19/

Reuters. (2025, July 24). White House touts Columbia deal, critics see dangerous precedent. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/white-house-touts-columbia-deal-critics-see-dangerous-precedent-2025-07-24/

Sacchetti, M., Hernández, A. R., & Lamothe, D. (2025, January 20). Trump signs executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship,The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/01/20/trump-immigration-executive-orders/

Wagner, L. & Nover, S. (2026, January 25). Trump has ramped up lawsuits against the media. Here’s where they stand, The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/25/trump-media-lawsuits/

West, D. M. (2022, July 25). Trump is not the only threat to democracy, Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-is-not-the-only-threat-to-democracy/