The Steady State

Rather than confront the core issues affecting Americans, Trump focuses on aesthetics and grandeur. That is the autocrat’s playbook: accumulate power, ignore the needs of the majority, and distract from the resulting failures with political noise and chaos.

Blanche is playing word games while DeLauro is speaking in plain English. DOJ gave Trump and his family a pass on IRS tax enforcement, which Blanche then tried to rebrand it as “customary.”

Authoritarians don't debate reality. They rename it. Trump just defined a “ceasefire” as “shooting in a more moderate manner.”

The House passed an Iran War Powers Resolution. This does not immediately end the war. It still has to go through the Senate and Trump would likely veto it. But it is a major bipartisan rebuke of an unauthorized war and a reassertion of Congress’s constitutional role.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
— George Orwell, 1984

“The president doesn’t have to explain pardons” is not a defense to bribery. DOJ should investigate credible evidence that a pardon may have been exchanged for money. Instead, this administration is using its power to pursue perceived enemies.

If any administration’s DHS can violate court orders 96 times in one state without consequences, then court orders become suggestions, not law.

If the war is over, why are we still negotiating the terms to end it? Authoritarian governments have to manufacture victory, deny reality, and demand the public accepts the fiction the government gives them.

A special joint episode of the Steady State Sentinel and Mission Implausible examines real WMD threats, from Iran and nuclear materials to the growing danger of biological weapons, with national security expert Andy Weber.

The pardon power was meant as a last resort when the justice system gets it wrong. Trump is using it as a loyalty program.

The MN GOP didn’t hold a moment of silence for George Floyd. They did for Derek Chauvin. A movement on the right has been pushing Trump to pardon Chauvin for his fed conviction. Hopefully he won’t, but his record of pardoning violent offenders when it serves his interests makes it a real danger.

Washington Walk& Talk: A massive Trump portrait on a public building is not just unusual; it is an authoritarian-style signal about power, loyalty, and who government is supposed to serve.

If the administration can pick which court orders count, there is no rule of law. There is only power.

Trump: impeach Bush for lying America into a disastrous Middle East war. Also Trump: launched an Iran war w/out a vote, offered 4 different justifications, and told Congress the War Powers Resolution doesn’t apply b/c hostilities have “terminated” on paper while forces and blockades stay in place

CSIS: 3+ years minimum to rebuild missile inventories depleted by Iran war. Navy Sec last week: Taiwan weapons sales paused to evaluate remaining stocks. We’ve opened a window of vulnerability against China, Russia, or any adversary watching our depleted stockpiles.

Trump seems to think the First Amendment only applies when he likes what he hears. But the whole point of free speech and a free press is to protect criticism, dissent, and uncomfortable truths from government retaliation.

“Corruptor in Chief”: This isn’t an “interesting coincidence.” It’s corruption in broad daylight. Trump isn’t just bending government toward his own interests. He’s turning the presidency into a family-run monetized access scheme.

Project 2025 wasn’t a “liberal hoax.” It was the governing blueprint. They proposed 1,913 recommendations. They say Trump has already implemented 1,055.

What Rep. Dan Goldmen describes is not “detention.” It’s state-sanctioned abuse, and it’s what happens when human beings are disappeared into systems with no accountability.

In 1976, the Bicentennial felt like a national moment. In 2026, the Semiquincentennial is already being pulled into the gravity well of one man’s ego.

Blurring the line between public office and private enrichment until the state becomes a family business.

Washington Walk & Talk: Congress has the power to check abuses in our executive agencies, but voters need to demand that oversight before unchecked power becomes autocracy.

Courts cannot become “empty fronts” for people misusing the legal system. If justice becomes fraud, “going through the motions without content and without meaning,” then the rule of law itself starts to collapse.

Imagine looking at the problems facing this country and deciding the urgent legislative priority is: “How do we get Trump’s face on a $250 bill?” The lawmakers have stopped serving the country and started serving the ruler.

The key issue here is not just who might get paid but whether the executive branch can use a settlement with itself to create a nearly $1.8B taxpayer-funded payout program without Congress. zurl.co/zAcYl

Hillary’s 2016 National Security Address reads like a prophecy. She called his ideas “dangerously incoherent… a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies.” In 2026, Truth Social IS the policy channel. Tariffs announced and reversed by post.

Trump’s threat against Oman shows how casually he treats U.S. power, allies, and global stability.

Insider trading laws exist because markets can’t function when the people with privileged information trade on it. The President sits at the top of every information channel in the U.S. government. His own disclosures show 3,700 trades in 90 days.

While Trump threatens to “blow up” Oman, muses about taking Cuba, and spends months trashing NATO allies and flirting with withdrawal, a Russian drone just slammed into an apartment building in Galați, Romania — a NATO member.

Trump’s OPM wants to impose NDAs across the fed workforce. It isn’t really about protecting “confidential government information.” It's about intimidation and making public servants think twice before exposing misconduct, waste, abuse, or criticism the administration doesn’t want the public to hear

Washington Walk& Talk: Former senior national security officials warn that America’s checks and balances are weakening, and Congress needs to hear directly from voters like you.

Introducing Washington Walk & Talk, a new video series from The Steady State offering short, expert-informed updates from D.C. on the warning signs of growing authoritarianism in America.

He’s not declassifying UAP files because he believes in transparency. He’s doing it because “It’s literally trending number one. Can you believe it?” That’s the metric now. Not policy outcomes. Not constitutional duty. Trending.

35 retired federal judges are asking the court to reopen Trump’s dismissed $10 billion IRS lawsuit, stating “...this ‘case’ that the parties purport to have ‘settled’ is itself a fraud on the Court.” zurl.co/nNm4I

The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause wasn’t written to protect government from churches. It was written to protect churches from government, and citizens from being told that God has already dictated their vote.

The Justice Department doesn't work for Donald Trump. Yesterday, it is again acting like it does by opening a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, who won two civil judgments against him for sexual abuse and defamation.

Stephen Miller claims stopping fraud alone can balance the budget, but someone ought to ask for his math. Projected FY 2026 deficit: $1.9 trillion. GAO high-end annual fraud estimate, based on FY 2018–2022 data: $521 billion. That still leaves well over $1 trillion unpaid.

McCormick calling the Trump administration a “regime” before correcting himself is one of those moments where the truth accidentally walks into the room.

Redistricting is not just procedural background noise; it’s power. Alabama’s blocked map is another reminder that politicians can try to shape election outcomes long before voters ever cast a ballot.

Musk told the Cabinet DOGE had briefly canceled Ebola prevention but fixed it “immediately.” Reporting, however, points to delayed testing, degraded samples, fewer health zones monitored, and former USAID officials saying the frontline warning system was dismantled. zurl.co/Udcf7

Trump runs foreign policy through family and friends instead of actual diplomats. America’s interests are no longer the priority.

When detention facilities operate behind walls, the public has to rely on families, local officials, journalists, and protesters to force visibility. Delaney Hall is not just an immigration story. It is a rule-of-law story. Oversight is not optional.

Authoritarian politics: declare a target corrupt, assign a loyalist to investigate, then insist it is just accountability.

The administration stripped funding from PBS and NPR in the name of ending taxpayer subsidies for “biased” media. Now tax dollars may flow to OAN, tied to election conspiracy claims. Apparently “biased media” is fine when it’s their biased media.

MAGA survives on the politics of inversion: oppressors become victims, diversity becomes hatred, civil rights become discrimination, & cruelty becomes courage. Authoritarian movements don’t just lie about reality; they reverse it, turning accountability into persecution, and inclusion into threat.

There’s a huge difference between a public official being religious and a public official using an official military commencement address to tell future officers the “most important” thing is to seek God. The first is protected. The second is a church-state problem.

“They're not paying any tax. They're taking your money.” is propaganda. Undocumented immigrants paid about $59.4B in federal taxes and $37.3B in state/local taxes in 2022. Trump is counting on people not checking. zurl.co/5SqE4

The MoCA is a screening tool for cognitive decline, not an IQ test. The fact that Trump keeps bragging about “acing” it as proof of brilliance should itself be disqualifying. Authoritarianism thrives on confusing basic competence with exceptional greatness.

Posted by the WH. The standard is now that seashells are a federal threat, but the President posting AI video of himself physically attacking a critic is just “lol free speech.” Their rule is that speech is dangerous when it criticizes Trump, harmless when it comes from Trump.