Is There a Coming Crackup? Can We Recover?

Posted on Friday 23 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Maybe. Maybe.

  • Jonathan Chait wonders why conservatives defend ICE;
  • How the administration lies and alters evidence;
  • Anne Applebaum on the administration’s attacks on science, medicine, culture, and education;
  • Adam Lee offers some perspective on recovering from autocracy;
  • David Brooks sees a coming Trump crackup;
  • And other items noted without quoting or commenting.
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How do we understand this?

The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait, 22 Jan 2026: Why Conservatives Defend ICE, subtitled “Republicans deplore the mayhem in Minnesota—but blame protesters and Democrats for it.”

The Department of Homeland Security, communicating with the public through its official account on X, sent an ominous message last week: “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

What ensued, as you might expect when a heavily armed security agency announces an operation in terms typically employed by comic-book-movie villains, was chaos. ICE agents, many of them masked, went on to detain citizens and noncitizens alike. They threatened and sometimes employed violence, provoking widespread protests.

Republicans have deplored the mayhem in Minnesota. But they don’t hold the agency that set it off responsible. Instead they’ve condemned the protesters and the Democratic politicians who encouraged them. When President Trump undertakes a policy or goal that the rest of his party cannot bring itself to endorse, his allies’ usual move is to attribute a different and more noble motivation to him, while shifting the blame to his opponents. So it is in Minnesota.

How to understand this? To me it resembles the excuse of the sports bar bully: your face got in the way of my fist, so it’s your fault.

For example:

The premise underpinning this argument is that ICE is acting legally and in the service of legitimate immigration-enforcement goals. That assumption is difficult to square with on-the-ground reporting. The shooting death of Renee Nicole Good is the most high-profile incident, but the Journal found that the episode “shares characteristics with others the Journal reviewed: Agents box in a vehicle, try to remove an individual, block attempts to flee, then fire”—tactics that violate law-enforcement protocol.

And more examples. Concluding:

Conservatives are making the same error they made during the civil-rights era, when outlets such as National Review dismissed protesters as criminals. It is fair enough to give law enforcement some benefit of the doubt, but treating its actions as presumptively legitimate even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary gives license to the sort of despotism that is staring us in the face.

And yet, I don’t understand this. Is it due to the conservative/Christian attitude of assuming other people are automatically bad? Is it a lack of empathy?

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Especially when the administration alters the evidence and lies about it.

JMG/NY Times, 23 Jan 2026: WH Also Darkened Protester’s Skin In Fake Image

“The memes will continue.” Why should anyone trust anything that comes out of the White House?

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Similarly, on a broader scale.

The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, 23 Jan 2026: Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education, subtitled “It’s not just about cuts to research. It’s about power.”

This is an interview with cancer scientist Joan Brugge, who comments in the intro,

I never imagined that it would be possible that funding for lifesaving research would be terminated for issues that were totally unrelated to the quality of the work or the progress that we had made in the work.

Then from Applebaum’s intro:

Today’s episode examines the administration’s attacks on science, medicine, culture, and education—a combination of verbal threats and funding cuts that look very much like an attempt to control knowledge. Maybe there’s a broader goal, too: to build distrust, and, ultimately, to reshape all Americans’ perceptions of reality. I know that sounds dramatic, but I spent many years writing about authoritarian regimes, and almost all of them try to undermine admired institutions, in order to radically alter the way people think.

And this would be why Canada and Europe are leaving the US behind.

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Some perspective.

OnlySky, Adam Lee, 23 Jan 2026: American autocracy, subtitled “The U.S. government is at war with its own people. Other countries’ experience gives us a guide for what to do.”

Those of us who voted for Kamala Harris can only say, “We told you so.”

We’re a year into Donald Trump’s second term, and it’s as horrendous as progressives knew it would be. He’s wrecking democratic norms, weaponizing the federal government and flouting the law at every turn, acting like a mad child-king or a petty dictator bent on settling scores.

He’s pardoning his criminal allies and bringing sham prosecutions against rivals. He’s bombing and invading other countries without even a pretense of congressional approval. He’s deposed the leadership of Venezuela, not to bring democracy, but to run the nation as a colonized fiefdom. He’s threatening our (former?) allies around the world with invasion and annexation. He’s unilaterally imposing ruinous tariffs and trying to cut off federal funding to force states, cities, universities, law firms and the media to bend to his whims.

And so on: ICE, Renee Good.

Is there hope for the restoration of democracy and a better future? Or should we write America off as a failed experiment?

Longish piece, keying off a piece by Steven Levitsky, and reviewing history since Reagan. All is not lost. Let’s look at the article’s conclusion.

Autocracy isn’t inevitable or inescapable. Other nations that have gone through periods of authoritarian rule have thrown off the yoke and become democratic again. That experience gives the population a collective memory of how to resist effectively, which can be put into practice the next time someone tries.

South Korea was a military dictatorship as recently as 1987, but a massive democratic uprising forced the government to allow constitutional reform and free elections. South Koreans learned from that history, and when President Yoon Suk Yeol tried to declare martial law in 2024, he was swiftly defeated, removed from power, and sentenced.

Brazil, too, endured twenty years of dictatorship established by a U.S.-backed coup, ending in redemocratization in the 1980s. That experience is why President Jair Bolsonaro’s failed coup in 2022 ended in prison terms for him and his supporters, unlike in the U.S.

America should learn and take heart from these and other examples of successful resistance to autocracy. The path ahead is dark, and there will be more suffering and tragedy, but all hope isn’t lost. Democracy is worth defending. We’ve thrown off self-proclaimed absolute rulers before, and if need be, we can do it again.

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Is this a sign of hope?

NY Times, opinion by David Brooks, 23 Jan 2026: The Coming Trump Crackup

We are in the middle of at least four unravelings: The unraveling of the postwar international order. The unraveling of domestic tranquility wherever Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents bring down their jackboots. The further unraveling of the democratic order, with attacks on Fed independence and — excuse the pun — trumped-up prosecutions of political opponents. Finally, the unraveling of President Trump’s mind.

And,

And no, I don’t think America is headed toward anything like a Rome-style collapse. Our institutions are too strong, and our people, deep down, still have the same democratic values.

But I do know that events are being propelled by one man’s damaged psyche. History does not record many cases in which a power-mad leader careening toward tyranny suddenly regained his senses and became more moderate. On the contrary, the normal course of the disease is toward ever-accelerating deterioration and debauchery.

With comments about Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Tacitus, and Sallust.

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Noted, with no time to quote or comment:

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